World Film Locations: Beijing : Beijing [1 ed.] 9781841506777, 9781841506425

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WORLD FILM LOCATIONS beijing Edited by John Berra and Liu Yang

WORLD FILM LOCATIONS BEIJING Edited by John Berra and Liu Yang

First Published in the UK in 2012 by Intellect Books, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK First Published in the USA in 2012 by Intellect Books, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA Copyright ©2012 Intellect Ltd Cover photo: The Last Emperor Yanco/Tao/Recorded Picture Co / The Kobal Collection Copy Editor: Emma Rhys

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written consent. A Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library World Film Locations Series ISSN: 2045-9009 eISSN: 2045-9017 World Film Locations Beijing ISBN: 978-1-84150-642-5 eISBN: 978-1-84150-677-7 Printed and bound by Bell & Bain Limited, Glasgow

WORLD FILM LOCATIONS BEIJING editors John Berra and Liu Yang series editor & de sign Gabriel Solomons contributors Carol Mei Barker John Berra Chris Berry Yomi Braester Chu Kiu-wai Mariagrazia Costantino Christopher Howard Joann Huifen Hu Dave McCaig Seio Nakajima Eija Niskanen Donna Ong Sam Voutas Grace Wang Wenfei Wang Wei Ju Isabel Wolte Liu Yang location photography Seppe Van Grieken, Longmen/Beijing (unless otherwise credited) location maps Joel Keightley

published by Intellect The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK T: +44 (0) 117 9589910 F: +44 (0) 117 9589911 E: [email protected]

Bookends: View over the city (Mark Lewis) This page: The Karate Kid (Kobal) Overleaf: M. Butterfly (Kobal)

CONTENTS Maps/Scenes

Essays

10 Scenes 1-8 1972 - 1993 30 Scenes 9-16 1993 - 1997 50 Scenes 17-24 1997 - 2001 70 Scenes 25-32 2001 - 2004 90 Scenes 33-39 2004 - 2007 108 Scenes 40-46 2007 - 2011

6 Beijing: City of the Imagination John Berra 8

Confined Spaces: Conflict within the Squares and Courtyards of Qing Dynasty Beijing Joann Huifen Hu

28 Feng Comedy: Beijingers in a Transitional Era Liu Yang 48 Made in China: The Production of Red Light Revolution (Sam Voutas, 2010) Sam Voutas 68 Navigating Beijing: Dreamers, Drifters and Drivers Mariagrazia Costantino 88 The State of Things: Political Power in Beijing Yomi Braester 106 Zhang Yuan’s Urban Cinema: Transitional Cityscapes and Peripheral Lives Dave McCaig Backpages 124 Resources 125 Contributors 128 Filmography

World Film Locations | Beijing

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acknowledgem ents We would like to express our gratitude to Gabriel Solomons, series editor of World Film Locations, for providing us with this wonderful opportunity to map the cinematic landscape of Beijing. Thanks must also go to the contributors to this volume for delivering scene reviews and spotlight essays that combine knowledge of the structure of China’s capital city with a deep understanding of its ever-developing urban culture. We would also like to thank Professor Lv Xiaoping, Dean of the School of Liberal Arts, Nanjing University, for cultivating a supportive academic environment that has enabled us to undertake this project alongside teaching and supervision commitments. jo hn berra and liu yang

published by Intellect The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK T: +44 (0) 117 9589910 F: +44 (0) 117 9589911 E: [email protected]

INTRODUCTION World Film Locations Beijing

the international title of Li Yu’s drama Pinggou/Lost in Beijing (2007)

effectively summarizes the experience of many first-time visitors to China’s bustling capital city. Since the economic reforms of the late-1970s, China has opened-up to the West, meaning that tourist buses are now a fixture of Beijing’s heavily-congested traffic. Although it is easy for westerners to arrange a visit to Beijing, the sprawling structure of the city entails that it is difficult to navigate, with rapid re-development making it seemingly unknowable. To say that Beijing is ‘ever-changing’ is as much of a cliché as it is a perfectly valid observation: old areas are demolished to be replaced by modern residential blocks, while new shopping malls offer the latest luxury goods, and historic sites are juxtaposed with the sports facilities that were built in the run-up to the 2008 Summer Olympics. Of course, this progress has come at a price and World Film Locations: Beijing examines the politically tumultuous past and commercially prosperous present of the city through both examples of Chinese cinema and international productions that have used the city as a location. If many films set in major cities are love letters, those located in Beijing are more like extended notation, chronicling change by recording as much information as possible regarding certain spaces before they vanish. Such cinematic representation reveals Beijing to be a city of hidden siheyuans (courtyards), looming skyscrapers and traditional hutongs (alleys), thereby encapsulating the inherent conflict of a nation in transition while evidencing a distinctive urban culture. Beijing’s identity has been explored through a range of films by diverse directors, with the film-makers of the Fifth, Sixth and Digital Generations utilizing Beijing as a location for stories that concern natives and transients at varying levels of social mobility. Beijing is often used symbolically, hence the emphasis on the city in the international titles of Beijing Zazhong/Beijing Bastards (Zhang Yuan, 1993), Shi qi sui de dan che/Beijing Bicycle (Wang Xiaoshuai, 2001) and Xiari nuanyangyang/I Love Beijing (Ning Ying, 2001). However, the city is also a space for madcap comedy, historical drama, and martial arts escapism as seen in such popular successes as Da Wan/Big Shot’s Funeral (Feng Xiaogang, 2001), Mancheng Jindai Huangjinjia/Curse of the Golden Flower (Zhang Yimou, 2006) and The Karate Kid (Harald Zwart, 2010). The 46 scene reviews and six spotlight essays of World Film Locations: Beijing explore the touristic attractions of the capital (798 Art Zone, Beijing Olympic Park, Purple Bamboo Park, the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden Palace, the Temple of Heaven) while also considering its back streets, commercial areas, public parks, residential districts, and the manner in which its cinematic inhabitants navigate this urban landscape. Scene reviews are complemented by photographs of contemporary Beijing, which offer further illustration of this multifaceted capital. If you visit Beijing, this book will hopefully serve as your film-related guide, although you are also strongly advised to bring an up-to-date map. { John Berra and Liu Yang, Editors

World Film Locations | Beijing

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BEIJING

john berra

City of the Imagination

it can be argued that cinematic representations of Beijing rely much on the imagination of film-makers and audiences, as both the city’s on-screen past and present are largely characterized by absence. With regards to the past, such absence is caused by a lack of a cinematic record of Beijing due to the initial locality of feature film production in mainland China. The first Chinese film was a recording of the Beijing Opera, Ding Junshanmade/The Battle of Dingjunshan (Ren Jingfeng, 1905) by Beijing's Fengtai Photography Studio. However, the early incarnation of China’s film industry, established in 1909, was controlled by foreign-owned production companies, such as Yaxiya and Yingze, who set up their enterprises in Shanghai, where local technicians were trained by professionals from the United States. Mingxing Film Company Pictures and Tianyi Film Company, the latter founded by the Shaw Brothers and eventually relocated to Hong Kong, found success with a mix of comic shorts and dramas based on Chinese folklore. The output of the leftist movement that emerged in the early-1930s would deal

6 World Film Locations | Beijing

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with the problems facing the lower classes in society and constitutes much of the ‘Golden Age’ of Chinese cinema. But while such films as Shennu/The Goddess (Wu Yonggang, 1934) and Malu tianshi/Street Angel (Yuan Muzhi, 1937) addressed Chinese society as a whole, they were consistently located in Shanghai, leaving Beijing without cinematic representation. Production was suspended during World War II, but when film-making resumed with the backing of some new studios, Shanghai would again serve as both industrial base and urban subject. Beijing would not become a location fixture until the Chinese government set up the Beijing Film Studio in 1949 when the People’s Republic of China was founded and the city was chosen as the capital. It was in the 1980s and 1990s that cinematic images of Beijing came to international prominence. Despite operating within political restriction, the Fifth Generation Chinese film directors achieved a degree of freedom that was subsequently capitalized on by the Sixth Generation in the mid-1990s and 2000s. This resulted in an increasing number of Beijing-set films that documented its rapid urbanization, exploring the city as a post-Mao metropolis. The scars of China’s turbulent history are evident, but Beijing is undeniably modern in terms of its cinematic identity. Yet direct commentary on its social order is seemingly absent, with parts of the city that lack tourist appeal evoking urban anonymity and film-makers expecting the audience to intuitively follow a series of abstract codes or social representations: Beijing Zazhong/Beijing Bastards (Zhang Yuan, 1993), Youchai/Postman (He Jianjun, 1995), Shi qi sui de dan che/Beijing Bicycle (Wang Xiaoshuai, 2001), Jin nian xia tian/Fish and Elephant (Li Yu, 2001), Xiari nuanyangyang/I Love Beijing (Ning Ying, 2001) and Niupi/Oxhide (Liu Jiayin, 2005) sidestep explicit statements in

Opposite I Love Beijing (2001) Below Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

Above © 1987 Asia Union Film & Entertainment Ltd. / China Film Co-Prod. Corp. Opposite © 2001 Eurasia Communications / Happy Village

favour of character studies, with individual struggles framed against a looming cityscape. The audience must assemble the wider social framework from the telling details. The urban regeneration of Beijing has resulted in a faceless capital, imagined by the mainland independent sector as a space of anxiety that can lead to a crisis of identity and ideology for natives, transients or transplants. In Jintian De Yu Zenme Yang?/How is Your Fish Today? (Guo Xiaolu, 2006), screenwriter Hui Rao, playing a meta-fiction version of himself, drives around Beijing, dealing with heavily congested traffic, musing: ‘There are 15 million people in Beijing […]. Since I moved here the city has changed so much, that I keep getting lost all the time […]. If someone goes missing in this city, how can you possibly find them?’ Getting lost is a theme that pervades many Beijing films, with the performance artist of Jidu hanleng/Frozen (Wang Xiaoshuai, 1997), the young lovers of Lan Yu (Stanley Kwan, 2001), and the university students of Yihe Yuan/ Beijing would not Summer Palace (Lou become a location Ye, 2006) all dealing fixture until the with identity issues. Chinese government People can become lost politically, but also set up the Beijing Film Studio in 1949 literally, hence the marginal characters when the People’s who are just about Republic of China scraping by, such as was founded and the the ex-convict in Ben city was chosen as ming nian/Black Snow the capital. (Xie Fei, 1990), the

bootleg DVD seller in Man Yan/Pirated Copy (He Jianjun, 2004), and the migrant couple in Pingguo/Lost in Beijing (Li Yu, 2007). When dealing with characters that exist at lower social levels, directors often imagine Beijing as a trap: a place that promises opportunity, but ultimately makes hopeful individuals entirely subservient to its accelerated economic conditions, thereby prompting disillusionment and desperate behaviour. If films shot on location in contemporary Beijing are rooted in realism, those set in its imperial past are exotic spectacles that require soundstage recreations of ancestral homes and landmarks. Such extravagant imaginings of the city inspire feelings of nationalistic pride in the Chinese audience, or a yearning for a period when society was more clearly-ordered, while increasingly receptive international viewers are transported to a world that balances the historical with the fantastical. Wohu Canglong/ Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000) and Mancheng Jindai Huangjinjia/Curse of the Golden Flower (Zhang Yimou, 2006) are wuxia (martial hero) melodramas, complete with characters performing gravity-defying physical feats within the city’s courtyards or palatial grounds. Action sequences enhanced by complicated wirework and/or computer special effects serve to link the legends of Beijing’s past with the commercial ambitions of its present, while politics remain shrouded in ambiguity. Less escapist, but equally sumptuous, the international co-production of The Last Emperor (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1987) is Chinese history as filtered through the tasteful haze of Vittorio Storaro’s awardwinning cinematography. The Forbidden City is as much of a place of indulgence for the audience as it is for Emperor Pu Yi (John Lone), who is later removed from the throne and re-educated, eventually finding happiness attending to a simple garden in the early years of the Great Leap Forward. As with all cities, the manner in which Beijing is cinematically imagined varies from film to film, depending on financing structure, genre, politics, or practical decisions made during production. But deliberate absence ensures that audiences seeking understanding of its complicated nature must read between the lines of the spaces represented. { 7

SPOTLI G HT

Confined Spaces

w Text by

Joann Huifen Hu

Conflict Within the Squares and Courtyards of Qing Dynasty Beijing

the demolition of Beijing's hutongs (alleys) in recent years has caused many native Beijingers to lament the loss of one of the city's architectural characteristics. These areas grew out of Beijing's burgeoning population after the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911; siheyuans (large courtyards) of well-to-do family residential compounds were divided once, twice, thrice, to fit smaller houses within these spaces. The courtyards and squares prior to Qing Dynasty Beijing were more spacious and serve as a perfect backdrop for film-makers to stage inner, private and contained conflicts. These subsequent hutongs also relay how Beijing's Qing Dynasty political and social scape manifests itself in more private enclosures. Most of the courtyard houses that surround the Forbidden City used to be occupied by officials, Manchu aristocrats and wealthy persons. The wuxia (martial hero) films that

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8 World Film Locations | Beijing

are set in the earlier Qing period, such as Wohu Canglong/Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000) adopt the courtyard as an empty stage where the discontents of persons belonging to the politically influential upper class unfold in physical combat. The thenspacious courtyards serve as a walled arena in which fights occur away from public view. The character of Jiaolong (Zhang Ziyi), daughter of a Manchu aristocrat, engages in a showdown with Xiulian (Michelle Yeoh), a well-respected martial artist, swordswoman and business lady, in a courtyard of grey stoned walls with sand flooring: this is a physical display of the struggles of a sheltered, young, female aristocrat yearning for the freedom and escapades that her opponent is able to pursue. In Wong Fei-hung ji saam: Si wong jaang ba/Once Upon a Time in China III (Hark Tsui, 1993), full use is made of an unknown courtyard in Beijing to stage the final showdown of a lion dance competition between various countrywide martial arts schools, as encouraged by the Empress Dowager Cixi in her bid to display Chinese credibility to the world, specifically to the technologically advanced West. It ends up with a flurry of lion dancers out-fighting one another, displaying the rivalry between martial arts schools, a messy spectacle that both the governor to the Empress and foreign diplomats witness. As in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the walls of the courtyard act as a containment of a conflict that symbolizes the degeneration of the last Chinese dynasty set in Beijing. The space of contained squares or courtyards of the Forbidden City is similarly made use of in The Last Emperor (Bernardo Bertolucci,

Opposite Once Upon a Time in China III (1993) Below The Last Emperor (1987)

Above © 1987 Recorded Picture Company (RPC) / Hemdale Film Opposite © 1993 Golden Harvest Company / Film Workshop

1987) to stage the manifestations of the political upheaval that would lead to the eventual downfall of the Qing Dynasty. In various scenes, Bertolucci depicts his protected protagonist, Emperor Puyi (John Lone), traversing across the massively barren concrete scape of courtyards and squares – mostly the space between the Meridian Gate and Gate of Supreme Harmony – of the Forbidden City. We see him running desperately after his birth mother as she is taken away from him, riding his bicycle in an attempt to escape the imperial grounds, and his old self walking morosely across the empty square as he revisits his former residence that, in 1966, had been turned into a tourist attraction. Like the fighting duels that take place in Lee's courtyards, Bertolucci's staging of the conflict within the squares of the Forbidden City is portrayed and wrought with physical burden, albeit one involving a lone figure. The inner conflict of Bertolucci's character is made more pronounced by the lack of activity in the square; the The spacious but massiveness of the enclosed squares, empty quadrangle or inner courts, of frames the lone the Qing residential compound in Beijing, character as a captive in the palace, rendering especially those of the Puyi minuscule symbolic Forbidden and helpless. Puyi’s City, set the stage for inactivity, juxtaposed private, internal and against the chaos and consequently masked political upheaval beyond the palace walls, dramatizations of such as the outbreak discontent.

of World War II and the concomitant Japanese Occupation of China, ironically expresses Puyi's emotional turmoil in having to face the political chaos from within the palace walls. In this context, his nickname of the ‘Puppet Emperor’ becomes particularly poignant. In Once Upon a Time in China III, Tsui presents this space in a much less barren manner. In the opening scene, which Tsui returns to at the end of the film, the director crams the square with rows of lion dancers performing en masse, with the Empress, her entourage and foreign diplomats looking on from the Gate of Supreme Harmony. The activity here crowds the square, but crucially remains staged and self-contained. Tsui's more crowded portrayal is reminiscent of Bertolucci's mass display of Tibetan monks, courtiers and eunuchs in the same space that are prevalent in various scenes that depict the loyal following of the Emperor. While the maximal use of the iconic square between the Meridian and Supreme Harmony Gates in both instances appears to be more ceremonial than conflictual, the contained space of the square has the same symbolic function in terms of shrouding the latent decay of the Dynasty. The spacious but enclosed squares, or inner courts, of the Qing residential compound in Beijing, especially those of the symbolic Forbidden City, set the stage for private, internal and consequently masked dramatizations of discontent: the desperation of influential members of the ruling upper class, as well as the feuds of the martial arts elite, take the cinematic form of physical and emotional ordeals. The covert display of physical conflict by the daughter of a Manchu official, the messy display of the rivalry amongst countrywide martial arts schools in Beijing, the Last Emperor's lonely walk across the barren square between the Meridian and Supreme Harmony Gates, or the mass spectacle of lined courtiers and lion dancers within the same square, all express latent vexation. This state of frustration has been brought about by questions regarding the status quo of aristocratic rule and its concomitant deterioration of political power within and beyond China. The courtyards and squares of Qing Beijing, in this constellation of political and social upheaval, are depicted by Bertolucci, Lee and Tsui as stages, from which these conflicts manifest themselves covertly. { 9

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maps are only to be taken as approximates

Qinghua-yuan Haidian Xiang

Zhongguan Cun Haidian Qu Bei Xiaguan Xicheng Qu Forbidden City

1

Laoshan Babaoshan

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Xuanwu Qu

Luguoqiao Xiang

10 World Film Locations | Beijing

Fengtai Qu

3

2

BEIJING LOCATIONS SCENES 1-8 Wangjing

2. my memories of old beijing/ chengnan jiushi (1982) Zhengyangmen, south of Tiananmen Square page 14

