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Star and Rain, a school for kids who suffer from autism, is going to hold an event on Wednesday evening in the Event center (大学生活动中心) of the University of International Business and Economics
(对外经贸大学), 10 East Huixin Street, Chaoyang District. The school for the moment receives no government money and depends totally on volunteers and donations. Anyone who is interested to help are welcome to come. A documentary about the school and the kids is going to be screened. Director Rob Aspey and producer Alexander Haase will also be present. More information abut the movie, check their website. This article is from Danwei.org
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China Film Journal is a new "bilingual website dedicated to Chinese-language cinema from around the world ... The Founding Editors of China Film Journal are Peijin Chen [of Shanghaiist] and Erick Peterson." This article is from Danwei.org
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The Case, a film directed by Wang Fen the young filmmaker interviewed in a recent Danwei TV episode will be screened at Beijing's Changhong Cinema (near Dongsi subway station) on Sunday January 13 at 2pm. You can register for a seat at Ruzuo.com (Chinese only). This article is from Danwei.org
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 Musician Tujiko Noriko and director Mak Yan Yan The 2007 Big Screen Film Festival concluded in Kunming last week, and your correspondent was one of the jurors.
There were over 90 films from all over the world, including animations, experimental shorts, and full length documentaries and feature films. My fellow jurors were Marco Ceresa of the Ca' Foscari University of Venice and one of the organizers of the Venice Film Festival, and Baobei'r in Love screenwriter Wang Yao (王要).
The festival took place inside the Yuansheng ethnic minority theater, a privately-run organization dedicated to preserving Yunnan's minority people's traditional music and dance. Yuansheng is itself in an interesting spot, an old factory yard that has been occupied by cafés, galleries and bars. It's a little like 798—the former arms factory in Beijing that has become a zone of art galleries and posers.
 Jurors Wang Yao and Marco Ceresa
In addition to the films, there were nightly music performances, including the ethnic minority house musicians and dancers of Yuansheng (see this video), Kunming-based bilingual hip hop duo Rap Republic (说唱共和国), and Japanese electro-chanteuse Tujiko Noriko who flew in from Paris for the occasion. Visiting directors included Hong Kong's Mak Yan Yan (麦婉欣) whose last feature film was Butterfly (蝴蝶) was about a *** affair in Hong Kong. Mak's new film won the best feature film award at the festival in Kunming.
After five heady days of film and music, this was our juror's statement:
Yunnan Big Screem Film Festival Winners
All the films selected say something about confronting modernity, and the ways traditional minority cultures cope with change.
Animation
Almost like one of the family by Astrid Goransson, Sweden
The story of a country girl who goes to town, told with virtuosity and wit. The story is based on letters written by the girl to her sister back home. Extremely impressive technically, and very human.
Video art and experimental films
Series of four films by Jean-Gabriel Periot, France
Dies Irae, Under Twilight, Even if she had been a criminal, and Nijumanji No Borei are four scenes from a larger fresco depicting the destruction of modernity and the preservation of the memories of a generation now almost disappeared.
Short film
Il Vecchio e La Fontana by Toni Palazzo, Italy
The last day of an old man in a small village in Sicily. A light-hearted mix of dream sequences and reality.
Documentary
Living in a Perfect World by Diego D'innocenzo and Marco Leopardi, Italy
Mennonites are a Luddite, immigrant religious group a little like the Amish. This film depicts four communities of Mennonites in Mexico and Bolivia facing modernity. Some of the communities in the film decide to accept some modern amenities like electricity and cars, which causes more conservative members to go elsewhere to pursue their conservative traditions.
Feature film
The Scarlett Robe 大红袍 by Mak Yan Yan
A slowly and beautifully shot tale of a mother and daughter who both sing traditional Cantonese opera, and their complicated relationship.
There is more information about the event on the Big Screen Festival website. News about next year's festival will be announced on the websites of organizers Go Kunming and CinaOggi. One of the images used above is by Piero Vio of Cina Oggi.
This article is from Danwei.org
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 SARFT was here. The version of Ang Lee's Lust, Caution that is showing on the mainland is 13 minutes shorter than the version seen by most of the rest of the world. As with all edits made to pass the SARFT censors, cuts to Lust, Caution are not supposed to affect the film in any material way.
