Heroic journeyWith the long-delayed US release of `Hero,' director Zhang Yimou proves once again he is no stranger to controversyBROOKLINE -- So maybe you weren't on pins and needles awaiting the American release of "Hero," director Zhang Yimou's elegant martial arts epic. Maybe, in the two years that Miramax has dragged its feet bringing the film to US theaters, you watched a bootlegged copy, rented a widely available Asian DVD, or attended a special screening such as the one held recently as part of Zhang's Coolidge Corner Theatre Award. Possibly you never even knew that, once upon a time, this film featuring Asian superstars Jet Li and Maggie Cheung was expected to give Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" a run for its money in the Western world.
Regardless, here's why you should give a flying Fu Manchu about the local release of "Hero" on Friday, as well as what you probably didn't know about its buzz-heavy upcoming companion piece, "House of Flying Daggers." In China, where the average citizen reportedly goes to a cinema once every couple of years, most new releases are seen in Internet cafes and via pirated copies often costing around $1. But the box-office success of "Hero" surpassed anything in China's history. The film "put the bums back in the seats," as the film's Australian cinematographer Christopher Doyle (who also did "Last Life in the Universe," currently playing at the Brattle Theatre) colorfully explains it. The numbers alone say that "Hero" deserved a timely American release, all the more reason to make one wonder why it ultimately took the vocal support of filmmaker Quentin Tarantino to bring the movie to US theaters. "Whatever Miramax does must have its own commercial considerations; I have no power to have any say in their decisions," explains the quietly forceful Zhang Yimou (pronounced "Jahng Ee-moe"), leaning forward in his screening-room seat at Brookline's Coolidge Corner Theatre. "However, Jet Li says that just by the film being delayed for two years, we must have lost tens of millions [of dollars] in revenue, because Asian-Americans have by now all seen DVDs." To which Amanda Lundberg, Miramax head of publicity, replies by phone: "It didn't cost tens of millions in revenue. With all due respect to Jet, that doesn't make any sense. . . . We sort of just took our time in formulating a plan to release the movie." Furthermore, she says, "Hero" producer Tarantino gets a presentation credit simply because his name helps convey accessible entertainment, and not -- contrary to popular thought -- because the movie would have continued to languish without his clout. Whatever. The controversy rolls off the unflappable Zhang, who strokes his closely cropped hair from time to time but rarely registers any telltale expressions. He's been through much worse. Born in 1950 to a Xian family on the wrong side of the changing political tide, he was sent to do factory work during the Cultural Revolution and made so little money that (yes, the legend is true) he had to sell his blood at a clinic to buy his first camera. In the late 1970s, he somehow wangled his way into the Beijing Film Academy, even though he was past the cutoff age, and graduated as part of the prestigious Fifth Generation, China's oddly-named first post-Cultural Revolution class of filmmakers. He proceeded to make his mark initially as the cinematographer for "One and Eight" and the brilliant "Yellow Earth," and then as a renowned director beginning with 1987's bold "Red Sorghum." Only, no one in China actually saw his most famous works initially, because "Ju Dou," "Raise the Red Lantern," and "To Live" were all banned by censors at home. Labeled a dissident early on, he missed many international events at the insistence of his government. Then, just as unfairly, he was accused of toeing the party line in films such as "The Story of Qiu Ju." His extended extramarital affair with actress/muse Gong Li lost him character points. And these days, because films such as "Not One Less" and "Happy Times" have delivered less bite, he's increasingly called a sellout -- a criticism he chafes at through measured remarks. "The view that I've changed in the last few years is quite a widespread opinion," he begins patiently, speaking through his friend and occasional interpreter, filmmaker Carma Hinton. "Because people read political messages in my films, they expect me to be a political fighter who's always on the front lines. So whenever they cannot read into my works a kind of dissident view or political interpretation that they read into earlier films, they become disappointed. "I keep saying that I'm the same director. I'm an ordinary film director, I'm not a political fighter," he continues. "[The popular view of China] is so prone to having political concerns, with so little real concerns for individual human beings." In perhaps the cruelest twist of his can't-win-even-when-I'm-Oscar-nominated career, Zhang's "Hero" was skewered by viewers on both sides of the globe for different reasons. In Asia it was deemed too pretty, too sentimental, and way too kind to a ruthless ruler. In America it was accused of having flat characters and an elusive plot. Zhang acknowledges that even he wondered whether the story's uniquely Chinese aspects would translate, especially regarding such esoteric things as duty, honor, and calligraphy so exalted that an artist would sit through a hail of arrows searching for just the right character for "sword." His big mistake with regard to Asian viewers, he realized too late, was setting his fictional story in the ancient era of one of China's most controversial emperors. In its "Rashomon"-like, color-coded unraveling of an assassin's tale, "Hero" delivers some of the most original fight scenes and lush visual artistry you will ever see. Zhang says the script he wrote with Li Feng and Wang Bin was intended to capture the essence of wushu (the art of stopping violence) in its highest form, which actor Donnie Yen (son of Boston wushu master Bow Sim Mark) thinks they not only achieved, but transcended. "To me, `Hero' is not a martial arts film, but a Chinese epic based on wuxia [martial heroic] novels," says Yen via e-mail. "It's a film with both deep philosophical and political views about China. . . . And of course with Jet and myself delivering in any film, how can you not have great martial arts scenes?" Indeed, "Hero" sports no shortage of talent in every discipline. Besides Cheung, Li, and Yen, the cast includes Zhang Ziyi and Tony Leung, and the score is by Tan Dun ("Crouching Tiger"). Celebrated cinematographer Doyle, best known for his work with Wong Kar Wai, contributes crisp camerawork, though he admits it nearly drove him nuts when Zhang insisted that the entire film be centered. "I'd say, `Why can't we put someone on the edge of the frame, just to see what happens?' " Doyle says, laughing, in a phone interview. Chalk it up to an aesthetic difference of opinion, because Zhang wasn't afraid of the edge in "Yellow Earth" or "Keep Cool." In fact, he probably wishes he could avoid the center more often -- at least the white hot center of world scrutiny where everything he does is ascribed motive and comparative worth. Next up in that department is "House of Flying Daggers," another big-budget period wuxia film starring Zhang Ziyi, which has already begun smashing box office records in China. The director reveals that he started working on the new film during the production of "Hero" and says the two pictures are meant to be complementary: "Hero" deals with the larger philosophical framework; "Daggers" concentrates on emotions, relationships, and character development. "The attraction of a martial arts film is that it's a test of the director's imagination," Zhang notes, but it shouldn't be a test of the viewer. He promises "Daggers" will be "100 percent understood by a Western audience" because it relates to specific human emotions, not to mention it's big, flashy, and expensively produced. And for that, he makes no apologies. "In China now we have a whole generation of young moviegoers who were weaned on Hollywood blockbusters . . . so partly I made these two martial arts films because I wanted to give the Chinese audience an alternative," Zhang explains. "To make these mainstream films does not reflect a lowering of our artistic standards or a fall from grace. Rather, it is badly needed to keep our industry alive." "Hero" is about sacrificing oneself for the greater good, but Zhang, who's directing a show that will be part of the Athens Olympic handoff to 2008 hosts Beijing, doesn't claim to be so nobly inclined. He genuinely believes in making accessible art to be seen by the largest possible audience. And if that makes him a target, well, what else is new?
Janice Page can be reached at jpage22@hotmail.com. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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