Heping Li

3. peking opera blues/ do ma daan (1986) Beijing Opera House, 2 West Changan Avenue page 16

Dongcheng Qu

4. the last emperor (1987) The Forbidden City, 4 Jingshanqian Road, Dongcheng District page 18

8

5

1. chung kuo – cina (1972) Xinhuamen, entrance to Zhongnanhai, Xicheng District page 12

5. black snow/ben ming nian (1990) Nanluoguxiang Hutong, Dongcheng District page 20

4 6 Tiananmen Square

Chongwen Qu

7

Daxing Qu

6. bumming in beijing: the last dreamers/liulang beijing: zuihou de mengxiangzhe (1990) Former location of the China Central Academy of Fine Arts, Dongcheng District page 22 7. for fun/zhao le (1992) Temple of Heaven, Tiantan Road, Dongcheng District page 24 8. beijing bastards/ beijing zazhong (1993) A pub in Chaoyang District page 26

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Chung Kuo – Cina LOCATI O N

(1972)

Xinhuamen, entrance to Zhongnanhai, Xicheng District

as michelangelo antonioni and his documentary team moved away from Tiananmen Square, they surreptitiously filmed Xinhuamen (the entrance Gate to Zhongnanhai). The short, fumbled shot was captured under the pretence of misunderstanding their official guide’s perturbations against filming. Antonioni’s voice-over identifies this as the home of Mao Zedong, although his residence is actually located far behind the gate, across South Lake, in the Garden of Plenty. Zhongnanhai is an even larger development: the southern and central lakes are part of three lakes created after the building of the adjacent Forbidden City. The serene environment attracted several dynasties to enjoy the site as a place of Imperial leisure. Whilst North Lake is now a public park, the rest of the area has become the seat of Republican China. Yuan Shikai first chose to use the area as a government centre, whilst the emperor continued to reside in the Forbidden City. The lakes, temples and pavilions are now joined by state buildings. Chung Kuo – Cine drew the wrath of Chinese officials, although criticism was less for the violation of filming Zhongnanhai than for Antonioni’s failure to follow the government’s ambition to produce the desired document of Chinese modernity. Rather than any kind of official architecture, it is the teaming bodies of the Chinese that fascinate Antonioni, as they waver between disciplinarity and individuality. Now an emblem of state power, Xinhuamen has recently been the place of several political protests. The Maoist slogans visible in Chung Kuo – Cine still remain today. ✒Christopher Howard (Photo © Peng, Yanan: wkimedia commons)

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Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni Scene description: Violating government filming restrictions at Xinhuamen Timecode for scene: 0:04:53 – 0:05:30

Images © 1972 Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI)

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My Memories of Old Beijing/ Chengnan jiushi (1982)

LOCATI O N

Zhengyangmen, south of Tiananmen Square

my memories of old beijing is set in the late 1920s and follows everyday events in the childhood of Yingzi. She grows up in a hutong, and after the death of her father, leaves the place forever. Lin Haiyin’s 1960 novel is tinged with nostalgia for a city to which Lin could not return from exile in Taiwan, while Wu’s screen adaptation, released in 1982, laments the atmosphere that disappeared with Beijing’s modernization. The film features the old Beijing of hutongs and siheyuans, shown through reconstruction on the lot of the Beijing Film Studios, a set later used for other films, such as Ba wang bie ji/ Farewell My Concubine (1993) and Mei Lanfang/Forever Enthralled (2008). The Chinese title specifies the location as the southern part of Beijing, known as the Outer City. Unlike the Inner City, with its imperial palaces and princely mansions, the Outer City housed the working class and was identified with a down-to-earth lore of the poor. The film begins with a camel caravan riding into the walled city. The opening credits appear over a slide of Zhengyangmen Gate, popularly known as Qianmen. The structure, which dates back to 1419 (when it was named Lizhengmen), stands between the imperial city, Tiananmen Square, and the Outer City. It now overlooks the gentrified Qianmen Avenue, yet as the period photograph shows, in the early twentieth century, the gate stood in the middle of an untended and largely deserted space. Old Beijing exists only in memories and still photos. ✒Yomi Braester

(Photo © Fred Feng: wkimedia commons)

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Directed by Wu Yigong Scene description: Camels ride into the walled city Timecode for scene: 0:00:49 – 0:03:06

Images © 1982 Shanghai Film Studios

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Peking Opera Blues/ Do ma daan (1986)

LOCATI O N

Soundstage recreation of a Beijing Opera House

beijing, 1913: General’s daughter Tsao Wan (Brigitte Lin) aims to advance the cause of the anti-monarchy revolutionaries; singer Sheung Hung (Cherie Chung) tries to make enough money to leave for America; and Pat Neil (Sally Yeh) dreams about performing on the stage, sadly not possible in the Peking Opera at a time when the female roles were played by men. While performing for a warlord, Sheung steals his jewellery, but the precious items end up at the opera. As does Tsao Wan’s resistance group, when her corrupt father decides to see the show, carrying a safety key and thus access to a secret document that the revolutionaries desperately want. Meanwhile, the opera’s main female role actor is to be married, leaving Pak Neil to play his role, while Sheung roams around backstage looking for the jewellery box. About to be exposed, she dresses in an opera costume and accidentally falls on the stage, where she performs according to the whispered directions of Pat. Hark Tsui uses the grand performance hall of an opera house at the fictional Kwok Wo building (constructed on a Hong Kong soundstage) to his advantage, also utilizing the toilet, where the resistance group plans to steal the general’s key, and dressing rooms. Sheung pretends to be a man who plays a female role in the opera, while Tsao, with her uniform and short hair, is playing a male role in ‘real’ life, thereby commenting on the gender roles of the period in a theatrical context. ✒Eija Niskanen .

(Photo © Herry Lawford: wkimedia commons)

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Directed by Hark Tsui Scene description: Role-playing at the Peking Opera Timecode for scene: 0:35:39 – 0:56:09

17

The Last Emperor LOCATI O N

(1987)

The Forbidden City, 4 Jingshanqian Road, Dongcheng District

bernardo bertolucci's The Last Emperor tells the story of China's last dynasty and largely takes place in one of Beijing's key architectural landmarks. The Forbidden City is integral to Bertolucci's depiction of the rise and fall of Emperor Pu Yi. Home and prison to the latter, the landmark is introduced in the film as a symbol of dynastic might but is portrayed in the end as a ghostly reminder of its failure. In the last scene, an old Pu Yi (John Lone) revisits his former residence. Devoid of speech, the entire scene is endowed with an echoey soundtrack as the Emperor witnesses the barren location, a far cry from the army of courtiers kowtowing to him decades prior. The scene begins with him purchasing a ticket before entering, followed by a long shot of a minuscule Pu Yi walking through the Meridian Gate. The static Gate juxtaposed with this unnoticeable motion emphasizes the architecture's massiveness. The sequence of shots in which Pu Yi watches the Gate of Supreme Harmony from the north face of the Meridian Gate is vertically divided by the pillars of the latter with the Hall of Military Eminence to the left as the protagonist advances towards the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Before reaching the throne in the Hall, Puyi is halted by a little red guard. Pu Yi convinces him that he once lived there by pulling out a box from under the throne, revealing a cricket that he once owned as the young Emperor. ✒Joann Huifen Hu

(Photo © Jacob Ehnmark: wkimedia commons)

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Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci Scene description: Revisiting the Forbidden City Timecode for scene: 2:34:44 – 2:38:30

Images © 1987 Hemdale, Recorded Picture Company (RPC)

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Black Snow/Ben ming nian LOCATI O N

(1990)

Nanluoguxiang Hutong, Dongcheng District

black snow is arguably one of director Xie Fei’s finest works, while it is also one of the few examples of the Chinese realist film tradition. True to life, Black Snow captures the atmosphere of Beijing in the late 1980s: in the opening scene, main character Quanzi (Jiang Wen) emerges from the depths of the Beijing underground. He is returning home after serving a three-year prison sentence for street fighting. Shouldering his bag of possessions, Quanzi makes his way through the narrow, meandering hutongs to his home. His padded blue jacket and green fur hat represent the times in which development and change run parallel with communist tradition, ultimately overtaking and destroying former value systems. As is typical of the hutong area, his neighbour Aunt Luo (Meng Jin) hears Quanzi enter and rushes to enquire about his situation. Throughout the course of the film, Aunt Luo remains the one person who truly cares for Quanzi. All others take advantage of him due to his interpretation of friendships, his naïveté and his general willingness to ‘do the right thing’. Black Snow is the character study of a youth trying to find his way in a changing world where shrewdness and brutality seem to have taken the lead, thereby showing a young man’s sense of displacement and crucial loss of direction. Just like Quanzi and his way of life, large sections of traditional Beijing hutongs have been destroyed, and the kind of neighbourly atmosphere shown in Black Snow no longer exists. ✒Isabel Wolte

(Photo © Geoff McKim: wkimedia commons)

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Directed by Xie Fei Scene description: Returning home Timecode for scene: 0:00:38 – 0:05:51

Images © 1990 Beijing Youth Film Studios

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Bumming in Beijing: The Last Dreamers/ Liulang Beijing: Zuihou de Mengxiangzhe (1990) LOCATI O N

Gallery of the China Central Academy of Fine Arts, Dongcheng District (since relocated to Chaoyang District)

the sequence of ‘The Madness of Zhang Xiaping’ intercuts a long scene in the gallery and an interview with theatre director Mo Sen, discussing her breakdown. Zhang, Mo, the other subjects and the director of Bumming in Beijing are all independent artists trying to survive outside the registered permanent resident system. This was China’s first independent documentary. Although shot between August 1988 and October 1989, the Tiananmen Democracy Movement is never mentioned. Nevertheless, an air of despair pervades, assisted by muddy imagery and sound, grungy living conditions, and dark interiors with almost no outdoor scenes. In this film, Beijing is down-at-heel, generic and ugly. By the time this sequence begins, two of the film’s five subjects have managed to marry foreigners and get out of China. Zhang is hanging her paintings for an individual show at the Academy, famous as the site where the Goddess of Democracy statue was made (since then, the gallery has moved to the suburbs). Classical Greekstyle statues in the corners of some shots remind some viewers of this. A loud belch is the first sign of an episode that includes Zhang questioning if she is speaking of God and if the portrait she is holding up is male or female. It ends with her lying on the floor, mouthing obscenities. At the time, this was the most spontaneous and shocking moment to be captured in a documentary in the People’s Republic of China, and it encapsulated the mood of Beijing at arguably its darkest hour. ✒Chris Berry

(Photo © Seppe Van Grieken, Longmen/Beijing)

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Directed by Wu Wenguang Scene description: The Madness of Zhang Xiaping Timecode for scene: 0:52:06 – 0:59:40

Images © 1990 China Independent Documentaries

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For Fun/Zhao le LOCATI O N

(1992)

Temple of Heaven, Tiantan Road, Dongcheng District

for fun is the first part of Ning Ying’s ‘Beijing Trilogy’. As a native, she intended to capture the changing pulse of Beijing and simultaneously recall memories of the metropolis as a ‘royal city’. The film concerns the elderly community, who suffer from loneliness since retirement. They have to find something to do ‘for fun’ in order to not feel abandoned by the rapid pace of modern times. Since his retirement from the position of doorkeeper in a Peking Opera troupe, Old Han (Huang Zongluo) wanders the streets every day, trying to prove his usefulness. Strolling around the Temple of Heaven, he meets a group of old men who are quarrelling over singing technique: they cannot agree on the style of singing for a female role and ask Old Han to resolve the argument. As a zealot of Peking Opera, Old Han explains that none of them are correct and helps to distinguish the different singing styles of four classical female roles, resulting in applause for the elderly man in the chilly winter morning. The Temple of Heaven, built in the Ming dynasty, is a remarkable resort which was used to worship the heavens and harvest by emperors. It has become a ‘habitat’ for those lonely spirits who jog, practice calligraphy or shadowbox in the Temple of Heaven. Old Han and the other elderly people in this scene represent the living history of Beijing, signifying memory and tradition, not the new developments that the city wants to show off to western visitors. ✒Wenfei Wang

(Photo © Lukas Kurtz: wkimedia commons)

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Directed by Ning Ying Scene description: Singing dispute in the Temple of Heaven Timecode for scene: 0:34:10 – 0:42:15

Images © 1992 Beijing Film Studio

25

Beijing Bastards/ Beijing Zazhong

(1993)

LOCATI O N

A pub in Chaoyang District

in the 1990s, China’s rock music scene reached its peak with a list of famous singers and bands, of which Cui Jian and Dou Wei – arguably the celebrated forerunners of Chinese rock – were cast in Zhang Yuan’s Beijing Bastards. This film is not only a memoir of bitter youth and passionate rebellion, but also a document of the development of China’s rock culture. In a pub in Chaoyang district, the band Dreaming performs; their image has been inspired by the American Beat Generation and they struggle to find welcoming venues. Unfortunately, one of the spectators abuses them with insulting words, deriding their dreams of music stardom and sneering at them on the basis that they are uncivilized ‘bastards’. Meanwhile, Ka Zi (Li Wei), a fellow rock musician, sits nearby; his girlfriend left him several months ago and he has since become addicted to sexual indulgence. As the scene cuts between the performance of the band and the reaction of the spectators, Ka Zi picks a fight with the heckler as he feels that the dignity of Dreaming has been threatened. The pub descends into chaos, and who wins the brawl remains unclear, but the band keeps on playing. Violence mixes with music at this moment: these 'rock heroes' will not always be young, however, and their 'howling' represents a time of anxiety after the tragedy of Tiananmen. In the Beijing of today, rock bands are able to perform in numerous pubs and have been accepted by the general public. ✒Wenfei Wang

(Photo © Scott Meltzer: wkimedia commons)

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Directed by Zhang Yuan Scene description: A fight in a rock pub Timecode for scene: 1:07:51 – 1:12:54

Images © 1993 Hubert Bals Fund

27

FENG COMEDY w Text by Liu Yang

SPOTLI G HT

Beijingers in a Transitional Era

throughout his career, the Chinese film-maker Feng Xiaogang has shot most of his productions in Beijing. These films, especially his comedies, reflect the lives of ordinary Beijingers and the modernization of the city. Feng was born in 1958 in the current capital; as a child, he adored arts and, after graduating from high school joined an army-affiliated art troupe to be a designer. He directed his first film, Yong shi wo ai/Farewell My Love in 1994, but it was Jiafang yifang/The Dream Factory (1997) which would become the first ‘New Year Greeting Film’ in mainland China. The film revolves around four Beijingers who devise an unusual method for making money; for a small fee, they will impersonate any 'character' for their customers as a means of raising their spirits or helping them to overcome individual fears. Feng shot the film on location at the family area of the General Logistics Department of the People's Liberation Army in Haidian District. The cost-effective location was selected due to the limited budget, but the military-style architecture contributed much to one of the fim’s highlights, a hilarious parody of General Patton. Feng made two further films that established his brand of ‘Feng comedy’: Bu jian bu san/Be There or Be Square (1998) and Mei wan mei liao/ Sorry Baby (1999). The latter finds tour bus

28 World Film Locations | Beijing

driver Han Dong (Ge You) kidnapping his boss's girlfriend Liu Xiaoyun (Wu Chien-lien) in order to demand the overdue wages to which he is entitled. He takes the girl to Fragrant Hill Park in the west suburb of Beijing and plays a game of cat and mouse with his boss. By telephone, Han Dong firstly asks his boss to come to Wofo Temple, located at the east of Fragrant Hill, but twenty minutes later directs him to JingCui Lake at the foot of the hill, finally instructing him to take a cable car to Gui Jianchou, the highest peak of the hill. When Han Dong and Liu Xiaoyun have a chat on the peak, Han Dong laments: ‘Beijing has changed a lot during these years. When I was a child, my classmates and I could find the buildings we lived in, Tiananmen Square, Cultural Palace of Nationalities, China People's Revolution Military Museum from here. But now they are all submerged in tall buildings and skyscrapers.’ Feng’s comedies always focus on the attitudes of Beijingers in the transitional city. At this point, ‘Feng comedy’ could be summarized as a unique comic style, with scenarios portrayed in a formal manner to achieve ironic effect. The actors use neither funny expressions nor exaggerated movements, and their actions are generally very serious. But the dialogue is full of words which relate to hot topics in contemporary Chinese society, historical quotations that are familiar to local audiences, or solemn political language that prompts laughter in comedic context. By having actors use such inopportune lines or adopt serious movements, Feng is deconstructing essential aspects of Beijing culture. He not only dissects political ideology, but also shows the typical personality of Beijing residents: humorous, talkative and warm-hearted. Popular actor Ge You, who was cast in lead roles in these three movies and subsequent Feng productions, performs subtle variations on the perceived

Opposite Be There or Be Square (1998) / Below If You Are the One (2008)

Above © 2008 Huayi Brothers / Media Asia Films Opposite © 1998 Beijing Film Studio / Beijing Forbidden City Film Co.

characteristics of the Beijinger: flippant yet sophisticated, sometimes cynical but often nice. These facets show the generally magnanimous attitude of Beijingers in transitional society, as they deal with various social problems, but choose to vent their emotions through words or jokes in order to resolve their collective discontent. In 2000, Feng suddenly changed his style with Yi sheng tan xi/A Sigh (2000), moving from comedy to a formal drama with a sense of profound tragedy. The film concerns the marital betrayal of a husband in an ordinary family living near the Beijing Exhibition Centre in Xicheng District. This change was even more evident in Shou ji/Cell Phone (2003): while Liang Yazhou (Zhang Guoli) at least betrayed his family for love in A Sigh, popular television host Yan Shouyi (Ge You) in Cell Phone treats relations with his mistress as a form of exchange. Mobile technology takes on the main role in Cell Phone, showing the audiences how the use of text messaging serves In an era to connect characters characterized by across various urban spaces (the television urban variations, station, hotels, maybe no one can restaurants, classrooms, predict the future apartments, cars). of Feng Comedy, Yet this technological but Beijing will advancement has definitely play also alienated the a key role in its emotions and desires of Beijingers living in a development.