That claim would be debatable, except for the fact that a directive was handed down ordering the media not to debate it. However, one man is not taking things lying down. Dong Yanbin (董彦斌), a PhD student at the China University of Politics and Law, is suing UME International Cineplex and SARFT over the edited version of Lust, Caution. He says that by showing a cut version of the film, UME infringed on his rights as a consumer; SARFT earns his ire for refusing to implement a ratings system that would allow adult films to be treated separately from children's movies.
Coincidentally, UME International Cineplex is run by Ng See Yuen, a Hong Kong producer who has been a tireless advocate of a film ratings system for the mainland. Perhaps not so coincidentally, there was also a directive handed down ordering the Chinese media to "avoid hyping Lust, Caution and the film ratings system."
Here's how the Beijing Times describes Dong's case:
Dong Yanbin said that on 9 November, he paid 50 yuan to watch Ang Lee's Lust, Caution at the Beijing UME International Cineplex. "I was extremely disappointed when it was finished. Compared to Eileen Chang's original, the version of Lust, Caution that was shown was structurally incomplete and there were gaps in the portrayal of the leading lady's psyche. This made it hard for the audience to appreciate the true artistry of the film."
Dong said that the full version of Lust, Caution shown in countries and regions around the world has won widespread acclaim. As consumers of cinema products, Chinese audiences are not lacking in their judgment or aesthetic sensibilities, and they have the right to fair consumption. UME, which showed the film, should have presented audiences with a complete movie: "The capacity to make judgments about a film's plot elements rests primarily with the consumer, or at least with the adult consumer, not with the theater. Moreover, SARFT ought to bring out a film ratings system as quickly as possible in order to improve the system for supervising the showing of movies."
Dong had his lawyer file the suit yesterday. He alleges that the theater infringed on the public's rights, and that SARFT's delay in setting up a film ratings system violates the public's interests. He wants an apology, 500 yuan for emotional damages, and screenings of the uncut version of Lust, Caution "for adults like [him]."
UME argues that it has no control over which version of Lust, Caution it is able to show: "All showings of this film nationwide are of the cut version. We wanted to show the complete version, too, but it's up to SARFT whether it gets cut." The UME manager also pointed out that Ang Lee himself made the cuts in order to get the film certified for distribution in the mainland.
And it turns out that Dong Yanbin's suit may be impossible to file. According to the Beijing Times article, the Xicheng court said that Dong would have to provide an uncut version of the film as evidence before it would register his case.
Links and Sources
This article is from Danwei.org
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 Hong Kong and mainland versions of Naraka 19. Twins fans and afficionados of Hong Kong horror movies will have heard of the recent release of the film Naraka 19 (地狱第19层). The movie is based on the best-selling book The 19th Level of Hell by Cai Jun, a prolific young novelist.
Mainland audiences made the book a best-seller, but they won't be seeing a movie about Hell. Instead, the movie hit mainland screens under the neutered title The 19th Space (第十九层空间). SARFT regulations bar films from propagating feudal superstition; Hell, it seems, isn't suitable for current national conditions.
In an otherwise positive review of the film, blogger Sandbird writes:
The movie that is showing in Hong Kong preserves the original name of the novel, "Nineteenth Level of Hell." But on the mainland, reportedly because of the intervention of SARFT censors, the name was changed to "The 19th Space." Reportedly, censorship rules demand that the word "hell" not appear in movie titles (to suggest a crazy thought, suppose that someone shot a mainstream movie called something like From the Old Society to the New: From Hell to Heaven - would that have to be changed to "From Space to Heaven?")
It's actually a wonder that the movie got made at all. The plot of the book revolves around a mysterious SMS game that starts off with the question, "Do you know what's at the 19th level of Hell?" Players progress through a text-adventure game that becomes more emotionally draining the further they advance.
As a result, the characters in the book spend a lot of their time sitting around reading and responding to text messages on their mobile phones. It's not the sort of material that you'd think would work well on-screen, but the nature of the SMS messages give the filmmakers the opportunity to spin frenetic CGI sequences and place their characters in the sort of mortal danger that one expects out of a horror film. Slip-ups tend to be fatal, with people committing suicide as a "GAME OVER" message flashes on the mobile phone screen.
However, mortal danger in horror films is frowned upon by the mainstream censors. Naraka 19 lost several minutes of footage and had its ending altered when it became The 19th Space. Here are some examples (spoilers follow): Click here to reveal the spoilers section.
