Since her 2001 debut on China’s version of “Star Search,” Sun Li has reigned as their “Queen of Television,” becoming the youngest winner of China’s three major TV awards. Western filmgoers will remember Sun from 2006’s FEARLESS as Jet Li’s blind muse.
In SHADOW, Sun portrays a noblewoman trapped in a deadly game of deception, as she must pass a body double off as her husband, a great and powerful commander at odds with their king.
In an exclusive chat with LMD, Sun spoke about her role in the film, working beside her husband, actor/director Deng Chao, and joining the pantheon of Director Zhang Yimou’s indomitable, unforgettable female characters.
Dig it!
SHADOW
Sun Li
The Lady Miz Diva: First, please tell us how the role of Madam, the Commander’s wife, came to you?
Sun Li: My husband, Deng Chao, was set to perform in this movie, and I was so excited about that. Then a little bit of time passed, and Deng Chao told me that Director Zhang wanted to invite me to perform in the film, and I was absolutely thrilled, and that’s how I got cast.
LMD: I’m happy to hear that Director Zhang had both of you in mind when he cast the roles. Was that part of the allure of appearing in the film?
SL: It was really interesting to me. I had previously worked with Deng Chao on a number of projects before, but this one was such an interesting challenge to both of us. First of all, to work with such a great director, but also, even though we are husband and wife in real life, the husband and wife that we play in the movie were obviously very, very different from anything that we had performed together before -- anything that we had seen before -- and we really liked the opportunity to have this challenge for acting.
LMD: Please tell us how you initially read the character when you received the script? What were the aspects of Madam on the page that stuck out in your mind?
SL: What really attracted me was the fact that the role that I was playing was a woman in a palace; I’ve done palace dramas, palace movies, palace television shows, most of the time it was sort of a prefabricated stereotype. You know, the beautiful princess, or beautiful queen, who doesn’t really have her own volition. That doesn’t have to talk to the men in a way that gives them ideas, or helps themselves solve problems.
In this role, because I was really caught between not just the great Commander, who is my husband, but a situation where very complicated decisions have to be made, and choices have to be made, it gave me a lot more opportunity to have volition, and to have ideas, and power, and reactions. And so, it was just a very non-stereotypical role that was offered to me, and I really liked the idea of playing it.
Her feelings were changing -- the character’s feelings were changing and reacting throughout the entire movie. In every section of the movie, she has to make important choices; she has to measure her feelings. She is very complex emotionally. Again, not like predictable emotions; she has to make decisions that have to do with how power should be exercised, how things would be resolved, what was right and what was wrong -- but not just for what was right to do as a woman, what was right to do as a person. And so, it was a very emotionally complex role that I really put myself into and developed.
LMD: True to what we’ve come to expect from Director Zhang, he centers the most important moments around the women in his films. There is so much importance in Madam’s asking to step in during her husband’s battle training.
Not only is she teaching Jing, the body double, that the only way he can defend is to embrace his feminine side, or his yin; she is also showing what a force she is against her powerful husband, and how they have related together as a married couple. The scene changes the entire film.
Please talk about both the mental and physical challenges of that scene.
SL: I really loved the scene, because, as you said, it is so critical in the movie. It was such a breakthrough to not just talk about using the soft to overcome the hard -- using yin to overcome the yang -- but they were actually doing it physically, and it was in a way that showed the yin and the yang side of each of the characters. It was very, very well thought out.
Actually, I started from a very young age as a dancer. And you asked about my preparation for the scene; I love doing action films because it takes me back to my early roots as a performer, as a dancer. I didn’t feel it was much of a challenge, physically.
I love action scenes, and I love beautiful dance scenes; so this was something that was not only up my alley in terms of what I was comfortable doing, but it also enabled the character development to move together with the action, and what was happening on scene in a really beautiful way.
LMD: Subsequent to that, the sequence of Madam and Commander Yu playing music together is like an entire movie’s worth of romantic drama in one short, wordless scene. Please take us through the meaning of that scene, and what they are actually saying to each other?
SL: Every scene that was constructed -- particularly scenes that I was in with the commander, who was my husband -- every different scene was expressing an important emotional message, that there were different kinds of connections between Madam and the commander throughout the movie.
It’s that scene in particular -- which director Zhang asked us to do over, and over, and over, to get it right -- was about opposition. It was almost an angry opposition. It’s basically Madam saying to the commander, ‘I am opposed to what you are doing. This is not good,’ and letting out all of her feelings through this angry opposition. This was also encapsulated inside the battle scene.