changing city characterized by rapid economic development and shifting moral values. Feng’s criticism of this cultural and social reality is pointedly comedic in Da Wan/Big Shot's Funeral (2001), for which the director briefly returned to the style of ‘Feng comedy’ to stage a ‘comedy funeral’ in the Imperial Ancestral Temple to vividly reveal China’s emerging consumerist symptoms. Feng recently directed Fei Cheng Wu Rao/If You Are the One (2008) and its sequel Fei Cheng Wu Rao 2/If You Are the One 2 (2010). These films follow Qin Fen (Ge You), a Beijinger who has returned from the United States, and is still romantically available in middle age. Not trusting love, he seeks a marriage realistically: Qin Fen is not like young Beijingers with empty pockets in Feng’s earlier comedies, and has enough money to chase girls all over Beijing, or further afield. However, this newfound affluence causes these two films to almost degenerate into adverts for China as a tourist attraction: 798 Art Zone, Guomao Central Business District, Happy Valley Amusement Park, Ming Dynasty Tombs, Purple Bamboo Park, Tanzhe Temple and the Great Wall are all featured prominently. At the Beijing press conference for If You Are the One 2 on 14 November 2010, Feng stated: ‘I hope that the audience can find an attractive Beijing through If You Are the One 2. I love Beijing more than any other city.’ In an era characterized by urban variations, maybe no one can predict the future of Feng Comedy, but Beijing will definitely play a key role in its development. { 29

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Forbidden City

Laoshan

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Xuanwu Qu

Luguoqiao Xiang

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30 World Film Locations | Beijing

9

BEIJING LOCATIONS SCENES 9-16 Wangjing

9. the blue kite/lan feng zheng (1993) Ganjing Hutong, Xicheng District (formerly Xuanwu District) page 32 10. the days/dongchun de rizi (1993) Second Ring Road page 34 11. farewell my concubine/ ba wang bie ji (1993) Hanjia Hutong, near Qianmen, Xicheng District page 36

Heping Li

16

Dongcheng Qu

Chongwen Qu

12. m. butterfly (1993) The Great Wall of China page 38 13. once upon time in china iii/ wong fei-hung ji saam: si wong jaang ba (1993) Beijing South train station (formerly Majiapu train station), Fengtai District page 40 14 . in the heat of the sun/ yangguang canlan de rizi (1994) Beijing Exhibition Centre and Moscow Restaurant, 135 Xizhimenwai Avenuedajie, Xicheng District page 42 15. east palace, west palace/ dong gong xi gong (1996) Beijing Normal University, School of Continuing Education, 1 Dingfu Road, Xicheng District (doubling for a public park) page 44

Daxing Qu

16. frozen/jidu hanleng (1997) Andingmen, Dongcheng District page 46 31

The Blue Kite/ Lan feng zheng LOCATI O N

(1993)

Ganjing Hutong, Xicheng District (formerly Xuanwu District)

a quintessential chinese Fifth Generation film, The Blue Kite was banned in China for its poignant portrayal of a family’s loss and suffering in the first two decades of the People’s Republic. Told from the perspective of a young boy, Tietou, the deep impact of politics is depicted through the understated reality of everyday family life in Beijing’s traditional hutong. The innocent child’s world in this secure community, created so vividly by Tian Zhuangzhuang, is sharply contrasted with the tragic realties of the national crisis, exemplified by the scene that takes place at Chinese New Year after Tietou’s mother has been re-married to his late father’s friend. The celebrations coincide with the end of the three-year famine and the neighbours in the close-knit courtyard joyfully celebrate by exchanging dumplings. We see the parents’ devotion to their child when they allow him to play outside with his neighbourhood friends and even light his lantern just as they are preparing to eat. However, amidst the nostalgia aided by tinkling music and warm lights, there are also darker realities such as the propaganda news heard on the house radio. The lonely shot of Tietou finding his friends during the game of hide-and-seek also conjures a sense of fear that climaxes when a neighbour unexpectedly throws firecrackers in his path. His lantern is burned to shreds and, after returning home disappointed, his loving stepfather collapses as he carries the dumplings to the pot, dying from what is later diagnosed as, ‘overwork and malnutrition’. ✒Donna Ong (Photos © Seppe Van Grieken, Longmen/Beijing)

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Directed by Tian Zhuangzhuang Scene description: New Year celebration in Ganjing Hutong Timecode for scene: 1:31:22 – 1:37:22

Images © 1993 Beijing Film Studio

33

The Days/ Dongchun de rizi LOCATI O N

(1993)

Second Ring Road

the days follows the lives of an artistic couple, Dong (Liu Xiaodong) and Chun (Yu Hong), in early 1990s Beijing. They feel trapped in a meaningless relationship and, by the film’s end, have drifted apart, with Chu settling in the United States, sending letters home that show no trace of shared memory. Wang Xiaoshuai’s film immediately drew critical attention because it reflected the mood of the time: the director spoke for the younger crowd and became a prominent representative of the so-called Sixth Generation. The drab city mirrors the couple’s unremarkable existence and fading memories. In the post-1989 doldrums, recently graduated students felt disoriented. Construction in Beijing, including mass demolition in preparation for the 1990 Asian Games, exacerbated this sense of dislocation. Most of The Days was shot inside the dormitories of the Art Academy – an old, nondescript structure, typical of Maoist buildings with communal facilities. When the two lovers venture into the city, they are confronted with equally undistinguishable architecture. Returning from an abortion clinic, the couple take a taxi around the newly rebuilt Second Ring Road. The structures of Beijing’s city wall were replaced by a perimeter road. Once elevated sections were added in the 1990s, the Ring Road changed the conventional views and soundscapes of the city. Dong guesses they may be at Xizhimen, but with the distinctive Xizhimen Gate demolished in 1969, it is hard to tell. Chun retorts, ‘Beijing is changing really fast,’ a sentiment echoed by residents and film-makers ever since. ✒Yomi Braester (Photo © Croquant: wkimedia commons)

34 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Wang Xiaoshuai Scene description: Returning from the abortion clinic Timecode for scene: 0:45:53 – 0:46:48

Images © 1993 Creative Workshop, Image Studio

35

Farewell My Concubine/ Ba wang bie ji (1993)

LOCATI O N

Hanjia Hutong, near Qianmen, Xicheng District

farewell my concubine is an impressively grand historical epic that intertwines the story of the impassioned relationship between two Beijing Opera performers, Cheng Dieyi (Leslie Cheung) and Duan Xiaolou (Zhang Fengyi) with the turbulent changes that have characterized mainland China in the twentieth century. Typical of Chen Kaige’s oeuvre, the film is infused with authenticity and political intelligence. Kaige has stated that one of his main aims in adapting the original text by Lilian Lee for the screen was to bring the flavour of the perishing hutongs of old Beijing to life through large-scale sets that were built on the capacious lots of the Beijing Film Studios and Farewell My Concubine serves as a celluloid record of the unique architecture of the area. An intrinsic part of the city's tradition, these lively neighbourhoods are characterized by networks of narrow streets that house street traders, shops and traditional courtyard residences. Providing a contrast with the drab mise-en-scène of the oppressive Opera School, a kaleidoscopic parade of children's kites prompts Dieyi and Laizi to escape into the back alleyways and avenues of Qianmen. In this scene, Kaige curtails camera histrionics, enabling the pair’s wonder at the ornate surroundings, and the sonorous atmosphere of the bustling streets, to govern the scene. Rapid urban development has since ensured that the fabric of the modern city now converges, or infringes on, such neighbourhoods, but their architectural importance and social value within the local communities remain. ✒Dave McCaig (Photo © poeloq: wkimedia commons)

36 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Chen Kaige Scene description: Beijing Opera School students explore Hanjia Hutong Timecode for scene: 0:19:16 – 0:22:20

Images © 1993 Beijing Film Studio

37

M. Butterfly LOCATI O N

(1993)

The Great Wall of China

david cronenberg’s adaptation of David Henry Hwang’s celebrated stage play reinterprets the Puccini opera Madame Butterfly in light of twentieth century gender politics and East–West relations. This scene takes place at the The Great Wall in Beijing. Gallimard (Jeremy Irons) has been promoted in his French Embassy job, and has begun a relationship with Chinese opera star Song Liling (John Lone). The scene finds Liling serving refreshments in her Mao uniform, thus marking the time as the postRevolution Mao rule, while at the same time highlighting their Butterflyrelationship: the eastern woman submissively serving a western man. The vast Chinese landscape around the Great Wall places their relationships and its fate against the history of the nation and its politics, while at the same time playing with the visual resemblance of the scene to revolutionary posters. Liling asks Gallimard why, with his choice of western women, he would be interested in, ‘a poor Chinese with a chest like a boy’, thus for the first time hinting at his real gender. Gallimard’s answer, about Liling resembling a schoolgirl waiting for her lessons, further underlines his take on the situation: in his mind, Liling is the classical stereotypical Asian woman eager to serve the westerner. Gallimard misreads Liling just as he misreads Asia as submitting to the force of the western military. This is also the last scene featuring Liling in which the viewer does not know that he is spying on the French via Gallimard on behalf of the Chinese intelligence. ✒Eija Niskanen (Photo © Ahazan: wkimedia commons)

38 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by David Cronenberg Scene description: Gallimard and Song Liling at the Great Wall of China Timecode for scene: 0:39:10 – 0:41:13

Images © 1993 Geffen Pictures

39

Once Upon Time in China III/ Wong Fei-hung ji saam: Si wong jaang ba (1993) LOCATI O N

Soundstage recreation of Majiapu train station, Fengtai District

in the third instalment of Hark Tsui’s Once Upon a Time in China series, set in the late Qing dynasty, hero Wong Fei-hung (Jet Li) travels from his native Guangdong to the imperial capital of Beijing to visit his father’s medicine factory. The series’ focus on China’s dilemma with western presence and modernization is seen when Wong, his student Leung Foon (Siu Chung Mok) and love interest Aunt 13 (Rosamund Kwan) arrive at the crowded Majiapu train station in Beijing. As the city’s first train terminus, built and managed by the British from 1897–1906, the area soon became a major economic and political hub. This bustling area is recreated as a backdrop for the humorous cultural interactions in this scene, providing comic relief to offset more serious conflicts. One such example is Wong’s observation that westerners in Beijing speak Chinese and his suggestion to Foon that they should learn English in order to keep up with the modern world. Foon boasts that he already knows the word ‘beautiful’, with Aunt 13 mistaking the term as a greeting and pronouncing it ‘bo-dou-fu’ (boiled tofu). Wong later uses this in a pun to describe Aunt 13’s Russian admirer Tumanovsky’s romantic words as not ‘boiled tofu’ but ‘eating tofu’, a Chinese slang for molestation. The scene ends with a display of martial arts skills after Foon creates a misunderstanding in the rickshaw line; such conflict among countrymen is what the hero argues to be at the heart of the nation’s problems. ✒Donna Ong

(Photo © Yiyuan: wkimedia commons)

40 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Hark Tsiu Scene description: A southerner’s arrival at Majiapu train station Timecode for scene: 0:06:27 – 0:10:31

Images © 1993 Golden Harvest Company / Film Workshop

41

In the Heat of the Sun/ Yangguang canlan de rizi LOCATI O N

(1994)

Beijing Exhibition Centre and Moscow Restaurant, 135 Xizhimenwai Avenuedajie, Xicheng District

in the heat of the sun follows the lives of a group of youths in Beijing, 1970. For them, the Cultural Revolution is an exuberant period. While roaming around the city, they hang out at the Beijing Exhibition Centre, and later celebrate at the Moscow Restaurant, which is part of the complex. The exhibition centre (formerly known as the Soviet Exhibition Hall) was built in 1954, designed by a team of Soviet and Chinese architects as a monument to the Sino-Soviet alliance. Its lavishly decorated restaurant initially served state leaders; in the 1960s, it was accessible to other privileged customers, such as high-ranking officers and their children, who are this film’s protagonists. As such, In the Heat of the Sun is a reminder that conspicuous consumption in contemporary China harks to the Maoist period. The grand setting of the restaurant’s interior, with marble pillars and bar adorned with revolutionary paintings, serves as the location for two key scenes. In the first, a fight among the delinquent youths is averted, and the two factions mark the reconciliation with a banquet. In the second, a smaller group celebrates a birthday shared by two characters. The scene marks the narrative climax. The frame freezes and Ma Xiaojun (Xia Yu) warns, in voice-over from thirty years of distance, that the film presents a subjective and unreliable account. Using the socialist edifice as a location emphasizes how, in today’s China, the Maoist legacy is being questioned and at best serves as the object of nostalgia. ✒Yomi Breaster

(Photo © Grand Metropark Yuantong Hotel )

42 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Jiang Wen Scene description: Youthful celebration at Moscow Restaurant Timecode for scene: 0:57:50 – 0:59:49

Images © 1994 China Film Co-Production Corporation

43

East Palace, West Palace/ Dong gong xi gong (1996)

LOCATI O N

Beijing Normal University, the campus of School of Continuing Education, 1 Dingfu Road, Xicheng District (doubling for a public park)

by night, the parks of central Beijing fill up with gay men seeking sexual partners. The words for ‘palace’ and ‘public’ sound the same in Mandarin (gong), and the film’s title is local gay slang for the public toilets located on either side of the Forbidden Palace, north of Tiananmen Square. Officer Xiao Shi (Hu Jun) interrogates repeat offender A Lan (Si Han) overnight in the park’s police kiosk. In this crucial scene, the camerawork communicates that the tables have turned. While punishing A Lan by making him squat on his heels, Xiao Shi walks around the outside of the kiosk looking in, with the camera following him. But taking down A Lan’s ‘confession’ all night exhausts him, and Xiao Shi tells A Lan to leave. Confused, it is now Xiao Shi who sits in the middle of the kiosk, while A Lan circles outside with the camera in tow. His dream of being arrested by a policeman has come true, and he doesn’t want to leave. By filming when officially banned from making movies, director Zhang Yuan was taking risks, just like A Lan, and critics were quick to see the analogy. A Lan has already told Xiao Shi, ‘The convict loves her executioner, the thief loves her jail keeper, and we love you: we have no other choice.’ Now he throws himself into the policeman’s arms. Unexpectedly, Xiao Shi tells him to put on the women’s clothes he has confiscated from a transvestite. The game goes up to a new level. ✒Chris Berry

(Photo © Kelinli: wikimedia commons)

44 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Zhang Yuan Scene description: A Lan refuses to go after he is ‘set free’ Timecode for scene: 1:08:19 – 1:14:20

Images © 1996 Quelqu'Un D'Autre Productions

45

Frozen/Jidu hanleng LOCATI O N

(1997)

Andingmen, Dongcheng District

with a multitude of stores offering both local and western goods in addition to monolithic shopping malls, cultural centres and stylish office blocks, the commercial district of Andingmen epitomizes Beijing’s drive for economic growth. This thriving area is in stark contrast to other locations seen in Frozen that extensively make use of austere areas around the poverty ridden bohemian East Village. Performance artist Qi Lei’s (Jia Hongsheng) taxi ride through Andingmen portrays the area as an overpowering shrine to propagating modernity. But this is a far from romantic depiction of a district that is building the foundations of urban prosperity. After retreating from his friends in the artists’ community in the East Village, an area that would fade away in the 1990s due to police interference, Qi Lei takes a taxi through Andingmen. The protagonist further questions what society may now hold for an avant-garde artist, whose extreme and contentious work personifies the alienation that he feels within the confines of the derelict East Village. The sombre score by Reoland Dol endorses this insecurity as we view the city sprawl from his increasingly dispassionate eyes. Camera work is restrained in this scene, while the director documents a society in transformation as the streets clutter with icons of an increasingly urbanized and consumerled society. With Baskin-Robbins outlets and restaurants carrying western names hurriedly erected to cater for an influx of English speaking tourists, these luminescent streets are testimony to a city beginning to open itself up to novel and fashionable influences. ✒Dave McCaig (Photo © Seppe Van Grieken, Longmen/Beijing)

46 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Wang Xiaoshuai Scene description: Late night taxi ride through Andingmen Timecode for scene: 1:27:09 – 1:28:10

Images © 1997 International Film Circuit, Inc.

