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Unknown woman finds fame in China film world
2005-06-01
Mainland Chinese actress Xu Jinglei |
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BEIJING - She doesn't follow politics, cares less for what the critics think and is a woman in the male-dominated world of directing.But Chinese filmmaker Xu Jinglei stands out in the industry only a generation beyond the grip of Communist Party dictates and still within the grasp of its cautious Propaganda Bureau -- the 31-year-old has become the country's first independent director to be legally shown in China. It's a role Xu, already an award-winning actress, says she fell into when she began making movies only three years ago, bored by the acting jobs available to her. China decided to allow private companies to produce movies independently just when Xu was moving from acting into directing, she told Reuters on Wednesday. "The regulation came out in February and I applied for the licence in March," she said. The result was her 2002 movie "My Father and I", China's first since 1949 made independent of government-backed film studios and funded on a shoestring with 2.8 million yuan ($338,000) her production company managed to raise. Its licence number: 001. Her next movie, last year's "Letter From an Unknown Woman", won her the Best Director award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival and forced the movie world to take the young actress seriously. But dressed in sneakers and a grey cotton sun dress, Xu still looks like the girl next door, although her switch to directing has made her lament the limits of China's market, with rampant piracy making it nearly impossible for Chinese movies to make money. "I think it is one of the reasons for the small number of movies made every year in China," she said. "If there are 200 movies made in a year, we celebrate." By comparison, India churns out some 1,000 movies a year. Still, Xu cites the example of Hollywood tearjerker "Titanic", which was a huge hit in China and which she says made 300 billion yuan at the box office, as showing the market's potential. "It indicates a great number of people would go to theatres. People still have expectations and that's why there are still investors willing to put money into the industry," she said. But it's ironic that she looks to a blockbuster like "Titanic" for inspiration since her own bent is decidedly less mainstream -- she cites "Carrington", the 1995 movie about the Bloomsbury Group, as running more to her tastes. As to politics, Xu said her generation cares little for the issues that consumed China's Fifth Generation directors -- the first wave of 1980s films to follow China's market reforms -- despite Chinese filmmakers still facing strict content guidelines and rejection by the censors. "All the politics I know about are from listening to my father," she said. "I was 15 in 1989. June 4 for me was just some excitement," she said of the Tiananmen Square democracy movement that ended with a military crackdown and hundreds of deaths. "We didn't have classes and we didn't have to go to school. It was just some noise and liveliness to go and watch." Both her movies have steered clear of contemporary politics, and her next project, which begins filming in October, is about Wu Zetian, China's only empress, who reigned during the Tang dynasty (618-907). As to what the critics, crowds or censors think, Xu maintains her independence. "For me, adapting to critics, or adapting to ordinary movie-goers is the same -- I can't do either. I just move in directions that I like."
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