comingsoon.net, December 1, 2004
Zhang Yimou: Art in Action
Source: Edward Douglas

Before Hero topped the box office this past summer, few Americans knew the name Zhang Yimou, let alone seen any of his films. That said, the 53-year-old director had already found himself an extensive art house crowd and received Oscar nominations for many of his previous films over the last 17 years.

What made Hero so significantly different was that it was an action film set in ancient China starring two of the country's top martial artists, Jet Li and Donnie Yen, but it also was a love story between Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung, the stars of Wong Kar Wai's own American breakout In the Mood for Love. Hero received an Oscar nomination in early 2003, but it then wasn't released for over a year and a half. Although he wasn't sure why it took that long for Miramax to release his 2002 film, Zhang chose to leave that side of the business decisions to them and began work on his next film. In this case, it paid off. After topping the box office in August with an $18 million opening weekend, almost double what his previous movies had made in American theatres combined, Hero grossed over $50 million.

Less than four months later, his next film, House of Flying Daggers, is about to be released stateside, and Zhang thinks that the success of Hero will make it easier for him to find an American audience. "I was very surprised, since I never imagined [Hero] would do so well at the box office," the director told us while in town premiering the film at the New York Film Festival. "I think a lot of that has to do with Ang Lee's 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' and the opportunities that film opened up for new genres to get into the American film market."

Since he's once again working in the martial arts genre, many will think that the director has a fondness for it or found something lacking in previous offerings. "I was never a huge fan of martial arts films," he confided. "Over the course of my whole life I've seen maybe fifteen of them, but I've read extensively in the genre of martial arts fiction, and that's from where most of my inspiration came. What's different about Chinese martial arts film and similar genres in other cultures is that it's a genre of the imagination. For instance, the samurai in Japan or the cowboys in the West are both based on actual historical figures that existed. In China, there weren't really people like this, at least not flying through the trees in the way that they are imagined in these movies. It's something that's rooted in the imagination and fantasy and dreams, and that was the world that I was trying to project into, rather than basing them on the existing body of martial arts films."

"The film itself is a betrayal of traditional martial arts films, because a lot of the martial arts tradition is based on a code of conduct," he continued. "They have their rules of the game and all the fighting and revenge has to be in accordance with it. However here, we have a girl that betrays her code of ethics for love, pointing to a larger rebelliousness and an individualistic freedom. In the West, when you're watching this, you might not think of it as anything unique or special. In China, it's actually something very different from other martial arts, films because these are values that aren't usually espoused in the genre."

The action in House of Flying Daggers is a lot more violent and realistic than the stylish fantasy-based action in Hero. Zhang explained why he chose to go in this direction. "The screenplays for both 'Hero' and 'House of Flying Daggers' were generated almost simultaneously. In 'Hero', there's a stronger attachment or interest to form, which is very abstract and influenced by Chinese painting. There's an esthetic beauty that's incorporated that is much more visible. We tried to root 'House of Flying Daggers' more in reality and make it more humanistic in dealing with love and people. It's a very different approach. Besides there being blood, you'll notice that in 'Hero', somebody can fight off hundreds of arrows and in the end, they're not even breathing hard. After each fight in 'House of Flying Daggers', even if it's just one-on-one, they're gasping for breath afterwards. It's a lot more realistic and human portrayal of the fight sequences."

Those who saw Hero will have been impressed with the director's use of color in certain sequences. "As a director, I've always paid a lot of attention to the more formalistic elements of my films and color is one of those," he explained. "Another difference between action sequences in Western films versus Chinese films is that in Chinese action films, there's sort of an esthetic beauty that is often inherent in the fight sequences. They're not just fighting, but there's also a state of mind of the characters as they're in this battle. Color is one of the ways that I try to emphasize that and bring that out, as you can see in both my films."

In China, filmmakers have to deal with a lot more than just studio execs, critics, and the MPAA, as the government there gets more actively involved in the filmmaking process right from inception. He told us more about the process. "There is a censorship in place, and you have to submit the screenplay and then the finished film for approval to the government censors. With films like 'House of Flying Daggers' and 'Hero', which are both classical costume dramas set in the past, there isn't much of a problem because there's nothing really dealing with contemporary society that they would deem inappropriate or too sensitive. Usually, these things go fairly smoothly since martial arts films are a very big genre in China with not too many subversive elements."