47

Made in China w Text by

Sam Voutas

SPOTLI G HT

The Production of Red Light Revolution (Sam Voutas, 2010)

i first visited beijing in 1981 as a 2-yearold, on a family trip. Not much of that city remains today. I returned in the mid-1980s, and I remember that there were hardly any cars, many people were still wearing Mao suits, and as a foreign kid, I could barely go outside without having a curious crowd gather around me. While everyone was friendly, I very much had the sense of being an outsider. The groundwork for Red Light Revolution began in the early-1990s. I was still in middleschool and my classmates and I dropped into one of Beijing’s first adult shops, out of curiosity more than anything else. It was in Wangfujing, and I remember thinking how much it felt like a clinic, as everyone was wearing medical coats. In those days, all government stores were more or less the same; it felt cold, like the soul had been sucked out of it. It wasn’t formally a sex shop, more of a sex education pharmacy. When I moved back to Beijing in 2005 as an adult, I’d relocated to a neighbourhood near the hutongs (alleys) and began to see independent adult shops surfacing in the area. But this time, rather than being state-run, the shops were operated by entrepreneurs. People were taking great risks to get ahead, both in terms of finance

48 World Film Locations | Beijing

and ‘face’ (respect): there was also a spirit that I hadn’t seen before that was exciting from a screenwriting perspective. I wanted to focus on the story of one such battler. Red Light Revolution follows Shunzi (Zhao Jun), a taxi driver who simply can’t afford to provide the type of life his spouse desires. When he is fired by his company, Shunzi’s wife promptly throws him out of the house. With nowhere else to go, Shunzi returns to his parents’ traditional courtyard home; as money pressures rise, Shunzi’s parents urge him to forget about ‘face’ and take any job he can find. Taking advice from an old school friend, Shunzi decides to open an adult shop with backing from Japanese entrepreneur Iggy (Masanobu Otsuka). The majority of Red Right Revolution was filmed in the Caochangdi Art District, which isn’t too far from the airport expressway. These were the larger set-ups that required extras to be bussed in, or crane shots. While in preproduction, I spent weeks riding my bicycle around this area, and the executive producer talked to several galleries to obtain permission to film either inside or outside their premises. Putting up a crane in the city would have created difficulties, but the art districts were more casual regarding film production, and most importantly, less crowded. The 798 Art District had already become too commercial, the rates just didn’t add up, so we just have one shot from inside 798, which is the interior of Iggy’s display room. The main challenge in shooting around the art districts was that the electricity supply was not stable; we’d have blackouts which halved our shooting speed for night interiors. Also, our crew was stationed inside the Second Ring Road so we lost valuable shooting hours due to moving everyone back and forth. For the S&M nightclub scene, we had to drive

Opposite and Below Red Light Revolution (2010)

Above and Opposite © Seppe Van Grieken & Daniel O'Connor, Longmen/Beijing

the buses to the other side of town, to D-22, a nightclub at 242 Chengfu Road, Haidian District. I wanted to film there because of its reputation for supporting independent artists, but also because of its colours. It’s got great red walls and no windows, so we were able to shoot all the night scenes in the daytime, which was also practical in terms of getting extras to participate. The traditional locations, such as the sex shop and the parents’ house, were all shot within a ten minute drive of Beixinqiao, in the Northern Inner Second Ring Road. In pre-production, I’d explored many of the hutong areas in Beijing; the producer and I chose this neighbourhood because it had a large variety of alleyways and restaurants which we could use. The neighbourhood watch officers, who are a big part of the film’s narrative, would walk by the store we filmed in at Dongsishiyitiao. Ultimately, a large They’d peer into the amount of the Red windows but would Light Revolution get bored after a while. locations were Shooting is such a slow found thanks to the process that there’s individual networks not that much exciting stuff to see when you’re of the crew, be peering in through a that the producer, window. One reason we executive producer, had little interference is art director or that we primarily shot even production lengthy dialogue scenes on private property. coordinator.

The store was a small, empty building that we had a short lease on. Then the exteriors, which had less dialogue, could be shot with a smaller crew and less equipment. Most of those exteriors were literally at the doorstep of the shop itself, within walking distance, or at most a five minute drive away. Ultimately, a large amount of the Red Light Revolution locations were found thanks to the individual networks of the crew, be that the producer, executive producer, art director or even production coordinator. When we needed a location, crew members would start making calls to see if they knew anyone who could help. There’s an advantage to having a close crew that has a previous working relationship, especially in China. Everyone had either worked together before, or was brought on by someone on the team who vouched for them. Thanks to this team ethos, we were able to cut through a lot of red tape. I’m particularly wary of films that try to symbolize an era or nation through their characters. Red Light Revolution is a story about a few ordinary people. They are similar to people I know in my neighbourhood, but I’m definitely not saying they are similar to all people. When writing the screenplay, I was really trying to focus on the minutiae. It’s great if audiences feel that parts reflect what is happening in Beijing at large, but I think it is dangerous to do representative screenwriting, because then your characters cease to be individuals. { 49

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BEIJING LOCATIONS SCENES 17-24 Wangjing

18. red corner (1997) Purple Bamboo Park, 45, Baishiqiao Road, Haidian District page 54 19. spicy love soup/ aiqing mala tang (1997) Parkson Shopping Centre, 189 Dongsihuanzhong Road, Middle Chaoyang District page 56

Heping Li

20. shower/xizao (1999) Shuangxingtang bathhouse, No.7, Dong Erdao Street, Nanyuan, Fengtai District page 58

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17. keep cool/ you hua hao hao shuo (1997) Clock Tower, Tiananmen Gate, residential complex in-between the First and Second Ring Roads page 52

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2 1. shadow magic (2000) Soundstage recreation of Fengtai Photography Studio, Liulichang, Xicheng district page 60 22. beijing bicycle/ shi qi sui de dan che (2001) Construction site, Chaoyang district page 62 23. big shot’s funeral/da wan (2001) Imperial Ancestral Temple, southeast of the Forbidden City page 64

Daxing Qu

24 . fish and elephant/ jin nian xia tian (2001) Beijing Zoo, 137 Xizhimenwai Avenue, Xicheng District page 66 51

Keep Cool/ You hua hao hao shuo LOCATI O N

(1997)

Clock Tower, Tiananmen Gate, residential complex in-between the First and Second Ring Roads

keep cool can be considered to be Zhang Yimou’s ‘urban experiment’. The fast pace of its sweeping introduction conveys a sense of urgency, challenging the viewer with dynamic shots that introduce the main characters, with the city of Beijing as recognizable visual and aural background. Rhythmic, extra-diegetic folk-rock music matches the hurried steps of a young woman. In a parallel shot, we are introduced to Zhao Xiaoshuai (Jiang Wen), a clumsy Beijinger with a punk look, who is following her. The woman’s name, later shouted several times, is An Hong (Qu Ying), and she is Zhao Xiaoshuai’s former girlfriend. This chase on the public bus and through the city streets constitutes a journey across Beijing: from east to west, from Chang’an Avenue to the Central Station, and the entrance of the Forbidden City opposite Tiananmen Square, it ends in an impersonal compound located somewhere between the First and the Second Ring Road. These blocks form a residential unit and reflect the pattern of urbanization that Chinese cities have gone through in the wake of economic reform. Zhao Xiaoshuai finds himself lost, while An Hong slips into one of the modern homes. In order to win the girl back, it is crucial to trace her: yet in the metropolis that Beijing has become, space defines people, swallowing them and condemning almost everyone to the condition of anonymity. From the beginning, Keep Cool opposes this threat with a series of distinctive Beijing situations, thereby paying homage to its atmosphere and landscapes. ✒Mariagrazia Costantino (Photo © Jerzy Bereszko: wkimedia commons)

52 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Zhang Yimou Scene description: Chase around Beijing Timecode for scene: 0:00:40 – 0:03:49

Images © 1997 Guangxi Film Studio

53

Red Corner LOCATI O N

(1997)

Purple Bamboo Park, 45, Baishiqiao Road, Haidian District

due to its politically-sensitive premise – American businessman Jack Moore (Richard Gere) visits China to close a satellite communications deal, only to be framed for the murder of a general's daughter and put on trial in a Beijing court – Red Corner was mostly shot on Los Angeles soundstages. This story of an American citizen trying to prove his innocence with the assistance of state-appointed attorney Shen Yuelin (Bai Ling) is Hollywood melodrama at its most hackneyed, although the production deserves credit for constructing a credible Beijing, both inside and outside judicial quarters. However, the director and principal cast did travel to China with a small crew to shoot a few scenes. Purple Bamboo Park is one of Beijing’s largest public spaces, with three connecting lakes and the remains of the Temple of Longevity from the Ming Dynasty. Red Corner positions the park as a place of contemplation that Shen Yuelin visits whenever she needs to consider professional matters away from the formal atmosphere of the court. After evidence has vindicated her client’s claim of innocence and exposed government corruption, Shen Yuelin brings Moore to Purple Bamboo Park: ‘Do you know why the Bamboo is here? It’s waiting for the wind to touch it. It is filled with emotions. Listen to the sound and you can feel them.’ Shen Yuelin’s explanation is admittedly fortune cookie philosophy of the Hollywood screenwriter variety, but it also suggests the calming influence that the serene atmosphere of Purple Bamboo Park has on those who visit regularly. ✒John Berra (Photo © Berling Family: wkimedia commons)

54 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by John Avnet Scene description: Post-trial reflection at Purple Bamboo Park Timecode for scene: 1:49:00 – 1:49:54

Images © 1997 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

55

Spicy Love Soup/ Aiqing mala tang LOCATI O N

(1997)

Parkson Shopping Centre, 189 Dongsihuanzhong Road, Middle Chaoyang District

spicy love soup is a romantic-comedy anthology which consists of five love stories that take place in contemporary Beijing. The first vignette concerns the secret love that teenage schoolboy Wang Ai (Zhao Miao) has for He Ling (Gao Yuanyuan), a girl in his class. Wang Ai is obsessed with the girl’s voice. One day after school, he follows He Ling and her friend to the Parkson Shopping Centre, where they are relaxing after a long day of study. The boy secretly records their conversation, and edits it at home. In the fake recording, the girl appears to say, ‘I like you’, to the boy and the tape subsequently causes all sorts of problems with the teenagers’ parents and teachers. At school, Wang Ai generally hides his feelings and is only able to watch his dream girl from distance. However, at Parkson, he feels more comfortable and sufficiently confident to be close to her. At the end of his edited recording, he asks the girl to wear the white dress that she wore when they met at Parkson, if she also has feelings for him. In the 1990s, this shopping centre was students’ favourite place to spend time after school. This kind of venue is different from school playgrounds, as in a consumer space teenagers are regarded as grown-ups. Therefore, the boy feels safe to express his young love in a place like Parkson. However, the tape is found by the girl’s mother, and their love story sadly never happens. ✒Wei Ju

(Photos © Seppe Van Grieken, Longmen/Beijing)

56 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Zhang Yang Scene description: Young love at Parkson Shopping Centre Timecode for scene: 0:06:19 – 0:07:33

Images © 1997 Imar Film, Xi'an Film Studio

57

Shower/Xizao LOCATI O N

(1999)

Shuangxingtang bathhouse, No.7, Dong Erdao Street, Nanyuan, Fengtai District

zhang yang’s charming family drama Shower concerns the owner and patrons of a Beijing bathhouse. It was filmed at Shuangxingtang, a traditional spa that was opened in 1916 and continues to attract patrons from all social-economic levels. Although similar establishments have been demolished in recent years, Shuangxingtang is still open for business, having received support from such media outlets as China Daily and the Global Times, yet rumours of the wrecking ball persist. Shower emphasizes the role of the bathhouse in the community, with proprietor Old Liu (Zhu Xu) offering a range of related services (massages, haircuts, shaving) while assisting his regular customers, mostly retired Beijingers, with their various problems. Old Liu has two sons: Erming (Jiang Wu) is mentally-challenged and works with his father at the bathhouse, while Daming (Pu Cunxin) relocated to Shenzhen years before but is prompted to return home when he receives a postcard from his brother, eventually offering to assist with daily chores. In this scene, Old Liu and his sons relax with Jin Zhao (Jin Zhao), who opens up about no longer being sexually aroused by his wife, and worrying that he may have to get a divorce. While cleaning, Old Liu instructs Daming to take Jin Zhao out for dinner, leaving him to put some ‘special medicine’ into the pool to help with his friend’s problem. As seen here, the bathhouse is a place where friends can talk openly about personal matters that they would be uncomfortable discussing in almost any other environment. ✒John Berra (Photos © Seppe Van Grieken, Longmen/Beijing)

58 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Zhang Yang Scene description: Confiding in friends at the bathhouse Timecode for scene: 0:55:50 – 0:57:56

Images © 1999 Imar Film, Xi'an Film Studio

59

Shadow Magic LOCATI O N

(2000)

Soundstage recreation of Fengtai Photography Studio, Liulichang, Xicheng District

shadow magic depicts a partly fictional, partly factual episode in the arrival of the moving image technology to China in 1902. Raymond Wallace (Jared Harris), a fictional Englishman brings silent, black-and-white films to Beijing. Wallace meets a chief photographer Liu Jinglun (Xia Yu) of the Fengtai Photography Studio, who becomes fascinated by the technology and befriends Wallace. Fengtai Studio master Ren Jingfeng (Liu Peiqi) and his most important client Lord Tan (Li Yusheng), however, reject and despise both the new technology and Wallace. Liu wants to marry Lord Tan’s daughter Ling (Xing Yufei), but he also strives to be loyal to Master Ren, who tries to arrange a marriage for Liu with a rich widow, all the while working with Wallace to learn the new technology. The scene takes place inside the Fengtai Studio, and follows the operation of the store during Lord Tang’s visit. The clothing, large wooden-box camera and a sparkling flash all vividly convey the height of the Fengtai Studio at the very end of the Qing Dynasty caught in-between tradition and newly imported modern technology and values. Fengtai Studio is known to have made China’s first motion picture in 1905, an adaptation of the Chinese opera Dingjun Mountain starring Beijing opera performer Lord Tan Xinpei. Shadow Magic was shot on the sets of the Beijing Film Studio and in a tourist town in the suburb of Beijing, but the real Fengtai Studio was located in Liulichang, one of the oldest antique store areas in Beijing. ✒Seio Nakajima

(Photo © Liuli Chang: wkimedia commons)

60 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Ann Hu Scene description: The arrival of the moving image Timecode for scene: 00:12:43 – 00:14:36

Images © 2000 Beijing Film Studio

61

Beijing Bicycle/ Shi qi sui de dan che LOCATI O N

(2001)

Construction site, Chaoyang district

beijing bicycle shows how people fix their identity within the city space. The bicycle here is symbolic of different ways of life: both as a means of survival and as a status symbol. Xiao Gui (Cui Lin) is dragged into a building that is under construction in the central Chaoyang district, where the Beijing youth used to go with their bicycles. There, he is intimidated and bullied by friends of Xiao Jian (Li Bin), who force him to give up the bicycle that he has been assigned for his pony express job. If Xiao Jian’s bourgeois connotation is shame regarding his actions (Xiao Jian’s gaze always escapes Xiao Gui’s), then Xiao Gui’s distinctive mark is that of desperation, given an expressive sound through a sudden outburst. In the empty skeleton of what will soon become a house, the incompatible worlds of two yet-to-become men collide, with the Beijing skyline as a silent witness. From afternoon to night, the empty frame of the building releases contradictory images of the city: it can be modern and obsolete, maintaining some of its multiple vocations, which clash much like individual fates do. Like the two opposing characters, Beijing is what people want it to be, but above all is a city that is radically redefining its nature. Many of the spaces depicted in Beijing Bicycle are passages, neutral elements of transition from one place to another: in the ‘real’ city, the same precariousness affects inhabitants who are unsure of whether a definite form will ever be reached. ✒Mariagrazia Costantino

(Photo © Ian Holton: wkimedia commons)

62 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Wang Xiaoshuai Scene description: Intimidation against the Beijing skyline Timecode for scene: 1:11:21 – 1:18:53

Images © 2001 Arc Light Films

63

Big Shot’s Funeral/Da Wan LOCATI O N

(2001)

Imperial Ancestral Temple, southeast of the Forbidden City

big shot’s funeral not only boasts the fantastical premise of holding a grand funeral in the Imperial Ancestral Temple of Beijing – with the ‘deceased’ being Tyler (Donald Sutherland), a major American movie director – but also manages to turn the occasion into a carnival of advertising opportunities and global media coverage. The temple is located at the east side of Tiananmen, and was a place for the emperors to hold sacrificial ceremonies during the most important festivals as a means of honouring the imperial family's ancestors. In the 1920s, it became a park and was opened to the public. In this scene, photographer Yo Yo (Ge You) brings Tyler’s assistant Lucy (Rosamund Kwan) to the Temple and explains the process of the funeral. He also presents her with the various advertisements (Korean make-up, Italian furniture, alcoholic beverages, breast enlargement cream, tobacco products) which will be displayed at the upcoming ceremony. Yo Yo plans to entertain the mass audience by putting global modern products into the old temple, which was historically a sacred, royal place. However, it also sarcastically reveals the cultural symptoms that were then-emerging in contemporary China during the process of economic transition and globalization. In 2001, consumerism had already transformed the ethical values of the Chinese people and this scene emphasizes the fact through the surreal juxtaposition of elements (products within the temple) and ironic humour. Big Shot’s Funeral reflects the tremendous impact of consumer society on modern Chinese life, but does so by provoking laughter from the mainstream audience. ✒Liu Yang (Photo © Gene Zhang: wkimedia commons)

64 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Feng Xiaogang Scene description: Advertising in the Imperial Ancestral Temple Timecode for scene: 1:06:03 – 1:11:56

Images © 2001 China Film Group, Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia

65

Fish and Elephant/ Jin nian xia tian

(2001)

LOCATI O N

Beijing Zoo, 137 Xizhimenwai Avenue, Xicheng District

for unmarried zookeeper Qun (Yi Pan), Beijing Zoo’s elephant enclosure is a sanctuary from the endless conveyer belt of divorced men that her mother sends her on hopeless dates with. As Qun nurtures her elephant from within the confines of the walled enclosure, the zoo becomes a domestic alternative for this modern woman. Much like the home, the zoo can be a symbol of both refuge and prison. In Fish and Elephant, it is presented as a space in which female interaction takes place and the ‘hidden’ issue of homosexuality can be openly explored away from the glare of the city. Despite delving into the terrain of female sexuality, this is foremost a story of modern relationships. In a sub-plot that concludes with a tragicomic shootout, the zoo becomes yet another space in the city in which female desire is ultimately punished. When Qun’s fugitive ex-girlfriend Junjun (Zhang Qianqian) arrives in town, on the run for killing her father, Qun allows her to hide in the elephant enclosure. Bored and lonely, Junjun leaves her hiding place only to be spotted by the detective on her trail (Su Pengcheng). The enclosure is instantly surrounded by armed police, with the scene’s sudden descent into farce jarring with the sound of roaring elephants. As the detective storms Junjun’s hideout, she holds a gun to his head: the final shot freezes her in the image of a powerful femme fatale, only for her gun to be empty when she finally pulls the trigger. ✒Carol Mei Barker

(Photo © Snowyowls: wkimedia commons)

66 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Li Yu Scene description: Stakeout at the zoo Timecode for scene: 1:28:10 – 1:33:28

Images © 2001 Ariztical

67

Navigating w Beijing Text by

Mariagrazia Costantino

SPOTLI G HT

Dreamers, Drifters and Drivers

navigation is frequently defined as the act of moving on the surface of the sea, but may also refer to the exploration of other virtual seas, like that of the city. Urban space is also liquid: social relationships, finance (the flow of money) and information (data streams). Even concrete is liquid before it solidifies. Cinema and its floating images re-enact new forms of navigation: the discovery of spaces, city structures and histories. There are many possible meanings of ‘navigation’ as derived from readings and interpretations (more than simple representations) of Beijing within filmic space and cinematic narrative. As an ancient capital and contemporary metropolis, Beijing lends itself to endless explorations. Despite the radical restructuring that the city has gone through in the past two decades, it still maintains a multiplicity of spaces: what it has been facing is a radical yet

68 World Film Locations | Beijing

reiterated spatial reconfiguration. Navigating as a way of experiencing this rejuvenated Beijing can become a lifestyle, that of the so-called mangliu, a punk with an existentialist attitude comprised of detachment, cynicism and awareness. This urban vernacular implies the existence of activities, interests and relations that merge into networks of shared knowledge and experiences. The many small lagoons formed within sea of the new Beijing are designed to contain the risk of dispersion. This complex overlap of floating enclaves is documented in Liulang Beijing: Zuihou de Mengxiangzhe/Bumming in Beijing: The Last Dreamers (Wu Wenguang, 1990), where the route followed engages the film-maker in the tumultuous sea of Beijing before and after the politically-charged events of 1989. The documentary catches moments in the lives of five young artists who have migrated to the capital from peripheral areas of China. They occupy temporary dwellings in the areas of Haidian, Hepingli and Yongdingmen as almost none of them possess the necessary hukou (residence permit). The dislocation of the group, a form of psychological and cultural displacement, allows the film-maker – himself a native of Yunnan – to navigate the city: he roams in search of stories in the way his friends wandered in search of a meal, what in Beijing slang is called ceng fan (free food). The word liulang in the film’s Chinese title means ‘floating’: navigation with no aim nor destination, a permanent mobility, unsettlement and the impossibility, more than the refusal, to reach a fixed position within Chinese society. These people call themselves mangliu (drifters).