In the movie, as in the original book, the SMS game exercises a hypnotic power over its players, giving them hallucinations that what they are playing is real. This leads two of the roommates to their deaths - one cuts out her tongue early in the picture, and another drowns in a reservoir, corresponding to different levels of Hell as found in Chinese mythology. In the book, this is shown to be the goal of a Nietzschean superman who wants to find an intellectual equal; in the movie, the game's architect is a moral absolutist who deals out the punishment for sin.
According to online reports, the death scenes in the mainland version are much less graphic than in the Hong Kong release. The "Lake of Blood" level of Hell doesn't turn up at all.
These deaths are unmistakable, and are referenced many times later in the movie. But in the mainland version, no one is allowed to die. Instead, the practically the entire movie is revealed to be a massive hallucination. The two dead roommates return in an epilogue as voice-over narration describes how they recovered under the watchful care of the police and the hospital.
Even the evil mastermind shows up alive after falling from the roof of a building into a raging inferno - that must've been an illusion as well. The ending is incredibly confusing, and hence ultimately unsatisfying; how much of this is due to SARFT-driven cuts is unclear.
The movie abandons several aspects of Cai Jun's original work. Some of these are wise choices - a Da Vinci Code-like subplot involving the hidden meaning of paintings of Hell done by an Italian artist who came to China around the turn of the century was mostly a red-herring in the original, so the story doesn't suffer from its excision.
However, other cuts strip the film of any relevance beyond what few shocks it provides. In the book, Cai uses the Hell game to comment on the growth of the "thumb tribe" (拇指族) - SMS addicts - and how their increasing involvement in the world on their small screens corresponds to a gradual withdrawal from normal personal interaction and an alienation from the world around them. That theme isn't present at all in the film.
It's an unfortunate omission. It's the basic concept of the SMS game that's actually the most frightening part of the whole story: an evil IT developer creates an SMS game that addicts its users and infects their friends' mobile phones. Imagine the profit that could be made from a SMS game that occupies its users for a half hour each night. And if there were no numerologically significant limit to the number of levels in the game, it could go on forever. Taking over the world, two thumbs at a time. Now that's a horror story.
Links and Sources
This article is from Danwei.org
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 Poster for 2006 version of Japan Sinks. (日本沉没) is a 1973 disaster movie based on the novel by Sakyo Komatsu. A big-budget remake was shot last year; the new movie arrives on Chinese screens in September.
Whenever an international blockbuster lands in China, a portion of the domestic media coverage is devoted to comparisons with the Chinese film industry. In this case the question is: what about China's home-grown disaster movies? Where are they? For that matter, are there any Chinese disaster novels?
In an opinion piece printed in today's Beijing Youth Daily, Henan resident Yue Jianguo argues that, rather than leading to widespread panic, disaster movies can be a useful way to increase the public's readiness, thereby minimizing the danger when disaster actually strikes.
The Sinking of Japan is also an early-warning to China
by Yue Jianguo / BYD
On 14 September, the most expensive Japanese movie in history, Japan Sinks, will premiere in China. This is a remake of the 1973 original, which was adapted from Sakyo Komatsu's disaster novel. The story: several brilliant, righteous oceanographers discover signs that the Japanese archipelago is sinking. When the news gets out, the entire country panics. Amid continual earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions, people begin to transfer their property overseas with the thought of fleeing the country. The government drafts a plan to migrate people to other parts of the world, only to meet fierce opposition and countermeasures from other countries. The story ends as the islands of Japan slip beneath the waves.
This movie, with its mission of awakening and strengthening Japan's sense of urgency and anxiety, is too alarmist for many of us; can the Japanese people, who have lived peaceful, affluent lives for the better half of a century, possibly accept such a film? The answer is yes. People who have been to Japan's book stores know that this kind of book can be found all over: books like Japan Crisis, Japan Faces Challenges, Japan's Tragedy, Japan's Coming Collapse, and Whither Japan?. Japan is an island nation, surrounded on all sides by the ocean. The country is like a raft that can capsize at any time. Add to this the earthquakes, frequent volcanic eruptions, scarcity of natural resources, and a dense population....the people lack a sense of security, and this feeling naturally fosters a deep-seated sense of urgency and anxiety. Japan Sinks exists against this backdrop. Then I naturally have the following question: China is a place where natural disasters frequently occur, so why is this type of book so scarce? Perhaps this has to do with geography. China is in no danger of being swallowed by the ocean. Its territory is vast, and even if natural disasters like earthquakes, storms, floods, and droughts occur frequently, there is space to spare. We have the advantage compared to Japan, but will this gradually form a sense of satisfaction, a mentality in which we worship of the past and dislike looking to the future, and in which we lack a sense of urgency or anxiety?