Despite being steeped in tradition, even Americans may be surprised when the end credits for House of Flying Daggers start rolling across the screen to the tune of "Lovers", a Western style ballad sung in English by opera singer Kathleen Battle. Zhang explained the decision. "The selection of Kathleen Battle was because the composer is a personal friends of hers and he suggested her when we needed a song for the closing credits. Of course, I had heard of her, and she had a beautiful voice, so we decided to go with it. I think it had a really special effect, because she has a very soft voice that really strikes you when you hear it. I thought it was a wonderful ending to the film." He went onto explain how reaction in his native land has been mixed to the decision. "On the one hand, people were saying it was great, and it was this internationalism showing that art knows no boundaries, and then there were those people asking why I was ending a Chinese film with an English song, like I was selling out."

Zhang Yimou got so hooked on opera after staging Verdi's opera "Turandot" in Beijing (as seen in the documentary The Turandot Project) that he decided to do something with the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The opera to be staged sometime in 2006 will be based on Emperor Qin. the character from Hero who became the first emperor of China, and the music will be composed by Tan Dun, who did the lush score for the film. To make it even more enticing, Zhang said that it may be noted tenor Placido Domingo's last performance on stage before retiring.

In the meantime, Zhang will be returning to modern China for his next project, Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles. "My next film is going to be a smaller budget art film, more similar to my previous work," he said. "It's about the relationship between a father and a son and it will be a serious drama, very realistic and very much rooted in contemporary China. But I don't rule out the potentiality that in the future, I'll go back to making another martial arts film."

Having loaded the bases with two jaw-dropping films this year, some people think that it's time Zhang Yimou finally wins his much-deserved Oscar. He takes this sort of thing in stride. "If I were to get it, it would be a nice affirmation of all the work that I've done over the years, but at the same time, I'm not that fixated on it. I've been nominated three or four times-more than any other Chinese director-and I haven't got it yet. We have a saying in Chinese: If you think about it too much, you're not going to get it. So I just don't think about it and we'll see what happens. I think it also depends on luck at the end of the day."

House of Flying Daggers opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday and will open elsewhere in the following weeks. In the meantime, you can watch Hero, which was just released on DVD.

http://www2.comingsoon.net/news/topnews.php?id=7421

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China daily, Updated: 2004-12-01 16:28
China's third generation art and artists
(China Today)

Dramatic changes have taken place in the 25 years since China’s reform and opening. Since 1978 it has transmogrified from the isolated, indigent and unenlightened country of the cold war years to a world economic powerhouse.
[image]

Accelerated integration into the international community has turned Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and China's other major cities into cradles for a new urbanized culture, of which consumption is a major aspect.

Today's young Chinese people enjoy a level of education their parents could not even imagine. Labeled by the media and society as the "Cartoon," "New Breed," "Ultra New Human" and even "Post Human" generation, they express themselves in a manner so uninhibited as to be in direct contrast to that of their introverted and stoic elders.

The broad scope of consumables available to them is manifest in their avant garde choices of clothes, hairstyles, cosmetics and jewelry, and a superior material environment and wider mental range gives them a natural affinity with European, American and Japanese popular culture.

China's societal progress and economic development are reflected in its contemporary art. Representatives of the three generations of avant-garde artists that have emerged since 1978 have all achieved world acknowledgement.

First was the New Wave Art Movement of the 1980s whose most famous exponents are Huang Yongping, Xu Bing, Cai Guoqiang and Gu Wenda. All born in the 1950s, these artists experienced the surreal agony of the "cultural revolution" as young adults and left for the West in the 1980s and 1990s in search of a kinder working environment.

All four have established reputations on the international art stage, but their works are completely divorced from China's organic changes.

The second generation was born in the mid 1960s. Their Political Pop and Cynical Realism schools of art are influenced by childhood memories of the "cultural revolution" and adult experience of the Tian'anmen Square Incident of 1989 and the political stagnancy that followed.