Opposite Beijing Bicycle (2001) / Below In the Heat of the Sun (1994)

Above © 1994 China Film Co-Production Corporation Opposite © 2001 Arc Light Films

Rejected by Beijing, they are ready to go everywhere: the navigating slowly becomes an exploration of the world in search of a home. The character of Xiao Shan (Wang Hongwei), in the film Xiao Shan Going Home (Jia Zhangke, 1995), is an updated version of the drifter in the post-reform Beijing. He too moves from one job, and place, to another. Ironically, the main aim of his restless navigation is getting a train ticket to go back home (Anyang, a small city in Henan) for Chinese New Year: his plans fail miserably, and he remains stuck in a Beijing depicted as a jumble of old and new spaces. In Shi qi sui de dan che/Beijing Bicycle (Wang Xiaoshuai, 2001) and Lian ai zhong de Bao Bei/Baober in Love (Li Shaohong, 2004), the main characters’ incursions into this modern urban space result in a defeat caused by the clash between their fragile status as floating creatures As an ancient and the harshness capital and of a city unknown to contemporary most. Beijing is here metropolis, a sea, or ocean, of Beijing lends businesses and money, itself to endless where it is easy to explorations. get lost. Yangguang canlan de rizi/In the Despite the radical Heat of The Sun (Jiang restructuring that Wen, 1994) shows the the city has gone endless wandering of through in the Ma Xiaojun (Xia Yu), past two decades, nicknamed Monkey, it still maintains and his friends, who a multiplicity of are virtual orphans of the Cultural Revolution spaces.

(the parents, cadres of the party, are chronically absent), and documents the film-maker’s journey into childhood memories and Chinese history. In contrast You hua hao hao shuo/Keep Cool (Zhang Yimou, 1997) captures a paradigmatic modern city, freezing it in an eternal present. The Beijing film-maker Ning Ying has demonstrated deep concern for the drastic changes that occurred in the urban physical and social space from the early-1990s, and has committed herself to the visual record of her city amidst the turmoil of the economic reforms. The agenda behind her films implies a perfect correspondence between fiction and reality, characters and real urban residents, who struggle to maintain an existential balance but flounder due to the absence of a stable landscape. In Min jing gu shi/On the Beat (1995) the Xicheng District, that is navigated by bicycle and on foot by policemen patrolling the streets day and night, is caught in the middle of an extensive process of dislocation and relocation requiring the demolition of ‘old’ structures. The sombre procession of earth movers irrupted into the quiet alleys announces an imminent revolution in the life of the resident population. As a visual memento, the grey sea of roofs and courtyards seen from above evokes an impending disappearance: the simultaneous presence of the high-rises emerging from the line of the horizon besieges the old city from afar. Ning’s later Xiari nuanyangyang/I Love Beijing (Ning Ying, 2001) concerns the navigator of the city par excellence: the taxi driver. Following the hectic trajectory of his vehicle, we are driven from one construction site to another. Uprooted as it is, the whole city appears like a unique immense building site, already unrecognizable but with some nostalgic remnants of a past era. The taxi driver becomes a point of intersection between people and these spaces. Modalities of navigation depend on space’s configurations: hutongs (alleys) cannot be crossed by big cars or trucks, whilst large avenues and ring roads are not designed for pedestrians, who cannot cross them. These arteries stand for intervals of blankness within the city: through them it can be easily crossed, but less effectively understood. The various areas of Beijing can be ploughed through film, with the exploration of different districts giving rise to the new city that is floating in the sea of urban space. { 69

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70 World Film Locations | Beijing

BEIJING LOCATIONS SCENES 25-32 Wangjing

25. i love beijing/ xiari nuanyangyang (2001) Beijing apm, 138 Wangfujing Avenue, Dongcheng District page 72 26. lan yu (2001) A street near Tiananmen Square page 74 27. spring subway (2002) Beijing underground page 76

Heping Li

28. together with you/ he ni zai yi qi (2002) 11 Jingshan back street, Xicheng District page 78

29 Dongcheng Qu

28 Forbidden City

26 Tiananmen Square

29. cala, my dog!/ ka la shi tiao gou (2003) No.13 courtyard, Black Sesame Hutong, Dongcheng District page 80

27 30

25 32

Chongwen Qu

31

30. cell phone/shou ji (2003) Shangri-la Hotel, 29 Zizhuyuan Road, Haidian District page 82 3 1. green tea/lu cha (2003) South Silk Road Restaurant, SOHO New Town, C 88 Jianguo Road, Chaoyang District page 84 32. the concrete revolution (2004) Beijing train station, Dongcheng District page 86

Daxing Qu 71

I Love Beijing/ Xiari nuanyangyang LOCATI O N

(2001)

Beijing apm, 138 Wangfujing Avenue, Dongcheng District

i love beijing is the final installment in Ning Ying’s ‘Beijing Trilogy’. It follows Zhao Le/For Fun (1992), which depicts the disappearing lifestyle of huddling elderly retirees, and Min jing gu shi/On the Beat (1995), which follows bicycle-mounted policemen. Taking taxi driver Dezi (Yu Ailei) as its main protagonist, I Love Beijing offers a fast-paced survey of the modernizing capital, suggesting that Beijing is getting bigger and harder to grasp by the year. From the mobile viewpoint of Dezi, we see torn-down neighbourhoods and new real estate developments, the crowded apartments of the working class and glitzy restaurants such as the Beijing branch of Maxim’s. The flitting love affairs of this good-looking, recently divorced man become a social study of sorts, as he hooks up with a waitress from Xinjiang, an intellectual librarian, and a bored bohemian. One of his dates takes place at the Beijing apm, formerly Sun Dong An Plaza, a glittering six-story shopping mall on Wangfujing Avenue. Beijing apm was opened in 1998 at the site of Beijing’s first western-style arcade, Dong An Market, established in 1903. The renewed version was a harbinger of the remodelling of Wangfujing into a pedestrian mall, and the wider gentrification of the city centre in advance of the 2000 Asian Games. In I Love Beijing, the glass-andsteel mirroring surfaces and the maze of escalators in the plaza visually convey the citizens’ disorientation inside this new shrine to consumerism. Dezi’s odyssey through this new Beijing will end in alienation and defeat. ✒Yomi Braester (Photo © Neo-Jay: wkimedia commons)

72 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Ning Ying Scene description: Dezi hooks up with Miaomiao Timecode for scene: 0:31:25 – 0:31:47

Images © 2001 Eurasia Communications, Happy Village

73

Lan Yu LOCATI O N

(2001)

A street near Tiananmen Square

lan yu tells the story of a homosexual couple in late-1980s Beijing: Handong, the son of a senior party official, has a short but intimate relationship with Lan Yu, a poor university student. Despite their separation, thoughts of Lan Yu are always in Handong’s mind. On 4 June 1989, Handong receives information about the provincial government’s plan to clear the gathering of students in Tiananmen Square by means of military force. Concerned for Lan Yu’s safety, he drives his car around the streets surrounding the Square late at night. In a blurry subjective shot, shades of light are faintly seen coming toward Handong’s car from the distance. As they pass by and come into focus, they turn out to be scores of students of the democracy movement and pedestrians, fleeing in panic from the Square, casting ghostly shadows in the darkened street; before Handong can recompose himself, the last cyclist brushes by, and the street returns to stillness. Nearby, residential dwellings are brightly lit inside, but hardly anyone can be seen in the street. In this dark and silent night, Handong reunites with Lan Yu. The scene does not attempt to reconstruct the incident that took place in Tiananmen Square that night. Instead, through the homosexual lovers’ reunion – a deep and affectionate embrace in a quiet, unidentifiable street amid the surrounding commotion of social and political unrest – this night scene turns an ordinary street near Tiananmen Square into a complex space infused with political and personal sentiments. ✒Chu Kiu-wai (Photo © Mark Lewis)

74 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Stanley Kwan Scene description: The June Fourth Embrace in the shadow of Tiananmen Square Timecode for scene: 0:29:28 – 0:30:49

Images © 2001 Kwan's Creation Workshop, Yongning Creation Workshop

75

Spring Subway LOCATI O N

(2002)

Beijing underground

a chinese modern-day ‘seven-year-itch’, Spring Subway delves into the struggling relationship between Jian Bin (Geng Le) and his wife Xiao Hui (Xu Jinglei), a typical young couple who had moved to Beijing seven years earlier, filled with hope and the sheer willingness to move ahead. Development and forward movement are symbolized by the Beijing subway, with trains speeding through the darkness into starkly-lit stations, while the months of apparent failings in their marriage which constitute the narrative are positioned as an integral part of an on-going process. Jian Bin has lost his job but is unable to tell his wife. He spends his days riding the subway, travelling around the labyrinth of tunnels and stations, while fellow passengers, also searching for love, have become his regular travel companions. Zhang Yibai is one of the few directors to succeed in combining commercial film-making with an in-depth exploration of contemporary Chinese society. This is achieved through montage and editing which intersperses the different strands of the tale, combining the protagonists’ actions with voice-overs, flashbacks and enactments of their fantasies. The conclusion of the film, the confrontation after months of inner withdrawal, repeats the scenes of the couple’s arrival in Beijing seven years ago, revealing their confidence in the future, in each other, and their mutual love. These images are followed by close-ups of the matured husband and wife, facing each other once again in sincerity and earnest. The final shot is of a speeding subway, as the aforementioned process continues. ✒Isabel Wolte (Photo © Azylber: wkimedia commons)

76 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Zhang Yibai Scene description: Confrontation Timecode for scene: 1:29:40 – 1:34:55

Images © 2002 China Youth Film Studios, Electric Orange Entertainment

77

Together With You/ He ni zai yi qi (2002)

LOCATI O N

11 Jingshan back street, Xicheng District

together with you tells the story of 13-year-old violin prodigy Xiaochun (Tang Yun) who is taken to Beijing by his widowed peasant father in search of a good violin teacher, fame and a better life. Due to limited means, they live in a run-down siheyuan in an area near Beijing Children’s Palace (youth centre) where such traditional buildings await redevelopment into westernstyle apartment blocks. On the top floor of one of the nearby modern buildings, Lili (Chen Hong), the attractive young mistress of a businessman, has also just moved in. The camera pans around her apartment’s westernized decor, which includes portraits of her lover as well as Marilyn Monroe. The new apartment is juxtaposed with the traditional architecture of the district outside, as seen through Lili’s binoculars. Lili sees Xiaochun playing his violin in the courtyard below and invites him upstairs to play for her. On his way to her apartment, Xiaochun walks through a whitewashed corridor rendered even brighter by the patches of golden sunlight on the wall, presenting a stark contrast to the condition of his humble abode. Characterized by the buildings that they live in, the innocent country child violinist and the materialistic but easy-going modern city woman are people from two very different worlds. Yet they become neighbours and soon develop a pure and truthful friendship. Their initial encounter suggests that, despite the shifts from old to new, traditional to modern, and local to international, strong human sentiments will still prevail within such Beijing neighbourhoods. ✒Chu Kiu-wai (Photo © Seppe Van Grieken, Longmen/Beijing)

78 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Chen Kaige Scene description: Interludes of change Timecode for scene: 0:22:14 – 0:25:55

Images © 2002 China Film Group

79

Cala, My Dog!/ Ka la shi tiao gou LOCATI O N

(2003)

No.13 courtyard, Black Sesame Hutong, Dongcheng District

no.13 courtyard at Black Sesame Hutong has over 260 years of history, but it is currently a cultural relic, protected by government policy. This residence is home to a dozen ordinary households and has recently become a popular place for shooting feature films or television dramas. In Cala, My Dog!, Lao Er (Ge You) comes to the courtyard to borrow a dog-raising permit from his friend. Lao Er is an ordinary, middle-aged Beijing worker; he has little ambition and raises his family with a low salary: it is only when faced with Cala, a common cross-bred dog, that he really recognizes the true value of existence. But the 5,000 RMB fee for the necessary dog-raising license is so expensive that Lao Er decides to take a risk and borrow his friend’s paperwork as a means of fooling the police. Due to the rapid development of modern Chinese cities, the overriding value of putting money above everything limits connections among people, while emotions between owners and pets have become more cherished. Lao Er is seeking to not only save Cala, but also to rescue his fundamental hope. Throughout the history of Beijing, a lot of significant cultural figures have lived at the Black Sesame Hutong, which has fortunately avoided being demolished and replaced with high buildings, the current symbol of modern civilization. As such, the area still represents traditional lifestyles and the grassroots traditions of its past and present residents, maintaining an important position in the urban culture of Beijing. ✒Liu Yang

(Photos © Seppe Van Grieken, Longmen/Beijing)

80 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Lu Xuechang Scene description: Borrowing a dog permit Timecode for scene: 0:29:08 – 0:35:08

Images © 2003 Huayi Brothers

81

Cell Phone/Shou ji LOCATI O N

(2003)

Shangri-la Hotel, 9 Xianggangzhong Road, Shinan District, Qingdao (doubling for Beijing’s 29 Zizhuyuan Road branch)

with elaborate product placements and tie-ins with China Mobile, BMW and Motorola, Cell Phone is arguably the most commercialized film by Feng Xiaogang. In tandem with the unmistakable physical transformation of Beijing’s landscape, epitomized by the demolition of traditional hutong neighbourhoods and the construction of skyscrapers, the rise of the information and communications technologies, including cell phones, has dramatically transformed social relations among Chinese people. Yan Shouyi (Ge You), a well-established, middle-aged television show host, is having an affair with Wu Yue (Fan Bingbing), the attractive employee of a publishing company. The scene depicts a publishing party in an unnamed luxury hotel and an ‘electronic’ arrangement, via cell phones, of the after-party affair. Due to the 2003 SARS outbreak, the scene was actually shot in the Shangri-la Hotel in Qingdao, Shandong Province, approximately 340 miles southeast of Beijing, but the scene conveys the ubiquity of cosmopolitan luxury hotels located in the capital, which have become a popular place for those planning an extramarital rendezvous. Wu Yue seduces Yan Shouyi to her hotel room; retreating to the restroom, Wu Yue sends the room number to Yan Shouyi via a text message, with Yan Shouyi immediately replying. The close-up of the cell phone screen and the long-shot of unsuspecting party participants highlights the technology that enables the intimate privacy of lovers among anonymous city dwellers. Technology, however, has its downside: the records left in his cell phone eventually causes Yan Shouyi to pay a considerable price for his indiscretions. ✒Seio Nakajima (Photos © Seppe Van Grieken, Longmen/Beijing)

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Directed by Feng Xiaogang Scene description: After-party rendezvous at a luxury hotel Timecode for scene: 1:10:32 – 1:14:17

Images © 2003 China Film Group

83

Green Tea/Lu Cha LOCATI O N

(2003)

South Silk Road Restaurant, SOHO New Town, C 88 Jianguo Road, Chaoyang District

green tea is a romantic drama that explores how men and women search for genuine love, in a time of fragile and alienated modern relationships. Wu Fang (Zhao Wei) plays a conservative woman who compulsively meets strangers in coffee shops and teahouses for blind dates, seeking someone trustworthy for marriage. The film opens with Wu Fang’s date Chen Mingliang (Jiang Wen) entering a hip and spacious eatery one quiet afternoon to be immediately attracted by an eye-catching woman in red, whom he mistakes for Wu. Without hesitation, he walks past Wu to meet the other woman, causing embarrassment. Wu, with her short hair-cut, dark framed glasses and plain black suit, appears to be a bookish office worker and her attire blends with the cafe’s white-washed decor. Cinematographer Christopher Doyle presents this contemporary establishment as a chic coffee place for city executives who require seclusion from the crowded city centre, reflecting the current trend of Beijing urbanites’ preference for social spaces. With its wall-size modernist abstract painting in black-and-white, floor-to-ceiling glass wall panels and rows of long wooden tables, the scantily patronized cafe appears uncannily clean and bright yet simultaneously presents a latent atmosphere of coldness that reflects the couple’s uneasy first date. Leaving the coffee shop, they walk past the grey cemented wall of a narrow and empty back alley, before turning into a footpath with greenery. The more natural environment outside suggests they are coming out of a cold and confined space into an area of hope. ✒Chu Kiu-wai (Photo © Seppe Van Grieken, Longmen/Beijing)

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Directed by Zhang Yuan Scene description: A blind date in SOHO New Town Timecode for scene: 0:02:00 – 0:07:37

Images © 2003 Asian Union Film Ltd.