Preparation for major natural disasters is nothing more than revealing or "exaggerating" the detailed premonitions of disaster that normal people cannot easily discover, inviting the public and the media to turn their eyes toward possible disasters, pushing scholars and scientists to perform expert analyses and predictions, and suggesting various plans for avoiding disasters or reduce their dangers to the lowest level possible. When repeated national debate finally results in a commonly accepted wisdom, the government and legislature may take the necessary measures to institute necessary laws and regulations to ensure that various plans are effective. In short, this functions no differently from a weather forecast - even though it may sometimes be a false alarm, it would be much worse not to predict the weather. So we should not simply be afraid that the public will be unable to endure the assault of preparations for major emergencies. We ought to understand that the public is weak in this regard only because it has been ignorant of disaster prediction for such a long time. If we are able to perform drills and educate the public about such preparations, then people will no longer be overly panicked. Instead, they will face disasters calm and composed.
I am aware of at least a few Chinese disaster novels. In Crisis in 2009 (危机在2009年发生), a novel written by mystery author Lan Ma in 2001, a spatial anomaly threatens the end of humanity. Tsunamis swamp Shanghai and Osaka, and a Japanese terrorist group takes advantage of the chaos aims nuclear weapons at China.
Han Song's Western Voyage: 2066 (2066之西行漫记, aka Red Star Over America), describes a United States in the throes of a cultural revolution. The oceans have risen - Japan is no longer a physical country - and because of a systemic breakdown in infrastructure, the retaining walls surrounding America's coastal cities have collapsed.
And then there's Lala's Green Fields (绿野), the winner of the 2006 Galaxy Award for Best Science Fiction Book, presented at the 2007 SF conference in Chengdu earlier this week.
A collection of four stories, Green Fields is at least in part a disaster novel. The title novella tells of an ecological disaster that consumes the earth in 2105. In a world where the human immune system has completely broken down, people rely on artificial skin and constant injections of antibiotics to survive. But when the Earth's mantle breaks through the crust, it might be the end of life as we know it. Ocean levels rise, wiping out coastal cities, and water from ancient underground lakes is sent spewing into the atmosphere, carrying with it prehistoric germs that the human body has never seen before.
Both Han Song and Lala set their stories in the US - this is not uncommon in Chinese SF, even in stories no one would expect to cause panic in the populace.
Links and Sources
This article is from Danwei.org
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The theme of the July issue of Soho Xiaobao is the tenth anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China. It features short, one-page essays by a number of guest contributors from Hong Kong, including the following look at the film industry by Tony Leung:
These ten years
the humble opinion of someone in the Hong Kong film industry
by Tony Leung Ka-fai
In July everyone was discussing the tenth anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to the motherland. I will gladly stand up and, from my position within the film industry, share with you all my own experiences. For me, twenty-five years have passed in the blink of an eye since I returned to China to shoot movies. For the past quarter-century, the Chinese film industry has travelled at leaps and bounds; its speed so fast and its power so ferocious that it has indeed exceeded anyone's imagination.
Due to a fortunate coincidence, I returned to Beijing twenty-five years ago to make movies. At the time, there were already talented people working in the mainland film industry. There was hard work and creativity, although nothing could be done about the relative backwardness of the hardware at the time - I can't deny that it was quite far off international levels. Many things had to be brought in from Hong Kong, and because workers grew up in different environments, there were occasional instances of unavoidable mistakes and times when people's individual strengths did not complement each other as well as they could have.
