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Tian's new flick is no wolf in sheep's clothing

By Liu Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-30 11:23

The Warrior and Wolf, ,directed by Tian Zhuangzhaung, will hit theaters on Friday.

The Warrior and the Wolf (Lang Zai Ji) has everything that makes a commercial blockbuster - a plot, war, sex and two international stars. But it is still an auteur film with the strong personal imprint of Tian Zhuangzhuang, a flagman of the "fifth-generation directors", such as Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige.

"However commercial a story, I can make it non-commercial," Tian jokes. "An obvious flaw we (the fifth-generation) have is that we carry too much baggage when making films."

Wolf, based on Japanese writer Inoue Yasushi's short story, is not a complex tale. An ancient Chinese soldier Lu Shenkang encounters a cursed tribal woman in war, and the two become wolves after seven nights together. One could see it as an Indiana Jones set in ancient China or a Mummy IV, but Tian says he would rather focus on the role of fate.

Tian believes in fate, maybe because many times in his life it has been more powerful than his personal will.

His father Tian Fang was the deputy director of the State Film Bureau, and his mother Yu Lan was a renowned actress. As a boy Tian went to top schools in Beijing and lived in neighborhoods that were home to some of the most famous Chinese filmmakers.

But during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), he was sent to the rural areas and then joined the army. He never gave filmmaking a thought until he met an amateur photographer in the army. In 1978, he was admitted to Beijing Film Academy's directing department.

His first two well-known films, On the Hunting Ground (Liechang Zhasha) and The Horse Thief (Dao Ma Zei) shocked movie-goers in the 1980s, with its wild narrative and cinematography.

When he was making The Horse Thief, he met Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci, who asked him to submit it to the Venice Film Festival. He never did. Later, he came to know that Bertolucci was leading the festival's jury that year.

In 1993, he made The Blue Kite (Lan Fengzheng), a film reflecting on the 15 years before the "cultural revolution" from a child's point of view. The film brought him much praise internationally but a ban at home. He did not direct any film until eight years later.

His last film was a biopic on the go, or weiqi, master Wu Qingyuan, made in 2004. But the film will only be seen in the near future because the investor went bust before its original screening date.

During the years he spent teaching at the Beijing Film Academy, his fellow-alumni Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige were making great strides with such box office triumphs as Hero (Ying Xiong) and The Promise (Wu Ji).

When Wolf got underway last year in Xinjiang, many assumed that the film, starring Joe Odagiri and Maggie Q, two beloved stars in Asia, would be Tian's homage to blockbusters. They got it wrong.

"I am not transforming into something else," Tian says. "Your education, environment and experience determine what kind of work you will produce. A director has to learn a lot of new things, but what he produces will still be who he is."

For the same reason, sex has never been a focus in Tian's films and will not be in this one either.

The action scenes, although enhanced by computer graphics, are also brief. "The story touches me most with its characters, not with sex and violence," he says.

The film will premiere on Friday, with English subtitles.