REIGN
OF ASSASSINS PRESS CONFERENCE - 'WU XIA QUEEN"
by
Gabriel Chong@Fullerton Hotel | 1 October 2010
It has taken Michelle Yeoh ten years
to return to the ‘wuxia’ genre, and she
would have you know that it has been well worth the
wait. A decade after the seminal “Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon”, Michelle Yeoh’s comeback
‘wuxia’ film is the martial arts epic “Reign
of Assassins”.
“Crouching Tiger was such a classic, so legendary,
and everybody has put it on such a pedestal,”
said Michelle. “So if I were to do another wuxia
movie very soon, it would invite comparisons and it
would be such a burden to everybody. I mean even ten
years later, people will still compare this [Reign of
Assassins] to it!”
Looking ever as glamorous in a dinner dress with gold-strapped
heels, Michelle swung into town with director Su Chao-Pin
and producer John Woo to promote their movie, which
John Woo describes as a “different kind of wuxia
film” with “a great human story… great
characters and especially, a very strong female character”.
It is a character which Michelle readily describes as
“incredible”.
Michelle plays the deadly assassin Zeng Jing whose attempt
to start a new life is thwarted by her former enemies.
She thinks that Zeng Jing was a particularly challenging
character for her. “She was a woman who was starting
a new life, looking at the world with completely different
eyes,” she said. “At the beginning, she
was a cold hearted murderer and then when she changed
her identity, she had to change her whole persona.”
Luckily for her, she had a great co-star in Korean actor
Jung Woo-Sung, someone she describes as “the most
gorgeous-looking and one of the best actors I have worked
with in a long time”. She explained: “With
actors, it doesn’t go one-way. You can’t
do the scene by yourself. You need someone to reciprocate,
to bounce off and you two [Su Chao-pin and John Woo]
have found me a wonderful actor in Jung Woo-Sung.”
But unlike the dramatic scenes, Michelle did not have
someone to help her through the action scenes. Known
for performing the stunts in her movies by herself,
the 48-year-old actress gamely did “95% of the
action in this movie” according to John Woo. Considering
how she could have easily stepped aside to let one of
the “20-year-old stuntpeople Tung Wai had on set”,
the achievement is even more admirable.
“I think to be able to do my own stunts is very
magical… At the end of the day when you watch
the final cut, you’ll say to yourself ‘wah,
see how impressive I look!” She attributes her
ability to do her own stunts to her experience with
wirework. “The more you’ve done it before…
It’s not about whether you have energy or the
power to do it. It’s because you have the subtlety
which comes with more experience.”
Asked whether she sustained any injuries from doing
her own stunts, she said that no one working on this
movie got hurt. She credits this to Tung Wai’s
mantra- safety first. “A lot of times he would
actually do the stunt himself first to make sure that
it was safe,” she said. Even then, there was one
person she said was nervous on the set- and that was
John Woo when his daughter Angeles, who makes her screen
debut in this movie, was up on the wire.
“To be fair to her, this was the first time that
she was doing wirework and it can be quite scary because
you cannot stop halfway. It will stop when it wants
to stop. If you’re in midair, there are no brakes,”
she explained. “And when Angeles was on the wire,
we saw this daddy walking up and down and asking ‘are
you sure this is safe?’ Tung Wai would ask ‘What
is wrong? Why is John walking up and down?’ and
then we saw Angeles up on the wire.”
Action was not the only major part of the movie- Michelle
would have you know that there are also Buddhist philosophies
incorporated into the movie, chief of which is that
of forgiveness. She feels that it should not be a point
that is lost on its audience, given its relevance to
our daily lives. “Only with forgiveness can we
learn to move on,” she said introspectively.
The inclusion of these themes was inspired by the early
‘wuxia’ films of the 70s and the 80s. According
to director Su Chao-Pin, who also wrote the script for
the movie, he would always think about what happened
after the hero killed the enemy. “It just perpetuates
a cycle of violence, because the enemy’s son would
come back and kill the hero and the killing just goes
on,” he said.
“The word ‘xia’ however implies a
virtue, an ability to tell right from wrong. So I wanted
this film to be able to put that across, and ultimately
carry the message that forgiveness is better than revenge.”
He said- wise words indeed from a director who also
with this movie said that he has fulfilled his dream,
in fact every male director’s dream according
to Lee Ang, of making a martial arts movie.
It was also a dream for him to be able to work with
John Woo and Michelle Yeoh on the movie- one he describes
as a “walking encyclopaedia” of film and
the other he praises as someone who personifies professionalism.
“I think her professionalism is one big reason
why she has been so successful in such a competitive
environment,” he added.
John Woo too was extremely impressed by her dedication
on the film, so much so that he is willing to call it-
at the risk of his friendship with director Lee Ang,
he jokes- the best performance of Michelle’s career,
perhaps even better than “Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon”. But since she has made her fans wait
ten years for “Reign of Assassins”, does
that mean it will take another ten years before she
makes another ‘wuxia’ movie?
“I’m very selective about my films,”
she said. “Every time I do a martial arts film,
people will ask whether I want to do drama instead.
And then when I do drama, people ask whether I’ll
do another martial arts film… So when the time
comes, it will come. But I hope it comes gradually.”
“Right now,” she added. “I’m
having a great time.”
Our
Interview with Director John Woo
Reign Of Assassins
opens in theatres 7 October 2010
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