Besides, the attitude of people in the industry is quite different today from what it was at the time. As a young guy just starting out, I felt exactly the same returning to work in Beijing as I did working in any other city in the world. At most it was just that the food was more to my liking and I could more easily adapt to the lifestyle and language. In foreign cities there weren't these conveniences. Today's situation is different. Now, China possesses a film market with immense potential, and in addition, many provinces and cities have set up centers devoted to film production. Science and technology, financial resources, and personnel are all first-rank. Film companies from across the world are looking for opportunities to shoot in China, and who knows how many films are being shot in China every day by domestic, foreign, and joint-venture companies. And the trend is continuing to flourish - the opportunities for future development are indeed unlimited.
As the center for film production has moved north in the ten years since the return, numbers of Hong Kong cinema personnel - actors, front-office workers and people behind the camera - have been increasing in all areas. Today, when Hong Kong film workers return to the motherland to work, they have a feeling of closeness and pride at development all across China. You can hardly compare that to my not caring one way or the other when I first came back to work.
There are critics who say that in the ten years since Hong Kong returned to the motherland, there are areas in which integration with the motherland has been done well, and there are some areas in which things have proceeded slowly. I cannot address each individually, but in my humble opinion, this decade has primarily been a mutual adaptive phase. There's no reason for anxiety - on the contrary, what's most important making sure the foundation is adjusted properly. On this front, the movie industry has indeed achieved a measure of success.
In the past, there was limited interaction between actors in Hong Kong and on the mainland, and due to the current adaptive phase, there may be times when the subject matter and originality of movies might be limited. As close contact grows between film-makers in the two regions, and as China brings forth world-class directors and fresh, creative and innovative troops, they will gain positive appraisal on the world stage. In international film festivals, the number of awards won by people in Hong Kong film has gradually crept upward, and many of those awards were once given only to people on the mainland. At the same time, the work attitude of many people in the biz has begun to change; in the past it was common to speak of partnerships between Hong Kong and China, but now Hong Kong belongs to China and everyone is talking about how to be a part of China and pursuing success in their work. These are all things to cheer about, good things that have happened to the film industry over the ten years since the return.
My look back at the last decade is over, and I remain optimistic looking ahead at the next ten years. The average person usually overestimates what goals can be accomplished in a year but underestimates what can be achieved in a decade. In truth, a decade passes in the blink of an eye, and it is hard to get a handle on it. Why not set a practical goal even further off? Hong Kong has been part of the motherland for ten years now, and everyone has had sufficient time to adjust and become accustomed to it. They understand that Hong Kong is part of the big family of China, and they know the strengths and potential of the Chinese film industry. In the next ten years, our goal should be to continue cooperation with other cities in China, to make good use of our financial, technological, and human resources and opportunities, and to enter the world market under the "made in China" brand, not just as a "Hong Kong - China co-production." We eagerly anticipate even greater success.
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The documentary Nanjing arrived in China on 7 July to great fanfare. But as of this past weekend it seems to have quietly disappeared.
From Monday's People's Daily:
Today, several people who came to Shanghai's Nextage Film Art Center specifically to see Nanjing were very disappointed when they were informed that the schedule had been changed: Nanjing was no longer showing, and it had been replaced with Transformers. Reportedly, the cinema had more than 30 showings of Transformers today, with only one morning slot reserved for a showing of Nanjing. A manager explained: "We had already done the calculations and saved one spot for Nanjing. Other theaters had basically stopped showing it. We can't ignore economic interests!"
Despite previous statements from Xu Xiaoping, general manager of Shanghai United Cinema Line Corporation, that the company's eight prints of Nanjing would continue to be shown in Shanghai after the onslaught of Transformers - "Audiences who want to watch will definitely be able to!" - Shanghai's major theaters decided separately to give most of their weekend time to Transformers. One theater's promise to "increase the number of screenings of Nanjing next week" was thought by fans to be empty rhetoric.
According to PD, audience response was quite good in Beijing and Shanghai, where the film was in limited release. But it wasn't available many other places - there wasn't even a print in Nanjing itself. Why?
One critic pointedly said that many theaters "put too much emphasis on ticket sales, and will play whatever brings in the money. But they've ignored one thing - theaters aren't purely entertainment venues; they have the vital mission to provide the populace with cultural products." And a netizen said, "Nanjing is the most appropriate sort of 'patriotic education,' but we gave up too easily."
In an accompanying opinion piece, reporter Li Hongbing speculated about the larger meaning of Nanjing's box office failure: 
Nanjing was "forced out" by Transformers; perhaps, in today's climate where works of art are moving toward the market, we can't criticize the theaters for their decision. But it is interesting that all of the theaters happened to have the same worry: serious movies equal poor ticket sales. How is it that so many industry professionals are trapped in such a fixed mentality?