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The Concrete Revolution LOCATI O N

(2004)

Beijing train station, Dongcheng District

guo xiaolu’s compelling documentary The Concrete Revolution is introduced with the title card, ‘Notes on New China approaching the Year of the Monkey’ and finds the city of Beijing in the throes of urbanization as old hutong neighbourhoods are torn down and modern skyscrapers are built in their place. The Concrete Revolution shows that the lives of the construction workers who undertake hard labour for modest wages on such regeneration projects are far removed from the affluence associated with an accelerated economy. Most of these workers have migrated to Beijing with the aim of earning money that can be sent back to impoverished family members in their home provinces; they live in cramped conditions, often inhabiting buildings that are about to be demolished, putting in long hours on sites that fall short of safety standards. To find this work, they come to Beijing via train and arrive at the central station, which is where The Concrete Revolution begins. The station is a particularly chaotic place, although the director’s narration notes that, ‘it is a gateway into the new world’ for migrants. This station was built in 1959 as part of the ‘Ten Great Buildings’ project that was intended to reflect the progressive outlook of the country, while the design was a combination of traditional Chinese structure and Soviet Stalinist architecture. However, the workers seen here have little interest in the history of the building as they simply want to secure the money-making opportunities that lie beyond the exit door. ✒John Berra

(Photo © r h: wikimedia commons)

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Directed by Guo Xiaolu Scene description: Migrant workers arrive at Beijing train station Timecode for scene: 0:01:40 – 0:02:50

Images © 2004 Orchid Films

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The State of Things

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Yomi Braester

Political Power in Beijing

as the city of beijing is the seat of the central government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), any portrayal of the capital is implicitly a political commentary as well. Mainland censors have gone as far as to ban the Chinese title of I Love Beijing (Ning Ying, 2001) since it might be ironic; the title of the international release keeps the reference to the city, but the approved Chinese title, Xiari nuanyangyang, translates into the comparatively nondescript ‘the summer sun is warm’. Beijing appears as the location of palace intrigues in the imperial period, and filming the palace complex known as the Forbidden City has posed many problems. Nicholas Ray’s historical epic 55 Days at Peking (1963) uses fantastic sets and locations in Spain. Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor (1987) was the first film to gain access to the Forbidden City since Cerf-volant du bout du monde/The Magic

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of the Kite (Roger Pigaut, 1958). Dataijian Li Lianying/Li Lianying: The Imperial Eunuch (Tian Zhuangzhuang, 1991) also used the imperial compound for a few location shots. Since 1949, the emblem of state power has been Tiananmen Square, which appears time and again onscreen, whether to support or criticize the government. The iconic reference was established in Xin Zhongguo de dansheng/ The Birth of New China (Gao Weijin, 1949), a documentary record of the founding ceremony of the PRC. The image of Mao Zedong on top of Tiananmen Gate’s balcony, proclaiming the new People’s Republic, has since been used repeatedly to invoke the state’s legitimacy. The scene was restaged with minor variations when Mao appeared on the same balcony during National Day parades, and in front of Red Guards, during the Cultural Revolution. Documentary films of these occasions were widely distributed, helping to fan the revolutionary spirit. The 1949 ceremony was also re-enacted in a number of propagandistic films. It is the central subject of Kaiguo dadian/The Founding Ceremony (Li Qiankuan and Xiao Guiyun, 1989), a retelling of the power struggles during the civil war (1945–1949), culminating in the foundation of the PRC. Tiananmen (Ye Daying, 2009) describes the preparations for the ceremony, with an emphasis on the adorning of Tiananmen gate, such as the making of the large red lanterns. The film ends with a CGI-enhanced depiction of the event. Given their iconic importance, Tiananmen gate and the square below were also used for implicit political criticism, in real events as well as in film. The Tiananmen demonstrations of 1976, directed against Mao and his close

Opposite Shower (1999) / Below On the Beat (1995)

Above © 1995 Eurasia Communications Opposite © 1999 Imar Film / Xi'an Film Studio

collaborators, appear in Shenghuo de Chanyin/ Reverberations of Life (Teng Wenji and Wu Tianming, 1979). This portrayal was made possible by the official verdict on the 1976 demonstrations being reversed after Mao’s death. Footage of the more famous Tiananmen demonstrations of 1989 being crushed by the army have remained taboo in Chinese productions, but appear in many western documentaries, most prominently The Gate of Heavenly Peace (Richard Gordon and Carma Hinton, 1995). More oblique political criticism appears in the form of unorthodox views of Tiananmen Square. Da yuebing/The Big Parade (Chen Kaige, 1986) tells of a military company training for the upcoming parade at Tiananmen. The film ends with a sequence comprised mostly of documentary footage of the 1984 parade: halfway through, the shots start playing in slow motion, accompanied by an elegiac score. The mournful ballet-like images of the parade are incongruous with the tenor of official presentations and challenge the displays of power at Tiananmen. The documentary Guangchang/The Square (Zhang Yuan and Duan Jinchuan, 1994) Political power takes another path. in Beijing is not By presenting the limited to the state. square as the site of The power relations daily activities – flying kites, tourists taking between citizens and and the authorities photographs watching other people are defined in many – the film asserts the situations and at square’s alternative function, not as the many sites.

national capitol but rather as part of Beijing’s quotidian urban fabric. Political power in Beijing is not limited to the state. The power relations between citizens and the authorities are defined in many situations and at many sites. Min jing gu shi/On the Beat (Ning Ying, 1995) follows the interaction between neighbourhood residents and the beat policemen (an entertaining scene shows their discussion with an elderly neighbourhood committee representative on the subject of birth control). The locations in the film differ greatly from the grandeur of Tiananmen – the drab hutongs (alleys) that many Beijingers call home. Since the 1980s, older structures have been torn down at an increasing speed, with the friction between the citizens and the enforcers of municipal power implicit in mainstream films on the theme of demolition-and-relocation, such as Xizao/Shower (Zhang Yang, 1999) and clearly apparent in independent documentaries, such as Meishi Jie/ Meishi Street (Ou Ning and Cao Fei, 2006). As China’s capital and cultural centre, Beijing hosts the institutions that wield political control over the film industry. Beijing is the seat of the headquarters of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), the overseeing body that censors pre-production and distribution; the China Film Group Corporation (CFGC), which approves films for import; the August First Film Studio, the major producer of state propaganda, run by the People’s Liberation Army; and the Central Newsreel and Documentary Film Studio (since 1993 under Chinese Central Television – CCTV). Other establishments in Beijing also facilitate state policies – these include the Chinese Film Association, the Beijing Film Academy, Beijing Film Studio and the China Film Archives. State control has been challenged to some extent by underground film clubs in the 1990s and attempts at establishing independent film festivals in the 2000s. The most successful of these – although also periodically shut down by the authorities – have been the activities sponsored by the Li Xianting foundation in the suburb of Songzhuang, including the ‘Beijing Independent Film Festival’ and the ‘China Documentary Film Festival’. As such, it can be firmly asserted that the use of Beijing locations, the history of the city, and even the mere mention of its name are inherently imbued with political significance. { 89

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Tiananmen Square

BEIJING LOCATIONS SCENES 33-39 39 Wangjing

33. the world/shijie (2004) Beijing World Park, 158 Fengbao Road, Fengtai District page 92 34 . oxhide/niupi (2005) A flat near Guangqumen, Dongcheng District page 94 35. waiting alone/du zi deng dai (2005) A set created to represent a Houhai district antique store page 96

Heping Li

Dongcheng Qu

36. curse of the golden flower/ mancheng jindai huangjinjia (2006) Gate of Supreme Harmony, south side of the Forbidden City page 98 37. meishi street/meishi jie (2006) Meishi Street, Dashilan, Xicheng District (formerly Xuanwu District) page 100

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38. summer palace/yihe yuan (2006) Peking University, No.5 Yiheyuan Road, Haidian District page 102 39. in love we trust/zuo you (2007) Tiantongyuan Xiao Qu, Changping District page 104

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The World/Shijie LOCATI O N

(2004)

Beijing World Park, 158 Fengbao Road, Fengtai District

set in the extravagant location of Beijing World Park, Jia Zhangke’s The World re-maps Beijing as a carnivalesque, self-contained parody of China’s burgeoning globalization; a city where image is currency and gleaming facades hide darker realities. A themed tourist attraction boasting scaled-down replicas of international landmarks, the park satisfies visitors’ desire for both global travel and local leisure consumption. Those who work in the park exist on its periphery. To them, the park constitutes both work and home, but mostly it is a space of unfulfilled desires and empty promises. When two newly arrived migrant workers join the park’s construction site, their interactions with the landscape situate them in a distinct space from that of the visitors: workers serve the fantasy, while tourists consume it. The two workers walk into a shot from the perspective of tourists photographing the ‘Leaning Tower of Pisa’. Looking towards the camera, they instantly disrupt the touristic gaze, intruding upon the consumer fantasy. The camera follows the workers as they continue to navigate the park, and we share their intrigued observation of tourists taking photos of the ‘Taj Mahal’. They encounter Cheng Taisheng (Chen Taishen), a park security guard and friend from their hometown, who introduces them to the ‘Manhattan Skyline’, its fragmented, iconic outline looming into view, complete with World Trade Centre. His friends point out that the Twin Towers were destroyed during 9/11. Cheng Taisheng jokingly replies, ‘We still have them’. As such, the park’s consumer fantasy becomes lost in its own image-illusion. ✒Carol Mei Barker (Photos © Seppe Van Grieken, Longmen/Beijing)

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Directed by Jia Zhangke Scene description: Beijing World Park still has the Twin Towers Timecode for scene: 0:31:19-0:36:55

Images © 2004 Office Kitano, X Stream Pictures

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Oxhide/Niupi LOCATI O N

(2005)

A flat near Guangqumen, Dongcheng District

in oxhide, the city can only be imagined. Nonetheless, it’s everywhere, in the dialogue and the accent, pauses, and gestures. Through observation and emotional involvement, film-maker Liu Jiayin participates in her family daily life and trivia, using the camera as an extension of her eye and amplifying its power with static narrative unites in the form of 23 long takes. Oxhide focuses on the subtle psychological interaction of family members facing hard times. Being the only child, ‘Beibei’ Jiaying is the object of care and reproaches, and the film, apart from being a document of ‘a day in the life of a Beijing family’, is also her way of relieving this pressure. In this scene, the city is evoked through the food and a typical Beijing dinner. Parents and daughter sit at the table eating noodles, cucumber, garlic and different types of local sauces, such as sesame paste and chilli sauce, evoking memories of life at the time of the Cultural Revolution. We see the family chatting in a relaxed manner, but issues and personal frustrations suddenly come out, breaking a delicate balance that is repeatedly re-established throughout the film. The only moment when Beijing becomes physically present is when the noise of a truck or a bus passing by bursts into the scene: it’s a matter of a few seconds, and the rumble is not easily detectable, but there is something touching about the sound, the sound, as if the outside were meeting the inside in the blink of an eye. ✒Mariagrazia Costantino (Photo © Minghong: wkimedia commons)

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Directed by Liu Jiayin Scene description: Eating noodles Timecode for scene: 0:59:41 – 1:14:32

Images © 2005 dGenerate Films

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Waiting Alone/ Du zi deng dai

(2005)

LOCATI O N

A set built to represent a Houhai district antique store

waiting alone is a romantic-comedy that depicts the lives of a group of affluent Beijingers in their twenties. Lovelorn Chen Wen (Xia Yu) owns the antique shop Xian Ren Ju in Hou Hai district. He tries to become a successful writer and suffers emotionally due to his ambiguous relationship with actress Liu Rong (Li Bingbing), eventually realizing that his true love – close friend Li Jing (Gong Beibi) – has always been around. The key venue in the film is the antique shop, which is hidden in a quiet hutong. As the proprietor, Chen Wen often sits behind the counter writing ghost stories, waiting for Liu Rong to show up. When his feelings are hurt by Liu Rong, it is Li Jing who provides companionship and support. In the end, Chen Wen realizes that Li Jing is the right person for him. As well as providing a convenient place for friends to drop by and counsel Chen Wen about his relationship problems, the antique shop is also a representation of its owner’s seemingly never-ending wait for his ‘dream girl’ to enter his life. The antique shop reflects the status of the cultural internationalization of young urbanites in modern China, such as Chen Wen and his social circle. They are more influenced by postmodern western culture than by national culture. Chen Wen, for example, owns an antique shop, but all he sells are fake antiques, including the ‘underwear’ worn by Hong Kong movie star Chow Yun-fat in a costume drama. ✒Wei Ju

(Photo © HéctorTabaré: wikimedia commons)

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Directed by Dayyan Eng Scene description: Antique shop as social space Timecode for scene: 1:28:14 – 1:32:31

Images © 2005 Colordance Pictures

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Curse of the Golden Flower/ Mancheng Jindai Huangjinjia LOCATI O N

(2006)

Gate of Supreme Harmony, south side of the Forbidden City

zhang yimou's fictional portrayal of an imperial family dispute during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms takes place almost entirely in Beijing's Forbidden City. Emperor Ping (Chow Yun-fat) tolerates no deviation from his rules, so continually poisons the Empress (Gong Li), whom he believes to be having an affair with Prince Xiang (Liu Ye). In an early scene, the imperial family gathers on a circular terrace built at the Gate of Supreme Harmony. The Emperor refuses several requests from the princes regarding their duties for the upcoming Chrysanthemum Festival and openly compels the Empress to drink her poisoned medicine. The scene takes place entirely in the square in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony (between the Gate of Supreme Harmony and Hall of Supreme Harmony). In one shot, the camera pans at a high angle across the square – a sea of yellow chrysanthemums divided in the middle by a purple carpeted aisle – onto the terrace, where the Emperor awaits. Zhang adopts an aerial view of the Empress and her sons ascending the stairway to the platform. A reverse angle from the Emperor's perspective, as he awaits their arrival, reveals the square, the Gate of Supreme Harmony and the rest of the Imperial Palace. Zhang devotes half of this scene to a high-angled panoramic view of the Forbidden City and its yellow rooftops, highlighting the depth and massiveness of its grounds. The scene ends with the Empress succumbing to the Emperor's command and the dispensing of protocol for the festival. ✒Joann Huifen Hu (Photo © Gisling: wkimedia commons)

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Directed by Zhang Yimou Scene description: Imperial family gathers on the terrace at the Gate of Supreme Harmony Timecode for scene: 0:19:40 – 0:25:18

Images © 2006 Beijing New Picture Film Co., EDKO Film

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Meishi Street/Meishi Jie LOCATI O N

(2006)

Meishi Street, Dashilan, Xicheng District (formerly Xuanwu District)

meishi street provides an authentic and unvarnished picture of contemporary life in central Beijing’s traditional but rapidly disappearing hutongs. The government decided to gentrify the ancient Dashilan ‘slum’ neighbourhood before the 2008 Olympics Games. Widening Meishi Street from 8 to 25 meters, Zhang Jinli’s family restaurant would be demolished in the process. The residents resisted and a battle for the media control of public space ensued. Jinli and his neighbours hung up patriotic flags, Mao quotations, and protest banners against corruption. The government pulls them down and responds with its own banners. Ou Ning and Cao Fei have provided Jinli with a mini-DV camera so he can record events himself. But in this scene, he discovers its use as one of his weapons. Setting it up on the roof of his restaurant, Jinli videos himself as he belts out a nostalgic song about the good old days when he was a child and could rely on his father – unlike today, presumably. A crowd gathers below as he delivers lines like, ‘I sing my sorrow through my songs.’ Eventually, a policeman comes up to the roof. Jinli insists that he is just recording himself singing and will soon come down. The policeman responds, ‘Tomorrow, I’ll bring my own video camera along.’ Meishi Street underlines the political importance of documentary evidence at the same time as it produces a record of Beijing’s disappearing street scenes. When the restaurant finally comes down, Jinli videos everything – and so do the police. ✒Chris Berry

(Photo © Daderot: wkimedia commons)

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Directed by Ou Ning and Cao Fei Scene description: Zhang Jinli videos his own protest scene Timecode for scene: 0:26:29 – 0:29:03

Images © 2006 Alternative Archive

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Summer Palace/Yihe Yuan LOCATI O N

(2006)

Peking University, No.5 Yiheyuan Road, Haidian District

the first half of Lou Ye’s Summer Palace takes place at Beiqing University, a fictional institution that was modelled on Peking University, although the director also refers to his higher education at the prestigious Beijing Film Academy. Opening in 1988, the complicated emotional state of the socially aloof yet sexually adventurous Yu Hong (Hao Lei), is placed in political context as the growing frustrations of the student community ultimately lead to tragic rebellion: Lou introduces the university environment with a series of tracking shots cut to the rock music of the period that take in the campus, the library, a lecture theatre, the sports field, and the cramped dormitories where students live in close quarters and have relatively little privacy. This early sequence captures the energy of university life in an area of idealism as students are seen pursuing curricular or extracurricular interests (athletics, dancing, drinking, music, politics and reading) shortly before the sudden end of the pro-democracy movement on 4 June 1989. When the focus returns to Yu, she is seen to be a detached presence who consciously avoids contact with others; much camaraderie is seen in the dormitories, where six to eight students live in each room, but Yu is ungrateful to a friend who has picked up a book for her from the library, has little interest in gossip, and reluctantly agrees to go shopping. By establishing university as a place of shared experience, Lou also shows how his central character stubbornly stands apart from the crowd. ✒John Berra

(Photo © Richard Gould: wkimedia commons)

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Directed by Lou Ye Scene description: Campus tour of Beiqing University Timecode for scene: 0:14:15 – 0:17:54

Images © 2006 Dream Factory, Laurel Films

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In Love We Trust/Zuo you LOCATI O N

(2007)

Tiantongyuan Xiao Qu, Changping District

love, trust, sacrifice: how to juggle the three? In Love We Trust centres on two families. We meet Hehe, a little girl who develops a fever. An innocuous visit to the hospital unveils the unimaginable, triggering a series of actions in the adults around her – Hehe’s biological parents, now divorced, and their respective new partners. Throughout this unfortunate revelation, Beijing looms in the background: from the empty apartment that never rents to the train that crosses the vast city to the planes that come and go, lives intersect and crash into one another, all so inevitable. The film begins with a frontal view from within a moving car. The camera observes as the car moves silently down streets of Tiantongyuan Xiao Qu, a large residential community that is infamous for its traffic congestion and a nightmare for thousands of its residents who commute to work. Tall apartment buildings line the streets as children and adults hurry on their way. A voice calls out: ‘left’, then, ‘right’. We realize they are directions. The same scene is repeated at the end of the film and this time the context is clear: we know who is in the car, and we know where they are heading. But do they? And do we? Left or right only takes us down another street. The path is continuous, the destination still unknown. Love and trust, vague as they are, may be the only things that warm us, as we make sacrifices along the way. ✒Grace Wang

(Photos © Seppe Van Grieken, Longmen/Beijing)

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Directed by Wang Xiaoshuai Scene description: Left, right: driving down a busy Beijing street Timecode for scene: 0:00:26 – 0:01:57

Images © 2007 Debo Film Ltd.

