Tuesday, April 14, 1998
Feelings don’t fit in neat little boxes
FILM: Director Wayne Wang explores uncertain future of Hong
Kong
By Aimee Phan
Daily Bruin Staff
For the people who live or have lived in Hong Kong, June 30,
1997, is a date that will be remembered with very mixed feelings.
That was the day Britain handed back the metropolitan city to
China, ending 156 years of British rule and leaving the 6.3 million
residents of Hong Kong wondering how much their lives would change
under the communist control.
As the business world and Hong Kong’s citizens braced themselves
for the handover, director Wayne Wang ("The Joy Luck Club,"
"Smoke") realized what interesting subject matter this would make
for his next film. He knew it was the perfect chance to document
history and make a film about the city he was born and raised in as
it prepared to make such a dramatic change.
After devising a script with producer Jean-Louis Piel and
screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere, Wang brought his cast and crew
to Hong Kong to capture the genuine atmosphere of the city whose
future would be uncertain after June 30.
The story revolves around British journalist John Spencer
(Jeremy Irons), who is trying to document the city torn between two
nations even as his own life is slowly tearing apart. After
learning that he is dying from a rare blood disease, John decides
to take advantage of the few months he has left, changing his life
and the destinies of those around him, including his unrequited
love Vivian (Gong Li), her businessman boyfriend Chang (Michael
Hui) and sassy street hustler Jean (Maggie Cheung). The four main
characters’ personal struggles are symbolic of the tumultuous
feelings many of Hong Kong’s citizens went through during the
months leading up to the handover.
Although he left Hong Kong at 17, Wang still feels very
connected to his home city. He says he was inspired to make this
movie so he could examine his own thoughts about the city’s
uncertain future.
"It’s really a journey through Hong Kong during this period,"
Wang says. "I wanted to find, in a way, an alter-ego for me to
explore what my own feelings are about the city I grew up in."
In trying to capture the fast and bustling atmosphere of the
city, Wang chose to shoot the film partly through a hand-held
camera that Jeremy Iron’s character carries throughout the movie.
He said that this style would be more complementary to the city’s
personality.
"Hong Kong is a very visceral and physical city," Wang says. "In
order to capture that feeling, I felt that I should use a hand-held
camera, instead of still pictures. In that sense, it’s the camera
style that’s more appropriate to the city itself."
While the shooting took place between January to April 1997,
Wang and his crew did return in June to shoot the actual handover
in order to bring an authentic tension and emotion into the
movie.
He remembers how hectic that night was as he sent five different
camera crews around Hong Kong to capture as many events and
people’s reactions as possible.
"I was bouncing around between two camera teams," Wang recalls.
"There was a demonstration that night so we were at the
demonstration, and I was (also) with Jeremy where the press was
watching the changeover."
Because the movie is such a personal subject for Wang, he
remembers his own feelings when the formal ceremony of the handover
took place before him.
"When that English flag finally came down – and the English are
so good at the rituals of saying goodbye, they do it with such
class – I was literally in tears," Wang says. "Because I realized
at that moment that the Hong Kong I grew up in will forever be
gone."
Another very emotional and personal moment for Wang in the movie
involved a fighting dog named Water Monster. As a fighting dog,
Water Monster was kept mostly in the dark his whole life except for
two hours every day when he would train to fight. Dedicating the
film to the late animal, Wang relates how the dog’s devotion to his
master, despite the harsh abuse he endured, touched him very
deeply.
"The dog has been like this since birth, it’s never had a choice
about what it should do in its life," Wang says. "The second time
we came back (to get more footage), he was already hurt, the third
time we went back, he was dead. That was a hard thing for me. The
dog was such a sweet wonderful dog and knows nothing else except to
kill and fight and work really hard for his master. And I felt like
this was a microcosm of Hong Kong."
Since the movie addresses the many questions of what will happen
to the city once it goes back to China, Wang decided to name the
movie "Chinese Box." With the opening sequences to the movie
involving a Chinese box, Wang explains that it’s a box that
contains box after box inside of it, like a question leading up to
another question. It is infinite and can never be answered.
"It’s kind of like you think you have an answer, but it’s really
more questions," Wang says. "A Chinese box doesn’t really exist. I
tried to find one. I thought someone told me that I could buy it in
Chinatown, but I looked everywhere. So I created it with a
computer."
While the movie deals with a lot of what if’s concerning the
future of Hong Kong, more than six months have already passed since
the handover, and Wang is not optimistic about the city’s current
direction.
"It seems like the place is going through a really dark time
right now," Wang says. "Surprisingly, just six months after, a lot
has happened. There’s a lot of self-censorship on a lot of levels.
If there’s an important story about Tibet, they’ll put it on page
54. Now, Hong Kong has a very severe, controlling patriarch of
China looking over its shoulder, whereas the English really didn’t
care because they were far away."
So while the movie "Chinese Box" may have wrapped up for the
director, this doesn’t mean he won’t stop worrying and thinking
about the city he grew up in. Wang still maintains a strong opinion
about the future of his hometown.
"For Hong Kong to really survive in the future – and this is my
opinion – I think the people will have to fight for more of a voice
and a choice," Wang says. "Because otherwise, Shang-Hai or Canton
is going to catch up and replace Hong Kong."
FILM: "Chinese Box" opens Friday.
Trimark Pictures
Director Wayne Wang works on the set of Trimark Picture’s drama,
"Chinese Box,"opening Friday.
Trimark Pictures
Gong Li stars as Vivian, a bar owner and mistress of a Chinese
businessman in "Chinese Box."