To China's theaters and to more than a few people in the audience, Nanjing was seen as a serious film. But this movie did not enjoy the traditional "glory" of having work units organize viewings, and as a result, it was just a feint that did not create the reaction it should have in its "hometown" of Nanjing.
I can't help but think of the similarly WWII-themed tragedy, Schindler's List. In its subject matter and its educational meaning, Schindler's List was also a serious film, but with its extraordinary artistic inspiration it not only won seven Oscar statues but set box office records as well.
Of course, Nanjing is a documentary, and the American director's first concern was not artistry. However, China itself reportedly has several international-level directors, and has had several blockbusters that have raked in buckets of cash, so why haven't they picked up on such soul-stirring, native subject matter as the Nanjing Massacre? The world's awareness and contemplation of the Nanjing Massacre trails far behind that of the concentration camps for Jews at Auschwitz. One major reason is that we do not have great, internationally-influential works of art that exhibit that period of national tribulation.
Films with serious themes can too attract people to theaters. No wonder so many of our countrymen ask, when will we truly have a Chinese version of Schindler's List?
Yes, when?
Perhaps next year: Hong Kong's Yim Ho and the mainland's Lu Chuan are both working on their own versions for the big screen.
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 Shao Xiaoshan (邵小珊) Shao Xiaoshan is an actress who was Zhang Ziyi's nude body double in some bathing and sex scenes in The Banquet (夜宴), Feng Xiaogang's recent box office bomb. Just before the movie was released, Shao made it into the news because she demanded to be included in the cast list of the film.
Now Shao is in the news again. In the wake of a recent divorce, she is looking for a foreign husband, and advertising for him on her blog. Her requirements are:
Male
Citizen of foreign country
Not a pervert
Heterosexual
Has the trust of his own country's government
Will not control me
Will not be nasty to me
Will care for me
If you fit the criteria, you can give her a call on 1336 689 1955. Your correspondent has verified that Shao answers the phone and that the marriage advertisement is not a joke.
She is also looking a for a foreign female flat mate, you can call on the same number.
The image is copied from China Youth Daily (where there is a Chinese language article about the affair).
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 Soho Xiaobao Jia Zhangke belongs to the "sixth generation" of Chinese directors. His most recent film, Still Life, won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and was the subject of a bit of controversy during its mainland release - Zhang Weiping, producer for fifth-generation director Zhang Yimou, accused Jia and his producers of buying off the Venice jury to obtain the Golden Lion.
And earlier this year, Still Life was criticized by SARFT official Zhang Hongsen as an artistic failure that "lacked warmth" and insulted the Chinese people.
In the most recent issue of Soho Xiaobao, a privately-published newsletter for inhabitants of Pan Shiyi's Soho real-estate developments, Jia Zhangke writes of another time that one of his films was targeted for criticism by film makers and film censors alike.
A Record of Confusion
by Jia Zhangke
On 13 January 1999, I was called in for a chat by the Film Bureau. I was 29 that year - I'd just graduated - and I'd hardly ever crossed the threshold of a government agency. My heart was thumping as I traipsed back and forth, and I finally saw the black-on-white sign for the State Administration of Radio Film and TV in a hutong off Dongsi. As I looked it over and prepared to proceed, suddenly seven or eight middle-aged men poured forth from the door. One seemed familiar, so I immediately got up against a wall to look at them. Sure enough, he was a fifth-generation master. I saw him buddy-buddy with those genteel officials, shoulder to shoulder, followed by a crowd under the eaves before the foyer, Such an enchanting classical charm that complemented the aura that has filled the hutongs since the Ming and Qing. This threw me into a daze. The master whom I had imagined to be a heavenly immortal unconcerned with affairs of the flesh looked so at ease before the gate to the halls of officialdom, as if it were the door to his own home.  The crowd dispersed like the soot beneath the wheels of the master's Jeep, and in the stillness of the hutong I cursed myself for my inexperience. Those officials were no monsters of evil visage; they had the air of books about them, like an elderly Zhao Wen.