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Zhang Yuan’s Urban Cinema

w Text by

Dave McCaig

Transitional Cityscapes and Peripheral Lives zhang yuan's urban cinema passionately seizes the opportunity to document Beijing and its populace at a post-socialist time of architectural, socio-economic and political metamorphosis. His second feature, Beijing Zazhong/Beijing Bastards (1993) stands as a celluloid testimony to Beijing in a period of dramatic transition, paralleled with a tale of youthful dissent marred by the inevitability of impending adult responsibility. Urban demolition dominates much of the exterior mise-en-scène of Beijing Bastards: as the 1990s emerged, Beijing dramatically accelerated its passion for large scale redevelopment with the primary aim of converting the old city into a centre for tourism and international commerce. A sombre ride through Chang’an Avenue, taking in Tiananmen Square, Chairman Mao Moloseum and The Monument of The People's Heroes, reminds one of a turbulent political past and suggests an uncertain future in the face of increased commercialization. Conversely, downtown street scenes show a city

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that is as restless as the disenfranchised main characters, who are involved in the local music scene. Central Beijing is portrayed as a dimly-lit, hyperactive metropolis in the on-going process of actualizing an urban evolution: band members are engulfed as the viewer accompanies them through snapshots of areas on the cusp of change. This is a city that is soon to exist only in memory, with drab high-rises with communal spaces cluttered with junk and debris, construction sites, thoroughfares bustling with street vendors and sparsely-furnished canteens. The first film from mainland China to deal with the controversial issue of homosexuality, Dong gong xi gong/East Palace, West Palace (1996) was initially developed by the director as a stage play, adapting the novel by Wang Xiaobo, and the social heart of his cinematic interpretation is at times at risk of suffocating under the aesthetic opulence of the staged settings. The title of the film refers to the public toilets located at the east and west sides of Tiananmen, an area to the north of the Forbidden Palace, and the shift to a strongly theatricalized account with a confident flair for creative camera work results in an initially claustrophobic tale of psychological imprisonment that fervidly debates the politics of same sex desire. A Lan recounts the story of his life as a persecuted minority forced to live on the margins of society to his policeman captor, with the history of the city intervolving within flashbacks. His tortured youth, spent in dilapidated housing, makes for a stark contrast with the lush and abounding expanse of the park. The role of parkland and nature as solace for the marginalized is utilized further in Kan shang qu hen mei/Little Red Flowers (2006). Based on Wang Shuo's semi-autobiographical 1999 novel Kan shangqu hen mei/Could Be Beautiful, this tale of childhood dissent within a post-

Opposite Little Red Flowers (2006) / Below I Love You (2002)

Above © 2002 824 Pictures Opposite © 2006 Huakun Entertainment

1949 residential kindergarten again plays out within Zhang’s overarching thesis of individual rebellion. As Fang Qiangqiang continues his personal insurgency against the militarized regime of the kindergarten, the emblematic nature of the text is ever-apparent. The film was shot within Imperial Ancestral Temple and although scenes of the children within the grounds are sparsely furnished, Director of Photography Tao Yang, endows exteriors with radiant blushes of warm red hues that seem to externalize the simple pleasures that these children derive from play. Further respite from the oppressive nature of the institution comes when the 4-year-old discovers the parkland of the neighbouring hospital. Despite dominant representations of the area as a monolithic sprawl of concrete buildings, Beijing residents enjoy large areas of greenery devoted to rest and relaxation with gardens and parks, both classical and modern, situated throughout the municipality. An indulgence in Chinese critics have formal sound and derided much of image experimentation Zhang’s recent work marks out Lu Cha/ as evidence of the Green Tea (2003) but this depiction of rebellious promise Beijing couldn't be of the 'urban generation' faltering more diverged from the bleak dilapidation to be replaced by and dingy dwellings of a more populist, Zhang’s inaugural filmcommercially viable making. Predominately model of cinematic a film of interiors, the modern coffeehouses, storytelling.

deluxe loft-apartments and up-scale restaurants favoured by an affluent post-socialist consumer class connote superficiality but are eccentrically and seductively construed by cinematographer Christopher Doyle. These minimalist spaces host various encounters between young academic Wu Fang and Mingliang. A consciously-mannered piece, the film initially presents Beijing as nondistinct from other large international cities in the grip of hyper-modernity, but as the couple continue to meet, settings exhibit a distinct duality. As the pair walk gentrified streets seemingly bereft of traditional architecture, turns into narrow alleyways reveal glimpses of the Old Beijing through restored hutongs (alleys) and narrow walkways. This combination of proud custom and the hyper-modern is prevalent throughout the city. Despite an enthusiastic demolition of the hutong areas, recent heritage orders and designated protected zones have ensured that considerable parts of traditional architecture remain. Chinese critics have derided much of Zhang’s recent work as evidence of the rebellious promise of the 'urban generation' faltering to be replaced by a more populist, commercially viable model of cinematic storytelling. But to accost this later period as less worthy and more convivial than his earlier cinema is to misunderstand how his work continues to faithfully document change within Beijing. His first Wang Shuo adaptation, Wo ai ni/I Love You (2002) witnesses Zhang indulging in the tale of young, professional newly-weds Du Xiaoju and Wang Yi who find themselves quickly repenting the hastiness of their relationship. As their volatile marriage descends into deranged dependence, displacement sound and image devices act as ghosts of the lost innocence of their initial love. Arguably the film lacks the antagonistic bent and the more visible political groundings of earlier films, but it is a nuanced work that indicates the maturing of Zhang as a visual artist acutely aware of changes within the regional cultural and economic landscape. As China continues to favour the adaptation of many materialist aspects of westernization, it's not hard to imagine the anarchistic youths of Beijing Bastards years later transformed as the nouveaux rich occupying the glamorous dwellings of Green Tea or the aspiring middle classes of I Love You, experiencing the societal and work pressures typical of modern Beijing life. { 107

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published by Intellect The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK T: +44 (0) 117 9589910 F: +44 (0) 117 9589911 E: [email protected]

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BEIJING LOCATIONS SCENES 40-46 Wangjing

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4 1. we are the … of communism/ wo men shi gong chan zhu yi sheng lue hao (2007) Yuanhai Elementary School of Beijing, Yinghai Town, Daxing District page 112 4 2. beijing taxi (2010) China Central Television Headquarters, Dongsanhuanzhong Road and Guanghua Road, Chaoyang District page 114

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40. lost in beijing/pingguo (2007) Xinjing’antai Maternity Hospital, Dongsanhuanzhong Road, Chaoyang District page 110

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4 3. go lala go!/ du lala sheng zhi ji (2010) Beijing Yintai Centre, 2 Jianguomenwai Avenue, Chaoyang District page 116 4 4. the karate kid (2010) Beijing Olympic Park (Beijing National Aquatics Centre & National Olympic Stadium), Olympic Green, Beichen Lu, Chaoyang District page 118 45. project 798 – new art in new china (2010) 798 Art District, 2 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang District page 120 46. a beautiful life/ mei li ren sheng (2011) Melody KTV, Fulicheng, Central Business District, Chaoyang District page 122

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Lost in Beijing/Pingguo LOCATI O N

(2007)

Xinjing’antai Maternity Hospital, Dongsanhuanzhong Road, Chaoyang District

lost in beijing is a morality tale that juxtaposes Confucian values with the gleaming pillars of open market culture: money, consumerism and greed. When young masseuse Pingguo (Fan Bingbing) is raped by her boss, Lin Dong (Tony Leung), and discovers she is pregnant, financial compensation is promised to her husband An Kun (Tong Dawei), should the child belong to her rapist. This narrative of twisted morality and cold opportunism unravels in a pivotal scene set in a maternity hospital. A location usually considered safe and trusted, the hospital here is presented as just another space in the city susceptible to corruption. At the birth, the doctor presents An Kun with a document that confirms he is the father. At first, he appears jubilant, yet as the camera slowly follows him down the dim hospital corridor towards the sound of his screaming new-born child, he slows down, stops, and turns back. With only the back of his head in view, the camera does not betray his change of heart as the shame on his face is kept hidden. On the promise of a 4,000 RMB cut, An Kun bribes the doctor to change the blood type and to name Lin Dong as the father. Unaware of the truth, Lin Dong happily hands An Kun a large envelope of cash. The final shot lingers uncomfortably as An Kun and Lin Dong both cradle their new possessions. Between them, Pingguo lies motionless on the hospital bed, her fate sealed in a brown envelope. ✒Carol Mei Barker

(Photos © Seppe Van Grieken, Longmen/Beijing)

110 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Li Yu Scene description: Who’s the daddy? Timecode for scene: 1:01:57 – 1:06:28

Images © 2007 Laurel Films

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We are the … of Communism/ Wo Men Shi Gong Chan Zhu Yi Sheng Lue hao (2007) LOCATI O N

Yuanhai Elementary School of Beijing, Yinghai Town, Daxing District

in 2006, yuanhai elementary school of Beijing for children of migrant workers was shut down by the municipal government for unspecified reasons. In We are the … of Communism, Cui Zi’en documents daily school life in the months after its sudden closure. Some 700 students and teachers were driven out of the premises and forced to seek new grounds. They occupied an open area outside the school fence and ventured to complete the remaining term’s curriculum and, as a gesture, to vent their dismay at the authority’s action. This scene depicts students seated on piles of concrete posts, intended for electricity transmission lines, with a normal school day in session, albeit in a crude outdoor environment. Lunch time shows the gathering of eager parents with lunch boxes, followed by scenes of students eating their food, unaware and undisturbed by clouds of sanddust generated from demolition work nearby. Thereafter, the children are adjourned to an adjacent open ground to participate in a range of activities, including playing ping-pong, singing and dancing, with the younger ones killing time on the limited playground facilities. Despite the miserable and helpless position that the school is in, the documentary shows students still able to enjoy a relaxed and happy school life, turning a piece of bare land into their classroom, canteen and playground. Yet it is not known whether children are being positive and optimistic, or simply ignorant about the school closure and the effects of urban transformation in the Beijing of today. ✒Chu Kiu-wai (Photo © Seppe Van Grieken, Longmen/Beijing)

112 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Cui Zi’en Scene description: ‘School Life’ beyond the fence Timecode for scene: 0:24:05 – 0:27:08

Images © 2007 dGenerate

113

Beijing Taxi LOCATI O N

(2010)

China Central Television Headquarters, Dongsanhuanzhong Road and Guanghua Road, Chaoyang District

the documentary beijing taxi follows three taxi drivers in the runup to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Bai Jiwen, age 54, has just six more years before retirement, but is laid-off due to his inability to learn English in preparation for the incoming foreigners. He went through the Cultural Revolution in his youth, was deprived of the opportunity to receive formal education, and now seems to be struggling just to keep his head above water. Zhou Yi is an energetic taxi driver in his early-30s, but he also loses his job and spends three months unemployed before finally being hired as a bus driver. Wei Caixia is a female driver in her mid-30s, caught in-between the traditional values and emerging ambitions in new China. Preferring flexibility and individual control, she often changes jobs. She was formerly an English teacher, then a taxi driver, but subsequently opens a small clothing store. Her relationship with her husband is strained and she considers divorce, but remains married, fearing the social prejudice that her daughter could suffer if she becomes a single mother. The scene follows Bai Jiwen on his typical day, as we listen to the talkative driver explain how rural migrants without registered jobs have been sent home, how roads have been closed to cars without special passes, and how ordinary Chinese citizens like him can only watch the Olympics on television. Throughout the ride, we see glimpses of the city’s newly-built architecture, constructed in time for the upcoming international sporting event. ✒Seio Nakajima

(Photo © Magnus Manske: wkimedia commons)

114 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Wang Miao Scene description: Taxi ride with glimpses of new Beijing architecture Timecode for scene: 0:54:58 – 0:56:41

Images © 2010 Three Waters Production

115

Go Lala Go!/ Du Lala sheng zhi ji LOCATI O N

(2010)

Beijing Yintai Centre, 2 Jianguomenwai Avenue, Chaoyang District

the romantic-comedy Go Lala Go! presents a glamorized view of the new corporate Beijing by following aspiring young female professional Lala (Xu Jinglei) as she pursues her dream career in a prestigious American company. On Lala’s first day of work as an entry-level secretary, she arrives humbly on foot at her new office in Beijing Yintai Centre, the tallest building on Chang’an Avenue, located in the glossy westernized central business district of Guomao. While changing her sneakers into smarter shoes before entering the building, her image is juxtaposed by the stylish Assistant Personnel manager of her company, Rose (Karen Mok), a prototype of what Lala will transform into as she climbs the company ladder. She not only goes on to adopt high-end fashion, but also to acquire Rose’s boyfriend, David, the coveted sales director in the same company. This early scene’s kinetic editing, with photographic snapshots of Rose sashaying, suggests that everyone who works at this company could be a fashion model. Electronic rock music, characteristic of many American sitcoms, further adds to the hip image of these international company employees in Beijing. The chic sets and fashionable characters of the movie – styled by Patricia Field of Sex and the City (Darren Star, 1998–2004) fame – places Beijing on par with other major international cities. As Lala’s optimistic face at the end of this scene shows, she is willing to tackle the cutthroat competition in order to succeed in a China that is aspiring to catch up with the West. ✒Donna Ong

(Photo © CobbleCC: wkimedia commons)

116 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Xu Jinglei Scene description: Going to work at Beijing Yintai Centre Timecode for scene: 0:03:13 – 0:04:28

Images © 2010 China Film Group

117

The Karate Kid LOCATI O N

(2010)

Beijing Olympic Park, (Beijing National Aquatics Centre & National Olympic Stadium), Olympic Green, Beichen Lu, Chaoyang District

in this remake of the 1984 family favourite, 12-year-old Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) moves from Detroit to Beijing when his mother’s job is transferred. After some initial adjustment problems, mostly involving trouble at school and run-ins with a group of bullies, Dre settles down when he befriends building maintenance man Mr Han (Jackie Chan), a highly skilled kung fu practitioner, who offers to train Dre for an upcoming tournament. Dre dedicates himself to a regime of martial arts and study, but his crush on violinist, Mei Ying (Han Wenwen) leads to a day of cutting class as they run around the new architecture of Beijing Olympic Park. The National Stadium was designed for the 2008 Summer Olympics and has since hosted various international sporting events, while the adjacent Beijing National Aquatics Centre (more popularly known as the Water Cube) was built for swimming competitions but has subsequently been redesigned as a water park. Dre and Mei behave in a carefree manner, with no sign of cultural barriers. However, the path of young love does not run smooth as the date ends abruptly when Mei receives a phone call and learns she will miss her rescheduled violin audition if she does not return to school immediately. The production team was also granted permission to film at the Great Wall of China and Tiananmen Square, although such state cooperation was evidently arranged on the condition of The Karate Kid presenting an appealing, internationalized vision of Beijing where everyone speaks nearperfect English. ✒John Berra (Photo © Mark Lewis)

118 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Harald Zwart Scene description: Cutting class Timecode for scene: 1:22:10 – 1:25:23

Images © 2010 Columbia Pictures, China Film Group

119

Project 798 – New Art in New China LOCATI O N

(2010)

798 Art District, 2 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang District

located at the chaoyang District of Beijing, the 798 Art Zone consists of a large number of decommissioned military factories that were revitalized as galleries or studios in the mid-1990s when the city’s artistic community sought a more central base. One of the most significant figures in the success of 798 is the socially-motivated artist Huang Rui, here explaining how he returned to China in 2001 – after being banned from re-entering the country for six years due to his controversial paintings – and found 798 to be the perfect space for his studio. However, his rental agreement only covered three years, as the buildings were scheduled for demolition in 2005. Huang proposed that the buildings should be protected, although his efforts to organize exhibitions that raised public awareness of 798 led to conflict with the management of the development as Huang and his fellow artists were essentially obstructing government policy. Eventually, their arguments regarding ‘traditional culture and the protection of art’ were recognized, with a decision being made in 2007 that 798 would remain an art zone. Huang’s recollections are placed over shots of 798 which show how the area has become a hub for creative activity, while the largely unchanged external appearance reflects its history as a state facility. Although similar developments have struggled to sustain themselves for economic or political reasons, 798 Art Zone continues to thrive, with exhibitions open to the public free of charge while cash flow comes from hosting various corporate events and fashion shows. ✒John Berra (Photo © gongfu_king: wkimedia commons)

120 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Lucius C. Kuert Scene description: The history of 798, as recalled by Huang Rui Timecode for scene: 0:11:43 – 0:14:27

Images © 2010 Dust & Scratches

121

A Beautiful Life/ Mei Li Ren Sheng LOCATI O N

(2011)

