Rebirth of Chinese Entertainment from the Oscars

In early August 2002, BJ.

When Su Chen stepped out of the arrival gate of Beijing Capital International Airport, spring in Beijing still carried the lingering chill of winter. The poplar trees lining the airport expressway were just beginning to bud, their tender green buds appearing particularly fragile under the hazy sky. He rolled down the car window a crack, letting in a dry, cold breeze carrying a familiar scent, a mixture of coal smoke and earth. This smell wasn't in Los Angeles, Berlin, or Cannes. It was a uniquely Beijing scent, a scent he could never forget in either of his lives. He leaned back in the taxi, took the brown-covered notebook from his backpack, placed it on his lap, and gently tapped the cover with his fingers. The spine was wrapped with countless layers of transparent tape, the edges worn like a well-used bar of soap. This notebook has been with him since the first month after his rebirth, from his desk in the Beijing Film Studio compound to the awards podium at the Berlin Film Palace, from the Harbin set of "Black Coal, Thin Ice" to the inside of the coffin in "Buried Alive." Every page is filled with storyboards, character sketches, budget estimates, and scribbled notes that only he can understand. Now it is turned to the page labeled "The Hunt," and the dense notes have spanned several time zones—the initial ideas in Los Angeles, the psychological impact of 9/11 in New York, the memos on the Lido Island in Venice late at night, and the last few lines he wrote before going to sleep on the night of the Golden Bear in Berlin.

"The Hunt" requires a quiet town, a close-knit community that can be instantly ignited by gossip. In the original film, that town is in Denmark—a Nordic winter, with deserted streets, neighbors who have known each other for decades, and a kindergarten surrounded by forests. Su Chen used Nordic place and character names in the initial draft of the script, but he always knew that this story had to be transplanted to Chinese soil. It wasn't simply a matter of changing place and character names, but rather transplanting the entire story's roots—how lies spread in a close-knit community, how trust crumbles in collective panic, and how an innocent person becomes prey in the face of everyone's sense of justice—completely into the social fabric of China.

While in Los Angeles, he had already done a preliminary localization, transplanting the story's setting from a Danish town to a fictional small city in northern China, changing the kindergarten from a wooden cabin by the forest to a three-story building built in the 1990s, and transforming the hunting metaphor from deer hunting in the Nordic forests into something more easily understood in the Chinese context. But he always felt something was missing—not a structural issue, but a matter of texture. He needed to return to Chinese soil, to a real small city, to see how people walk, how they greet each other, how they haggle in the market, how they gather at the entrance of their neighborhood to chat after dinner. Lies spread in these everyday gaps, not in the dramatic conflicts of a script. He had promised Zhang Yimou in Venice that he would talk to him in person on his next trip back to China. Now was the time.

The taxi drove directly to the gate of the Beijing Film Studio compound. As Su Chen walked in with his bag, Old Zhang, the gatekeeper, was listening to the radio in the guardhouse. The radio was playing the Peking Opera "The Empty City Stratagem," with Zhuge Liang playing the zither on the city wall. Old Zhang leaned out of the window, paused for a moment, then slapped his thigh: "Su Chen! You're back! Your dad was just saying you were coming back yesterday, I thought he was just bragging!" Su Chen smiled and waved at him, continuing inside. The sycamore trees in the Beijing Film Studio compound hadn't sprouted yet, their bare branches forming a sparse network under the gray sky. He paused as he passed the apartment building where he lived as a child—the third-floor window was lit, the curtains still the same old ones. He remembered waking up in that window four years ago, the cicadas chirping noisily in the locust tree, staring blankly at his youthful face in the mirror for a long time. Back then, he didn't know how far he could go. He was now holding a file folder containing the first draft of the script for "The Hunt," and he already had his own production company in Hollywood.

Dinner was another feast prepared by Wu Qingfang: braised pork ribs, stir-fried cabbage with vinegar, braised beef, tomato and egg soup, and the ever-present dish of pickled radishes. Beside the dish was a small bowl of freshly pickled garlic—his mother had said he'd lost weight since his last visit, and the garlic was an appetizer. Su Zhigao sat opposite him, placing his newspaper on the corner of the table. A small checkmark, about the size of a finger, peeked out from the edge—Su Chen knew that his father had seen another report about him. Neither of them asked how long he would be staying this time. Only when he picked up his third piece of pork rib did his mother say, "Eat more," and then, "Go see your teacher Hou tomorrow; he's been talking about you for ages."

The next morning, Su Chen went to the Beijing Film Academy. Hou Keming was in his office grading papers, in almost the exact same posture as when Su Chen last visited him—reading glasses perched on his nose, a red pen at hand, and a densely printed director's statement spread out in front of him. The difference was that this time, there was a framed picture on the side of his desk, not containing a photograph, but a page from a People's Daily article, the title of which faintly revealed the name "Su Chen." Seeing Su Chen push open the door, Hou Keming took off his reading glasses, walked around from behind his desk, and patted Su Chen's shoulder twice, heavily. The same force as in previous years, but this year he patted him a little more.

