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CHINESE BOX
CHINESE BOX
in focus
Director Wayne Wang
on the set of Chinese Box, starring inset, Jeremy Irons and Chinese star, Gong Li.
S et between New Year’s Eve and June 30, 1997, Chinese Box is a turbulent drama of star-crossed love during the last six months of British colonial rule in Hong Kong. Directed by Wayne Wang, it stars Jeremy Irons as an ailing English jour- nalist who’s deeply in love with the girl- friend (Gong Li) of a Chinese businessman (Michael Hui). Further complicating matters is Iron’s continuing obsession with documenting the life and times of Jean (Maggie Cheung), an attrac-
tive and streetwise hustler.
Described by co-writer Jean-Claude Carriere
as “Wayne Wang’s love letter to Hong Kong”, it’s the film-maker’s first movie set in his native home
since first leaving the Colony for the States at the tender age of 18. In America, his credits include Dim Sum, Slamdance, Eat A Bowl Of Tea, The Joy Luck Club and Smoke.
Filmed on location in Hong Kong as the real- life events were actually happening, Wang’s goal was to reflect a high level of reality in the way the locations and the sets were photographed: “I wanted Chinese Box to be gritty and immediate. Vilko Filac was the kind of person I was looking for - ‘a cinematic guerrilla’. We made a decision to shoot almost everything hand-held. It’s not pretty, pristine or controlled but it’s always moving and has a rough edge to it ... which is exactly what Hong Kong is and always was, about.”
Bosnian-born Filac, who lit When Father Was Away On Business and Time Of The Gypsies for Emir Kusturica in the former Yugoslavia, roamed the streets of Hong Kong collecting evocative doc- umentary images of street life, like the public slaughter of animals used for food as well as the parallel existence of poverty and homelessness.
“Hong Kong,” said Filac, “is very photogenic because you have all these contrasts. Just look around at the buildings. Very poor, very rich, very high, very low. All attractive for a photographer. Life here is also interesting to photograph, too, because it’s so concentrated. There’s a maximum concentration of everything - big, small, nice, ugly, good and bad. The place simply ticks.” ■
China Box will be released in the UK later this year.