Mike y sus Chinos: Welcome to the festival. It’s your second time here since you presented in Sitges, Perhaps love. How is the experience now, comparing it to the last time?
Peter Chan: Very different, because the last time was like a tourist. I was here for my movie, one movie, and this time I'm a jury, and I have to watch 35 movies. Five movies a day, six at one day. And it's like, I'm so movied out.
MysC: Where did the idea originate for She Has No Name?
PC: It's a true story that happened in 1945, at the end of the Japanese occupation of China, and it was with the Japanese puppet government. A woman killed her husband, chopped him into 16 pieces, and threw his head into the river. She was supposed to be prosecuted during that time, but because it was the last six months before the Japanese lost the war, it was very chaotic. The people who were in power were running, leaving Shanghai, because they were going to lose the war and become war criminals. It's the final days of World War II. She was not prosecuted. Her case was delayed until the nationalist government, Chiang Kai-shek, came in, the new government came in. During this new government another lawyer tried to retrial the case as a domestic violence case, because she was beaten up by the husband for eight years. And before the case was decided, the communists came. So, it's a case that lasts through three different regimes of Chinese government, and each time she was spared or delayed. She actually lived until 2006. Died at 92 years old. She was never convicted and in 1960 to live to see the economic reform and change of China. It's a long, long story. And that story fascinates me. Since 2015 when I read the script, I wanted to make the movie. There was so much in the story. At one point we thought it was too long, so maybe we could make it into a series. And then COVID started and everything stopped. After COVID, the Chinese film market had a quick boom, and we turned it back into a movie. But obviously there's so much in the story, it's not just a murder story, it's a story about the changing of times. My first cut was four hours. I had to cut it into a two-and-a-half-hour version, which made the Cannes Film Festival opening a year ago. But that version was not complete. The story is four hours. That movie was too short for my vision and also too long for Chinese commercial release. So, we ended up coming back to it and took a whole year of re-editing and turned it into something that we're showing today, which is only one movie that ends with the defeat of the Japanese. And then there will be a subsequent movie that will come out next year.
MysC: Will you ever release a director's cut of that four-hour film?
PC: I have that four hours edited into a four-part miniseries that I hope that will find a distributor eventually.
MysC: What did you want the audience to take from this story?
PC: I think the audience wanted a juicy murder story. But it's not that kind of movie, unfortunately. The movie is really about how each character, no matter what they think, their values, what they stand for, justice or not, good people, bad people, they get what they want. At the end of the day, whatever happens, whether for better or for worse, it's not up to them. It's up to history. It's up to the times. It's up to politics. You know, politics and the times, because of the changing of three different regimes, it affects everyone's life. So individual fight against what is right and what is wrong is very weak because we really can't change our faith when the whole world is crumbling. So that's really what the movie is about.
MysC: The movie has a very distinctive visual language, a visual style.
PC: Probably more distinctive than most of my other movies. My movies are usually very character-driven, story-driven, and I don't worry too much about style. I have my aesthetics, but I'm never very formalistic. But this time, because of the time and because of Shanghai and because of the location, we were very inspired by the visual. And it became very formalistic. It's got elements of drama, stage drama, you know, back in the 20s or 30s. There are expressionisms. Then this movie becomes very formalistic, and it's also my first film noir. It feels like a film noir. And then with the film Femme Fatale at the core of the story. So this is actually very different from most of my films. It's darker, colder, whereas my movies in the past are usually more sentimental, warm, and appeal to emotions and sentiments more than this film. This film is colder.
MysC: The cast is amazing. How was your experience when choosing them? Who you wanted to pick for the movie, and why?
PC: Well, the first and the most important one has always been the lead, Zhang Ziyi, to play this character. She was committed from 10 years ago, from 2015. I showed her the script once I read it and she wanted to play it. But the movie is not just about her. It's about many, many characters. About the police commissioner, that represents the power, the alpha male power, the old-fashioned male-dominated society. And he also has his own very... How shall I put it? Very absurd belief of what is right and what is wrong. And he's very committed to his own sets of values. It's a bad guy that you love to hate. He's also a very important character. And then there is the fortune teller blind guy, that actually is the one that makes her believe in all this superstition, that makes her kill her husband. And there is a loser neighbour that is suspected to be her lover. In the next film, there is also a lawyer who is trying to protect his own daughter from domestic violence by defending her case to help her regain freedom. And there is this jail mate who is a victim of politics, who's a beautiful socialite, who helped her and ended up dying. And there is also this intellectual novelist who uses this case to write on newspaper. It's like an influencer from today. She tries to make a name by writing about this in the name of feminism, but she's really trying to help herself. And these characters are not black or white, but grey, doing the right thing for selfish reasons. We went around, and it was so much fun casting so many great actors in China working today. And most people didn’t mind coming to this movie. Sometimes most of them are lead actors. For example, the blind guy, Jackson Yee, is one of the biggest stars in China, but he came in for six days to do the blind guy as a supporting actor. So, I was very pleased that we got almost any talented actor that we wanted for this film. It's pretty amazing the way we assembled it.
PC: The best part about the filming is the magic of going back in time. We were determined not to shoot this film on the back lot of the studio, the Shanghai Film Studio, which has been shot multiple times in TV and film, every single day. We wanted to shoot on real location. But Shanghai has all changed. Fortunately, we found one spot north of the boom, which is less developed. And because of COVID, they have moved out people that lives in a whole block that has been around for over 100 years. And everything is preserved as it was. We got this whole block with messy architecture, it's like a maze, and we shoot in all those alleys and all those little rooms. And we also got to shoot outside of that area. And that area is in the middle of the city. But somehow, it was untouched. It's a miracle. I would be standing here on the street, and looking to my right would be 60, 80-story skyscrapers in 2025. And looking to my left would be preserved like 1945. And that is amazing. Is almost like God's gift to the movie.
MysC: What would you say to the audience that hasn't seen your film yet?
PC: I hope they would watch the film with an open mind. And I think they would, because there is less publicity around the film here. Because when it was released in China, sometimes you have so much publicity and promotion that people have an expectation of your film. And the distributor would sell your film in a way that they think is the most commercial. And it might not be what the film really is. So, I think it's better for this film to travel outside of China, so they don't have the baggage of all the movie stars, all the glamour, and all the stories, and all the trailers, and all the expectation of the film. So, they would see the film for what it really is. Because we showed the film in Toronto and the reaction was amazing. It's better not to know what the film is than to have too much information.
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