"Golden Bear." Hou Keming only said these two words, but when he said them, there was something in his voice that Su Chen rarely heard—not pride, not excitement, but a calm satisfaction of "I knew it all along." He sat back in his chair, took an apple from the drawer, wiped it on his lapel, and took a bite. "I read the reports from Berlin. What were the jury's comments on 'Buried' again—'Using the smallest space to create the greatest power.' That's right. But I'm not going to talk to you about Berlin today. You went back to Beijing Film Academy not so I could praise you. Tell me about 'The Hunt'."

Su Chen pulled the script from the file folder and placed it on Hou Keming's desk. "This story is about a kindergarten teacher who is accused of sexual assault by a child's lie. Before the truth comes out, the entire town has already sentenced him to death. The law didn't sentence him, but society did. He was eventually proven innocent, but that 'innocence' came too late—his life had been completely destroyed. The original is a Danish story, with the underlying tone of Nordic aesthetics—cold, quiet, and restrained, where people's loneliness is amplified by the environment. When I was doing the first round of localization in Los Angeles, my biggest feeling was that the interpersonal relationships of a small town in northern China and the individualistic society of Northern Europe are two completely different trust systems. In the Nordic version, rumors spread through the gaps between people because the distance between people is large enough. But in a small town in northern China, rumors spread when there are almost no gaps between people. It's not 'spread' by people, but 'carried' by people—like when you walk in a market, you pick up all sorts of smells on you, which you can't smell yourself, but others can."

Hou Keming stopped flipping through the script. He pushed his reading glasses up to his forehead and looked up at Su Chen. "You've hit the nail on the head. Small towns in China are close-knit communities where everyone lives in the eyes of others. A rumor about a kindergarten doesn't need to be 'spread'—the moment it's spoken, it's ingrained in the skin of everyone who hears it. So what you need to write about isn't the spread of rumors, but their infiltration."

"Yes," Su Chen said. "Like that lie the kindergarten girl casually told in the movie, she didn't even know what she said, but the entire kindergarten's parents' group chat exploded. It wasn't because they believed the lie, but because they were afraid that it might be true—in a close-knit community, 'what if' is everything. That's why I wanted to reshape the characters of the kindergarten principal, the girl's mother, and the male protagonist's ex-wife—they aren't bad people, they're people filled with fear. Fear can drive people to do the cruelest things."

Hou Keming turned to the character profile page of the script and looked at it for a long time. "What's Liao Fan playing? The male lead?" Su Chen nodded. Hou Keming nodded as well, not asking any further questions about Liao Fan. He picked up a red pen, wrote a few words on the blank space of the last page of the script, and then put the pen down. "Have you decided on your production team?"

"We need an executive director who is familiar with filming in small towns, and a cinematographer who can capture the cold, gray tones of winter," Su Chen said frankly. "As for the production, I plan to collaborate with China Film Group on the domestic portion."

"You can talk to Han Sanping about it yourself later. As for the cinematographer—" Hou Keming leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers lightly on the table twice, "Director Zhang's 'Hero' starts filming in September, so he should have time before then. Also—didn't you say you wanted to visit him? Take advantage of these next few days and go."

Su Chen nodded. That was his original plan. He put the script into his file folder and was about to leave when Hou Keming called him back. The old professor took a manila envelope from his drawer and placed it on the table. "Your graduate studies progress. Special training program—you will use your works instead of a thesis. I've already prepared a list of works for you, from 'Black Coal, Thin Ice' to 'Buried,' six feature films. Any one of them is far more significant than a doctoral dissertation. The dean has signed it, and the graduate school has filed it. You are now a Master's student in the Directing Department, Class of 2000, Beijing Film Academy."

Su Chen took the envelope but didn't open it. He put it in his pocket and bowed to Hou Keming. Hou Keming didn't speak, but simply waved his hand, picked up his red pen again, and continued grading papers.

After leaving the Beijing Film Academy, Su Chen went straight to Zhang Yimou's studio. Zhang Yimou's studio was still the same small room, with equipment cases and poster tubes piled against the walls, and storyboards and scene concept art for "Hero" covering the oak desk. Zhang Yimou sat behind the desk, wearing a faded dark blue sweater, an unlit cigarette between his fingers. Seeing Su Chen enter, he switched the unlit cigarette from his left hand to his right, stood up, and extended his hand. When their hands met, Zhang Yimou shook them firmly twice before letting go. Then he took a half-step back, looked Su Chen up and down, and said something Su Chen expected: "You've lost weight. But you look more energetic."

"Director Zhang, how is the preparation for your film 'Hero' going?" Su Chen asked.

