The Banquet
Heroes and Daggers: Zhang Yimou - Greencine.com, August 2004
Back in May, the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw sent a dispatch from Cannes: "Zhang Yimou's delectable martial arts film House of Flying Daggers transformed jaded festival-goers into a crowd of kids at a Saturday morning picture show. We cheered, we gasped, we applauded wildly, we even discreetly sniffled at the emotional climax."
The film is already breaking box office records in China - records set by Zhang Yimou's previous film, Hero. And because both are highly stylized historical epics shot through with stunning martial artistry, it's difficult not to compare and contrast the two films, as Zhang Yimou does himself in the following conversation recorded at Cannes.
A graduate of the Beijing Film Academy, Zhang Yimou began his career as a cinematographer before making his spectacular directorial debut in 1987 with Red Sorghum. Despite international acclaim, awards and generally positive brouhaha, the film was banned in China. The censors would hold their hard line throughout most of the 90s, even as Zhang Yimou's reputation abroad swelled on the merits of Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern and To Live. When the censors began loosening up, some critics who'd praised his earlier work accused him of appeasing the Party for favors - bigger budgets, travel privileges and so on.
Zhang Yimou balks at such talk, claiming that just as he's always refused to consider what might anger government officials, neither does he consider what might appeal to them. Nonetheless, this critical flashpoint flashed hottest on the heels of Hero, in which the King of Qin, a notoriously ruthless ruler (221 - 210 BC) bent on unifying China's warring states, is depicted as an idealist who wants nothing more than what's good for his people. Zhang Yimou countered that the film is far too philosophical and abstract to be a commentary on, say, China's policy on Taiwan.
House of Flying Daggers, primarily a love story set centuries later in the waning years of the T'ang Dynasty, is unlikely to ruffle so many feathers. With its pan-Asian cast - Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhang Ziyi and Andy Lau (interviewed on the following page) - and more universally accessible story, it seems destined to become a global hit and is slated to open in US theaters in December.
You've been quoted as saying that Hero was a way to practice for Flying Daggers.
There must have been some misunderstanding because I never considered Hero as practice. But I can tell you that right after I decided to make martial arts movies, I decided to treat the theme from at least two different angles. So Hero and Flying Daggers are actually two sides of the same thing. Hero works on the concepts and philosophy of martial arts in a more formalistic way, whereas Flying Daggers is intimate and personal and it treats the interior, what happens inside the minds of people. So one is very broad, very abstract, very high in the sky, and the other is down-to-earth, deep in the hearts. They are two opposites. I can also mention the fact that while I was working on Hero, I had already started to work on Flying Daggers. During the shooting of Hero, almost every night, at midnight or one o'clock, I started to work on the scenario of Flying Daggers with my co-scenarist and other collaborators. We worked until four in the morning and the next day we continued to work on the shooting of Hero. So we lived like that for quite a long period of time.
Your love for the color red is well-known. You start with a kind of stream of blood and we see red again at the end. How conscious was that?
Actually, there's no conscious symbolism in the colors used in this film. I just wanted this film to show the colors of the T'ang Dynasty. I wanted to show the audience the colors and sounds and atmosphere of that period, which I consider the most luxurious and richest period in Chinese history. So I saw some T'ang Dynasty mural paintings and I had all those colors in my mind, so all the colors that are used in this film are used to show that period.
Why do you think martial arts have become so popular in the western world?
I cannot tell you exactly why. Maybe it's a combination of two factors. The first direct factor may be Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, directed by Ang Lee. Because Ang Lee was mainly an artistic director - he's not a professional martial arts film director like many directors in Hong Kong - he gave martial arts movies a very different approach. Maybe his movie conveyed more universally understandable messages. So the success of that movie might have contributed to this trend among western audiences to see martial arts movies now.
The second reason might be the fact that for many years Hollywood movie directors have been asking Hong Kong martial arts directors to work with them to add more different styles of action to their movies. So even before the release of Crouching Tiger, people were already used to seeing the kind of action inspired by Asian martial arts. So maybe the combination of these two factors explain the trend that we see nowadays in the western world.
And personally, when I make a martial arts movie, I have the same approach as Ang Lee, because I myself am also more of an artistically oriented director. For me, martial arts is not just about action and fighting. Martial arts is more importantly about the spirit and aesthetics and beauty of action and I wanted to convey this poetry and aesthetics through the action that you see in my movies. And if in the future people want to define a Zhang Yimou action movie, I would like them to immediately say that a Zhang Yimou martial arts movie is martial arts filled with aesthetics and poetry.
Can you say something about the origin of the beautiful dance in the movie?
It is an invented and imagined scene. There are sources of inspiration. I have these images of the Long Sleeve Dance. I think it's a dance that really exists and I really think that it is a very, very beautiful dance, so I imagined how it would look in my story. I also discussed this with my art director and I asked him to look into the archives to see if he could find anything about T'ang Dynasty dances. He came up with a small painting showing T'ang Dynasty ladies doing a dance called the Drum and Dish Dance - with drums and dishes on the ground, and the ladies would dance with their feet on these dishes and drums. It looks very beautiful, but in practice, it's very difficult to do. Zhang Ziyi is an actress who is also a good dancer because, when she was younger, she studied dancing for six years. So I knew I could have her dance. In the beginning, I wanted her to do it like in the painting, with drums and dishes. The result was not totally satisfactory because it is very difficult and it doesn't look as nice as I imagined. So after discussion, we decided to incorporate long sleeves into the dance and the result is what you see on screen now.
Should we see the daggers as a kind of Freudian symbol?
Actually, no. The audience can understand the movie in whatever ways they want, but I didn't have that idea in mind. For me, the flying dagger is just a very magical weapon that we often see in martial arts literature. And I have always liked the magic of this weapon. So in this movie, I wanted to make it one of the most important elements.
Zhang Ziyi says she hopes you'll be planning to make a horror movie next?
[laughs] Indeed. Zhang Ziyi has already told other journalists that she wants to play the role of a ghost in a horror movie. Last night, she actually mentioned this hope to me, too. I find it very interesting. I asked her, "Why would a pretty girl like you want to be a ghost?" And she said, "Because I know that you are very good at creating atmosphere. So I think if you make a horror movie, it would really be horrifying. And if, in a really horrifying movie, I can be the ghost, then I would be really excited." So, maybe. Up to now, I know that I can create beauty and poetry in movies, but for me, horror movies are just horrible. I don't know how beauty and aesthetics can be developed in a horror film. But it might be a possibility. Maybe I can combine the two. Maybe I can really create a horrifying and also aesthetic film. So maybe I'll give it a try.
The story of Flying Daggers, two men in love with the same woman, seems very traditional.
Actually, more than a story about two men loving the same woman, it is also a story about a woman in love with two men. And this is not common in martial arts literature. So there is something very modern and very anti-traditional in that. I didn't mean to make the story a traditional one. I wanted it to be a modern story. So I made this story to have the girl love two men at the same time and, at one moment, decides to give up all her previous beliefs about community, about fidelity to the group, etc., and to pursue her own desire and to pursue her own love, to live her life as light as a wing. That's the main idea of the story.
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