I entered to find that this was a large complex of buildings. The gatekeeper uttered a short cry, cutting short my interest and adding a few measured of anxiety. I reported why I had come and was pointed in the direction I was to go. I crossed the columns of the walkway and, before entering the door ahead, I raised my hand to knock. Unexpectedly, it was the elderly Zhao Wen who came out. Life is full of coincidences; truly, it was ordained by heaven. It turned out that he was the official who had arranged on the phone to meet me. Lao Zhao was not in a hurry to discuss with me the purpose of my visit; he just led me into the hall. This was the former residence of minister Liu Luoguo; I thought of the antics of Li Baotian and couldn't help chuckling.
As I took a seat in the room, Lao Zhao offered me tea and told me that he had to go out for a moment. He asked me to wait alone for him in the office, and to make myself at home. After he left, my gaze scanned my surroundings like a roving camera lens. On the table, a photocopy caught my eye, for the document appeared to have my name on it. With the excitement of Jiang Gan stealing the letter, I made sure that there was no one around and then picked up the document to have a look. Photocopied on the front was a report from the film pages of Taiwan's Great Daily News (大成报) on my movie Pickpocket. This was unsurprising. What made me catch my breath was the fact that to the side of the main text were a few hand-written lines: Would the bureau leaders please attend to this matter and not let this type of film influence our country's normal foreign cultural interchange.
Intense anger swelled within me after I read this. It was only after I had calmed down that I read the name at the bottom of the report: XX. XX was the associate screenwriter* for that fifth-generation master. I could not believe it - what am I to you? We're both in the same field, so why are you so eager to turn on me? People should be decent, so why speak maliciously about a colleague? Confused, so confused! I returned the document to its original position and sat dumbly in my chair. I heard myself let out a long sigh, and tears welled up in my heart - not for myself, but for the snitch. I thought of the words of Romain Rolland: Today I had for him only infinite compassion and pity! But in this world, I felt that I had an ethical advantage.
Lao Zhao entered, smiling. He said, you know why I've asked you here. I said, I know. Lao Zhao took up a sentencing declaration: From this day forth, Jia Zhangke's right to shoot filmed dramas is suspended. He and I were both silent. Lao Zhao took the informer's letter off the table, hesitated for a long moment, and sighed: We didn't want to punish you, but your colleague, your elder, reported you.
I left the office as if in a dream, my hands clutching the letter of punishment. One man walking through the hutong cut by shadows. How mysterious are men's hearts, how unfathomably complicated. In my confusion I thought, retaining this confusion would be a sort of equanimity.
On his blog, columnist Wang Xiaoshan commented on the identity of Jia's "XX":
Jia Zhangke was quite decent: in his article, he used "XX" in place of the name of the informer. Many people are guessing at who it is, and even more people know. I am not decent, so I'll say it: this "XX" is Zhang Yimou's associate screenwriter Wang Bin, who designed Hero and Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles.
A CSOnline reporter later contacted Wang Xiaoshan, who said: "The only two fifth-generation masters are Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, but Chen Kaige doesn't use an associate screenwriter, so there's only one choice left."
The CSOnline report notes that several years ago, Jia Zhangke revealed in an interview that he had paid a fine of 10,000 for Pickpocket's infractions and had written up a report admitting that he seriously interfered with China's foreign cultural interchange.
Wang Bin denies that he is "XX". From The Beijing News:
Wang Bin first denied that he was the "XX" mentioned in the article. He said, "When he filmed Pickpocket, Jia Zhangke was an unknown director, and while we were in the same field, there was no competition between us in that realm. He and I are not connected in any way, so I never had any motive to inform on him. I have always believed that reporting secrets is a bad characteristic of the Chinese people. Zhang Yimou's films have always contained portrayals of this poor habit, which I use to discuss this truth." He also put up a request for Jia Zhangke: "I hope that Jia Zhangke can reveal to us all as soon as possible who "XX" is, to publicize the true name of this individual." He said that he would not rule out taking legal action against the columnist [Wang Xiaoshan].
Afterward, the reporter contacted Jia Zhangke's assistant, Ms. Dai, who said that this article was indeed written by Jia, but it was just a casual essay and not carefully targeted. Jia Zhangke himself hopes to leave the matter here, and he does not wish to reply and further.
Note: 文学策划: Wang Bin has filled this role for Zhang Yimou's films since To Live in 1993. What's the corresponding title in Hollywood filmmaking?
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