"Filming starts in a few months, and the art direction and costumes are still being revised." Zhang Yimou gestured for Su Chen to sit down, then sat back down behind the table, placing his cigarette on it. "I didn't call you here to talk about my film. The Golden Bear. When you called me that night in Venice, your voice was steady, but I knew you had regrets. You said then that the Golden Lion had slipped away. I said that missing even a little bit wasn't your fault. Berlin gave you the Golden Bear—the jury awarded the highest prize to a film with only one actor, one scene, and filmed entirely in a coffin. This isn't just a matter of luck. Three films: the Palme d'Or, the Golden Bear, the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, plus the Berlin Silver Bear, the Venice Volpi Cup, and the Sundance Jury Special Award—and you're only nineteen this year. Do you know what I was doing at nineteen? Working in the countryside."

Su Chen remained silent. Zhang Yimou also paused for a moment, then leaned forward, placing his hands, one on top of the other, on the storyboard for *Hero*. "I heard you're preparing a new film. What genre?"

Su Chen handed Zhang Yimou the script for *The Hunt*. Zhang Yimou took it, but didn't immediately flip through it, only looking at the title on the cover. "Why is it called *The Hunt*?" "Lies are arrows, trust is the target. A little girl's lie, shot out in a close-knit community, turns everyone into a hunter—even though they themselves don't know they're hunting." Zhang Yimou nodded and opened the script. He didn't read it from the beginning, but flipped to the middle, then to the end, and then back to the middle. He read for about ten minutes, then closed the script and placed it on the table. Su Chen saw that he had written a few words in pencil on the script cover, but he didn't ask what they were.

"This film is a low-budget art film, without grand scenes or special effects. But its emotional density is even greater than 'Manchester by the Sea.' And in your localization efforts, you transformed the coldness of Danish interpersonal relationships into the warmth of Chinese ones; the way rumors spread is different—in Denmark it's diffusion, in China it's infiltration. This approach was correct." Zhang Yimou put down his pencil. "Did Liao Fan know you were going to make this?"

"I know. I told him when we were in Venice. He's been waiting for me for a long time."

  

Zhang Yimou picked up his pencil again and drew a small circle in the blank space of the storyboard. "What can I help you with?"

"Director of Photography. The visuals need a cool, gray tone, like winter in a small northern town. The environment needs to be quiet, not overshadowing the characters, but each establishing shot should speak for itself." Su Chen paused. "Could you come before filming begins for 'Hero'?"

Zhang Yimou didn't answer immediately. He picked up the unlit cigarette from the table, twirled it between his fingers, and put it back. "Filming for 'Hero' starts in September, and preparations are currently at their most intense stage. I might not be able to be on set with the cinematographer the entire time—but I can recommend someone. Zhao Xiaoding. He's been my partner for many years, serving as assistant cinematographer on 'Not One Less' and 'The Road Home.' He has a deep understanding of the light in northern winters; if you communicate your ideas to him, he can deliver. Also, if I have time before filming starts, I'll visit your set for a few days."

Su Chen stood up. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me." Zhang Yimou also stood up. "Back when you were moving lighting rigs on the set of 'The Road Home,' I knew you weren't just there for fun. Now you've come back with the Golden Bear and the Palme d'Or, and you still remember to come see me. This makes me happier than any number of awards." He saw Su Chen to the door, and as Su Chen stepped out, he added, "By the way, have you ever dealt with New Pictures?"

Su Chen stopped in his tracks. He knew what Zhang Yimou was asking. Zhang Yimou and New Pictures Film Studio had been collaborating for many years, and Zhang Weiping was his long-time partner, but rumors had been circulating in the industry that their differences over creative control and profit distribution were gradually widening. "We haven't had any direct contact."

"I might call later." Zhang Yimou's voice became lower and slower than before. "If I need your help with anything then, I'll let you know. Don't worry, it's nothing serious. It's just that there are some things I need to prepare in advance."

Su Chen looked at him and nodded.

It was already evening when Su Chen left Zhang Yimou's studio. He stood by the roadside for a while, watching the traffic on Chang'an Avenue merge into a golden river under the setting sun. The early spring wind was still chilly, but he didn't immediately hail a taxi. He remembered Zhang Yimou's silhouette as he sketched storyboards at Berlin Airport, the early mornings he spent moving light rigs and laying tracks on the set of "The Road Home," and the stone steps outside the Palais des Festivals after the Berlin awards ceremony, the Berlin night wind making them both shiver slightly. Now he had a company in Hollywood, won two top awards at the three major film festivals, and his new script was progressing steadily, but standing on the streets of Beijing in the evening, he felt like the same boy who had moved light rigs. He hailed a taxi. Next, he needed to meet with Han Sanping to discuss a production collaboration, scout locations, bring Liao Fan from Shanghai to read the script, and finalize the choices for director of photography and executive director. But tonight, all he wanted was to go home and eat his mother's pickled radish.