Melody KTV, Fulicheng, Central Business District, Chaoyang District

the after-hours social scene of the Central Business District becomes a space for a life-changing encounter in A Beautiful Life, a tearful drama which chronicles the relationship between two people who have very different attitudes to surviving in the cash-rich capital. At Melody karaoke club, Li Peiru (Shu Qi), who has relocated from Hong Kong to pursue a career in real estate, is closing a deal with a client, which involves singing pop songs in an alluring manner and drinking copious amounts of baijiu (rice wine), a beverage which she refers to as, ‘devilish alcohol’. In another private room, dutiful police officer Fang Zhendong (Liu Ye) is attending a bachelor party, sipping from a can of beer in the company of his fellow bluecollar workers. They meet in the men’s room, when Peiru stumbles in and vomits on Zhendong’s back. Zhendong prevents the drunken Peiru from collapsing, and she describes him as a, ‘little lamb in a man’s world’, based on his old-fashioned manners in a potentially awkward situation. Zhendong leaves the party early, deciding to catch the last train home and not wanting to spend too much money as he has an autistic brother to support. Outside, he again encounters Peiru, who is now unable to walk without falling over. As he gives her a piggyback ride through the streets of the Central Business District, snow begins to fall, with Peiru enchanted by the magic of the winter weather set against the bright lights of the city’s commercial zone. ✒John Berra

(Photo © Seppe Van Grieken, Longmen/Beijing)

122 World Film Locations | Beijing

Directed by Andrew Lau Scene description: Life-changing encounter in the Central Business District Timecode for scene: 0:01:250 – 0:08:35

Images © 2011 Media Asia

123

GO FURTHER

Recommended reading, useful websites and film availability

books

books (continued)

The New Chinese Documentary Film Movement: For the Public Record Edited by Chris Berry, Lu Xinyu and Lisa Rofel (Hong Kong University Press, 2010)

Beijing Record: A Physical and Political History of Planning Modern Beijing Jun Wang (World Scientific Publishing Co., 2011)

Directory of World Cinema: China Edited by Gary Bettinson (Intellect, 2012)

Cinema of Feng Xiaogang: Commercialization and Censorship in Chinese Cinema After 1989 Rui Zhang (Hong Kong University Press, 2008)

Painting the City Red: Chinese Cinema and the Urban Contract Yomi Braester (Duke University Press, 2010) New Chinese Cinema: Challenging Representations Sheila Cornelius (Wallflower, 2002) Metro Movies: Cinematic Urbanism in Post-Mao China Harry H. Kuoshu (Southern Illinois University Press, 2010) The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed Michael Meyer (Walker & Company, 2009) Beijing Then and Now Brian Page (Thunder Bay Press, 2007) Beijing Welcomes You: Unveiling the Capital City of the Future Tom Scocca (Penguin, 2011)

Cinema, Space, and Polylocality in a Globalizing China Yingjin Zhang (University of Hawaii Press, 2010) The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century Edited by Zhen Zhang (Duke University Press, 2007) online 798 Art District http://www.798district.com/ The Beijinger http://www.thebeijinger.com/ The Beijing Page http://www.beijingpage.com/ China Daily http://www.chinadailyapac.com/ Chinese Movie Database http://www.dianying.com/en/ dGenerate Films http://www.dgeneratefilms.com Red Light Revolution http://www.redlightrevolution.com/

124 World Film Locations | City

CONTRIBUTORS Editor and contributing writer biographies

editor

John Berra is a lecturer in Film Studies at Nanjing University. He is the author of Declarations of Independence: American Cinema and the Partiality of Independent Production (Intellect, 2008); editor of the Directory of World Cinema: American Independent (Intellect, 2010/12); and the Directory of World Cinema: Japan (Intellect, 2010/12). He has contributed essays to The End: An Electric Sheep Anthology (Strange Attractor, 2011) and The Companion to Film Noir (Wiley Blackwell, 2013). John has published journal articles on genre in contemporary Chinese cinema in Asian Cinema and Science Fiction Film and Television. He has also subtitled the Chinese independent feature, Tie dan’er de qing ge/The Love Songs of Tie dan’er (Hao Jie, 2012).

Liu Yang is a lecturer in Film Studies at Nanjing University. She was awarded her Ph.D. by Beijing Normal University in 2009. She specializes in contemporary Chinese cinema and the history of western cinema. Her current research interest is the culture of Chinese commercial cinema since 2000. She has published articles in such journals as Asian Cinema, Journal of Beijing Film Academy and Contemporary Cinema. contributors

Carol Mei Barker is a Ph.D. candidate in Film Studies at the University of Bradford, and a part-time lecturer. She has an MA in Film from the University of London, and is a recipient of the UNESCO 'City of Film' Ph.D. scholarship. Her current research is focused on representations of urban regeneration in contemporary Chinese cinema, with particular interest in cinematic discourse surrounding the Beijing Olympics. Carol also writes reviews for Time Out London magazine.

Chris Berry teaches Film Studies at King’s College, London. In the 1980s, he worked for China Film Import and Export Corporation in Beijing, and his research is focused on Chinese cinema and screen-based media. Primary publications include: (with Mary Farquhar) Cinema and the National: China on Screen (Columbia University Press and Hong Kong University Press, 2006); Postsocialist Cinema in Post-Mao China: The Cultural Revolution after the Cultural Revolution (Routledge, 2004); and (edited with Lu Xinyu and Lisa Rofel) The New Chinese Documentary Film Movement: For the Public Record (Hong Kong University Press, 2010). Yomi Braester is a professor of Comparative Literature and Cinema at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is the author of Witness Against History: Literature, Film, and Public Discourse in Twentieth-Century China (Stanford University Press, 2008), Painting the City Red: Chinese Cinema and the Urban Contract (Duke University Press, 2010), and editor (with James Tweedie) of Cinema at the City's Edge: Film and Urban Networks in East Asia (Hong Kong University Press, 2010). He is also the author of numerous essays on Chinese urban culture. Chu Kiu-wai is a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature from the University of Hong Kong. He received his previous degrees from SOAS, University of London and University of Cambridge. He is a junior Fulbright scholar (201213). His research focuses on contemporary Chinese and South East Asian cinema, Ecocriticism, and Environmental Thought in Visual Culture. His recent articles on contemporary Chinese films have been published in Lost and Othered Children in Contemporary Cinema (Lexington Books, 2012) and Interactions: Studies in Communication & Culture (Intellect journal, 2012).

125

CONTRIBUTORS

Editor and contributing writer biographies (continued)

Mariagrazia Costantino Costantino is a sinologist and a scholar in Chinese film. She has a BA in Chinese Studies from the University of Rome La Sapienza, an MA in Global Cinemas and the Transcultural from SOAS and a Ph.D. in Film Studies from Roma Tre University. In 2002 she obtained a scholarship from P.R. China and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for one year of research at the Chinese Art Academy of Hangzhou. She has worked as intern at the Italian Institute of Culture in Beijing and studied at the Peking University. In Italy Mariagrazia has curated several exhibitions of Chinese and Italian video artists. Her Ph.D. dissertation concerns the ideological representation of urban space in Cinema from East Asia. She currently writes about filmic cultures and teaches Mandarin. Christopher Howard completed his Ph.D. in Japanese Film at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He is currently a Visiting Lecturer in Media Studies at Chongqing University, Sichuan Province, China. His work has appeared in East Asian Cinemas (I. B. Tauris, 2008) and the Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema.

Joann Huifen Hu is currently finishing her Ph.D. in film audience reception, in particular, of Chinese-language films at Jacobs University Bremen, Germany. Her research interests include transnational Chinese cinema, cinema of the Chinese diaspora, film and soundtrack, and, in general, media and their interactions with culturally-differentiated audiences. She enjoys the aesthetics and use of music in Wong Kar-wai's films, the raw portrayal of Singaporean subculture in the work of Eric Khoo, and Ang Lee's diverse talent in film-making. Hu looks forward to documenting the reception of media and art with the aim of unfolding the role of the receiver in shaping media.

126 World Film Locations | City

Dave McCaig is a senior lecturer in Media Theory at The University of Lincoln, England. He coordinates and teaches on a variety of theory modules on the BA Media Production and BA Film and Television Studies degree courses. These include Globalisation and Contemporary Culture, Horror and Fantasy, and East Asian Cinemas. His current research interests are based around issues of post-IMF representation within South Korean film adaptations of Guiyeoni's internet novels and the films of Chang-dong Lee. Forthcoming publications include contributions to the Directory of World Cinema: South Korea (Intellect, 2012) and the Routledge Encyclopedia of World Cinemas (Routledge, 2013). Seio Nakajima teaches sociology at the University of Hawai’i at Mãnoa. He has conducted organizational analyses of Chinese film industry, as well as ethnographies of Chinese film audiences and consumption. His research has appeared in From Underground to Independent: Alternative Film Culture in Contemporary China (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), Reclaiming Chinese Society: The New Social Activism (Routledge, 2009) and The New Chinese Documentary Film Movement: For the Public Record (Hong Kong University Press, 2010). He has recently expanded his research interests to sociology of art, and his ‘Prosumption in Art’ (2012) has appeared in American Behavioral Scientist.

Eija Niskanen is a Ph.D. candidate and lecturer in Asian cinema at the University of Helsinki. She holds an MA from UCLA, School of Theater, Film, and Television. Niskanen is currently coordinating film events and coproductions between Finland and Japan. Donna Ong is a Ph.D. student at the University of Hong Kong's Department of Comparative Literature. Her current research is on Liu Na'ou

and the 1930s Chinese Soft Film movement, focusing on early film theory and revisionist history of Pre-1949 Chinese films. Prior to her post-graduate studies, Donna completed her BA in Film Studies and Political Science at Yale University and MA in Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African studies, University of London. She has also lived and worked in several places in Asia, two years of which were in Beijing.

Sam Voutas is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, who has worked with many of Asia's brightest and loudest film-makers, from playing the role of Durdin in Lu Chuan's Nánjing! Nánjing!/City of Life and Death (2009) to being the director of photography on Thomas Lim’s Roulette City (2009). Voutas's China documentaries have screened on stations including The Biography Channel and NHK (Japan). Red Light Revolution (2010), which was nominated for Best Unproduced Screenplay at the 2008 Inside Film Awards, is his second feature film. His next screenplay, co-written with Eric Flanagan, is being developed at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. Voutas is a fellow of both the Berlinale Talent Campus and Toronto TIFF Talent Lab. Grace Wang is a writer, producer, and one of Roger Ebert’s Far Flung Correspondents. She has contributed to various publications including The Spectator’s Arts Blog and World Film Locations: New York (Intellect, 2011). She has also worked as a Programming Associate and Social Media Coordinator for the ‘Toronto International Film Festival’ and ‘Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival’. Grace is fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese. In her spare time, she practises as a lawyer and daydreams on public transport. She has a weakness for red shoes and good people. Grace has lived and worked in eight countries on three continents, and currently resides in Toronto, Canada.

Wenfei Wang is a graduate of the School of Liberal Arts at Nanjing University, where she majored in Drama and Cinema. She is a Beijing native and is currently developing a feature project concerning life in China’s capital city. Wanfei has worked as a script supervisor on Hao Jie’s second independent feature, Tie dan’er de qing ge/The Love Songs of Tie dan’er (2012), and has completed two short films, An Owl Longing for a Heartbeat (2010) and Fantasy Toward My Home (2012), the latter of which concerns the issue of congestion in Beijing.

Wei Ju is a lecturer in Film and Television Studies at the College of Communication and Art, Tongji University in Shanghai. She has also attended King’s College London as a visiting scholar. Her research topics have included a range of studies of Chinese and international cinema: the influence of piracy on New Chinese Cinema, typology of Chinese television production, and young male characters in British cinema since the 1950s.

Isabel Wolte was awarded a BSc in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, and an MSc in Ancient Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. She is the executive director of her own company, China Film Consult, which specializes in cultural exchange between Europe and China. She completed her Ph.D. at the Beijing Film Academy on World Literature in Chinese Cinema in 2009 and is currently a lecturer at the University of Vienna and Beijing Film Academy. She has published articles in German on the subject of Chinese cinema. Her research interests include political and societal aspects of Chinese cinema, literary adaptations, environmental issues, and intercultural communication.

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filmography All films mentioned or featured in this book

55 Days at Peking (1963) 88 109,122 A Beautiful Life/Mei Li Ren Sheng (2011) A Sigh/Yi sheng tan xi (2000) 29 127 An Owl Longing for a Heartbeat (2010) Baober in Love/Lian ai zhong de Bao Bei (2004) 69 6 Battle of Dingjunshan, The/Ding Junshanmade (1905) Be There or Be Square/Bu jian bu san (1998) 28 Beijing Bastards/Beijing Zahong (1993) 5,6,11,26,106,107 Beijing Bicycle/Shi qi sui de dan che (2001) 5,6,51,62,69 Beijing Taxi (2010) 109,114 Big Parade, The/Da yuebing (1986) 89 5,29,51,64 Big Shot’s Funeral/Da Wan (2001) Birth of New China, The/Xin Zhongguo de dansheng (1949) 88 7,11,20 Black Snow/Ben ming nian (1990) Blue Kite, The/Lan feng zheng (1993) 31,32 Bumming in Beijing: The Last Dreamers/ Liulang Beijing: Zuihou de Mengxiangzhe (1990) 11,22,68 Cala, My Dog!/Ka la shi tiao gou (2003) 71,80 29,71,82 Cell Phone/Shou ji (2003) Chung Kuo – Cina (1972) 11,12 City of Life and Death/Nánjing! Nánjing! (2009) 127 71,86 Concrete Revolution, The (2004) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon/Wohu Canglong (2000) 7,8 Curse of the Golden Flower/ 5,7,91,98 Mancheng Jindai Huangjinjia (2006) 31,34 Days, The/Dongchun de rizi (1993) Dream Factory, The/Jiafang yifang (1997) 28 East Palace, West Palace/Dong gong xi gong (1996) 31,44,106 127 Fantasy Toward My Home (2012) Farewell My Concubine/Ba wang bei ji (1993) 14,31,36 Farewell My Love/Yong shi wo ai (1994) 28 Fish and Elephant/Jin nian xia tian (2001) 6,51,66 For Fun/Zhao Le (1992) 11,24,72 14 Forever Enthralled/Mei Lanfang (2008) Founding Ceremony, The/Kaiguo dadian (1989) 88 Frozen/Jidu hanleng (1997) 7,31,46 Gate of Heavenly Peace, The (1995) 89 Go Lala Go!/Du Lala sheng zhi ji (2010) 109,116 Goddess, The/Shennu (1934) 6 Green Tea/Lu Cha (2003) 71,84,107 How is Your Fish Today?/ 7 Jintian De Yu Zenme Yang? (2006) I Love Beijing/Xiari nuanyangyang (2001) 5,6,65,71,72,88 107 I Love You/Wo Ai Ni (2002) If You Are the One/Fei Cheng Wu Rao (2002) 29 If You Are the One 2/Fei Cheng Wu Rao 2 (2010) 29

128 World Film Locations | Beijing

In Love we Trust/Zuo you (2007) 91,104 In the Heat of the Sun/ Yangguang Canlan de Rizi (1994) 31,42,69 5,109,118 Karate Kid, The (2010) Keep Cool/You hua hao hao shuo (1997) 51,52,69 7,71,74 Lan Yu (2001) 7,8,11,18,88 Last Emperor, The (1987) Li Lianying: The Imperial Eunuch/ Dataijian Li Lianying (1991) 88 Little Red Flowers/Kan shang qu hen mei (2006) 106 Lost in Beijing/Pinggou (2007) 5,7,109,110 Love Songs of Tie dan’er, The/ Tie dan’er de qing ge (2012) 125,127 31,38 M. Butterfly (1993) Magic of the Kite, The/ 88 Cerf-voulant du bout du monde (1958) Meishi Street/Meishi Jie (2006) 89,91,100 My Memories of Old Beijing/Chegnan Jiush (1982) 11,14 69,72,89 On the Beat/Min jing gu shi (1995) Once Upon a Time in China III/ Wong Fei-hung ji saam: Si wong jaang ba (1993) 8,9,31,40 6,91,94 Oxhide/Niupi (2005) Peking Opera Blues/Do ma Daan (1986) 11,16 7 Pirated Copy/Man Yan (2004) Postman/Youchai (1995) 6 109,120 Project 798 – New Art in New China (2010) Red Corner (1997) 51,54 Red Light Revolution (2010) 48,49,127 89 Reverberations of Life/Shenghuo de Chanyin (1979) Roulette City (2009) 127 Shadow Magic (2000) 51,60 Shower/Xizao (1999) 51,58,89 Sorry Baby/Mei wan mei liao (1999) 28 Spicy Love Soup/Aiqing mala tang (1997) 51,56 Spring Subway (2002) 71,76 Square, The/Guangchang (1994) 89 Street Angel/Malu tianshi (1937) 6 Summer Palace/Yihe Yuan (2006) 7,91,102 Tiananmen (2009) 88 Together with You/He ni zai yi qi (2002) 71,78 Waiting Alone/Du zi deng dai (2005) 91,96 We are the… of Communism/ Wo men shi gong chan zhu yi sheng lue (2007) 109,112 World, The/Shijie (2004) 91,92 Xiao Shan Going Home (1995) 69

WORLD FILM LOCATIONS beijing The title of Li Yu’s film Lost in Beijing evokes the experience of many firsttime visitors to China’s bustling capital. The city’s sprawling structure and rapid redevelopment—embodied by the high-rise apartments taking over historic districts—render Beijing’s streets hard to navigate and its culture just as difficult to penetrate. World Film Locations: Beijing is a revealing and engrossing introduction to both. In a series of spotlight essays and illustrated scene reviews, a cast of seasoned scholars and fresh new voices explore the vast range of films—encompassing drama, madcap comedy, martial arts escapism, and magical realism—that have been set in Beijing. Unveiling a city of hidden courtyards, looming skyscrapers, and traditional Hutong neighborhoods, these contributors depict a distinctive urban culture that reflects the conflict and tumult of a nation in transition. With considerations of everything from the back streets of Beijing Bicycle to the forbidden palace of The Last Emperor to the tourist park of The World, this volume is a definitive cinematic guide to an everchanging and endlessly fascinating capital city.

Cover (The Last Emperor) and back cover (Together) images: Kobal

part of the world film locations series

World Film Locations Beijing ISBN: 978-1-84150-642-5 eISBN: 978-1-84150-677-7

www.intellectbooks.com