These artists, in whose number are Yu Hong, Liu Xiaodong, Fang Lijun, Zhang Xiaogang, Zhao Bandi, Zhang Huan and Wang Jin, came to the forefront in the 1990s.

The third generation of the so-called Gaudy Art school that emerged at the end of the 1990s were born at the beginning of the 1970s.

Their works employ videos, digital cameras, and performance to create an interdisciplinary artistry totally apt for expressing the puzzlement, confusion and sense of loss felt by many as a result of China's urbanization.

Its main representatives are new media artists Song Dong, Yin Xiuzhen, Zheng Guogu, Qiu Zhijie, Zhou Tiehai, Liu Wei, and Feng Mengbo. A group of loosely connected younger Guangzhou artists styling themselves the Cartoonist Generation presented arts exhibitions and street performances but failed to produce any influential artists.

Their obvious mimicry of the Japanese manga cartoon style precludes the creation of any fresh visual expression and ignores completely China's urban reality.

At the turn of the millennium, the generation born around the 1980s began to appear in art circles. Outstanding among them is Chongqing-based Xiong Lijun.

Her works express fresh visual images and a clearly individual artistic language, most obvious in her acute attunement with and masterful depiction of modern metropolitan youth culture.

In September 2003, Xiong Lijun's works appeared in the Bare Androgyny Exhibition, a satellite of the landmark first Beijing Biennale which marked her debut in the Beijing art scene.

Her large oil painting I enjoy I am caused a stir among local viewers as well as critics and curators from all over the world. Her gigantic triptych was on display in the central section of the exhibition hall, its keynote saffron yellow presenting a sharp contrast to the blue tones of a painting by Chengdu-based female artist, Huang Yin, entitled Salute to Louis Vuitton.

This visual contradistinction imbued the exhibition hall with an excitingly dynamism that drew the eye to Xiong Lijun's work from every angle.

Having grown into a young adult since China's reform and opening, Xiong Lijun’s work is an expression of her personalized perception of the contemporary Chinese social environment. Her distinctive style, engendered by the social reality of contemporary China, sets her apart from the generation that precedes her.

Her Bohemia Style Series, Playing Water Series, and Spring Series, with their brilliantly saturated and exuberant pigments of saffron yellow, green and red, integrate the generosity and grandeur of oils with the brilliance and luster of acrylics.

This combination brings lucidity animated with a vapor-like undulating rhythm. Figures in Xiong's paintings are generally young people, aged 16-20, who embody infinite enthusiasm, energy and imagination, as well as boldness and independence of character.

These attributes are conveyed through their studiedly unconventional self-images that project a natural affinity with international trends.

Pop culture cartoons are employed to convey a swing between realism and show, and the subjects' emotions – joy, excitement and exhilaration – are perceivable by means of exaggeration and metamorphosis.

There is throughout a strong sense of movement; figures dance, walk, run and fly; their desire to communicate and be visible is foremost. Xiong Lijun’s works bear no trace of the cynicism and angst so dominant in the works of many young artists.

She is obviously centered on the positivism of her own generation and its wholehearted enthusiasm for urban life and its consuming pleasures. Her work conveys a sense of personal and social liberation within a new metropolitan culture. In short, Xiong Lijun presents and celebrates new Chinese youth culture in bloom amid overall and continuing urbanization.

Xiong Lijun's pictorial world may thus be interpreted as a visual simulacrum of the mentality of today's youth as expressed by one of its number.

Her images reflect its vibrant temperament: spontaneous, free spirited, enthusiastic, and open – all representative characteristics of the one-child generation, fostered by a plenteous font of consumerism.

In the past 25 years, Chinese artists have followed and studied the art of Europe, America and Asia's developed countries. There has been scant contemporary Chinese art with its own distinctive language and aesthetic value that does not defer to the expectations of the established art circuit.

In this respect Xiong Lijun's works are groundbreaking; they signal a new confidence in Chinese contemporary art and an advance towards a freer, more open art creation space.

The work of Xiong Lijun is testament to China's cultural transformation; her paintings constitute definitively Chinese contemporary art.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-12/01/content_396417.htm

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