This was the ultimate battle scene, this was the ultimate opposition; this was opposition, and anger, and passion, all rolled up into one complete scene that was a story within a story, but also wrapped within a bigger story. It was really supposed to be the most dramatic shocking, high point of the energy and repressed anger that was there in the movie all along.
ZHENG KAI
After appearing in his monster fantasy, THE GREAT WALL, Director Zhang Yimou was so impressed with actor Zheng Kai, that he brought him back for a starring role in his latest wuxia symphony, SHADOW.
Zheng spoke exclusively with LMD about his second collaboration with Director Zhang, finding a new take on a mad king, and his own aspirations as a filmmaker.
Dig it!
SHADOW
Zheng Kai
The Lady Miz Diva: How did the role of the King of Pei come to you?
Zheng Kai: I worked with director Zhang Yimou two years ago in THE GREAT WALL. At that time, I just had a few lines in that movie. Everybody had just a few lines in that movie. That was the first time that I knew the director, and he asked me after that time, “Maybe we can collaborate again?” He called me to his office, and he told me that he was preparing for this one, which is called SHADOW, and that’s it! He didn’t tell me any more information about it.
After that, after more than half a year or maybe one year, he called me again and said, “Okay, we’re ready to shoot.” That’s the story. I didn’t expect it. It was very, very shocking for me.
LMD: What was your initial impression of the character after reading the script?
ZK: Actually, when I read the script, I really liked the character, because he was little bit like a Shakespearean character. He was very ambitious, and very self-indulgent, and sometimes happy, sometimes unhappy. In Chinese, we call it “cloudy face;” he changed every time, every minute. So, that was very interesting to play that kind of role, which I prefer to do, a very interesting character.
LMD: You have a very delicate balance here, playing this type of role because we have seen evil rulers, tyrant, dictators, on the screen before. Your king is something different.
What you said about him changing every minute made sense to me because there are points where he seems very lost and empty and pathetic, then, in the next moment, he is very ambitious, or reckless, or mean. In your creation of him, what aspect of his character did you focus on?
ZK: This movie is like a traditional Chinese movie. Director Zhang Yimou, he put in a lot of Chinese ways to think. For example, yin yang; yin yang is a very Chinese way to think, so you cannot judge a person as a good man, or an evil man, so they both live in the body of this man. We didn’t want to make too evil a guy of this one. People can have different sides to their personalities.
Also, for this character, he is a king; he should be very great, and have a great mind, and be very clever. He has everything a king should have, and of course, the evil side of his personality. So, that’s the way we did it.
LMD: Please talk about working with Director Zhang. Was he open to your interpretation of the character?
ZK: Yeah, absolutely. He is a very open-minded man. He lets you do whatever you want. We tried everything; every different way to act. He is very respectful. He very much respects his actors. Every time, we would discuss; we can say, “Okay, Director, can we do this this way, or can we do this that way?” He would say, “Okay, whatever you want to do, we will just try it, and I will just choose it.” I think this is a very good way to build a creation.
LMD: Your co-star, Ms. Sun Li said that they were many, many takes.
ZK: Yes, there were many takes, but not the most! {Laughs}
LMD: One of the things that struck me was the complicated love that the King had for his sister. It’s so clear he adores her, yet was he really willing to essentially sell her to placate the enemy general? Tell us about working with Director Zhang on achieving the character’s duality.
ZK: Yes, actually, we discussed the battle scene for a long time. As you can see, after he cried like a baby in that scene, you can see all his emotions on his face. We wanted it to be a face that looked like nothing, but everything. That’s how we did it. A king should be someone who shows nothing in his face, but he has everything in his heart, so that is how we thought of him.
LMD: That makes sense, because he is quite mysterious. All through the film, I wondered if the king knew the man before him wasn’t really the Commander, but a double? There were so many times that even through his drunken haze, you sense he knew something wasn’t quite right.
Also, later on in the film, I was confused about whether the King really sent his assassin to kill a relative of one of his enemies?
ZK: That’s a very good question. We asked the same question to the director. He would say, “Okay, you can think he killed the relative, or you could think he does not need to do that. You can have different thoughts of that, and both are right.” We had asked the same question of the director.
Also, we had asked the director, after the Commander walked out of the court and closed the door, what happened? Did he just go away back home, or did he turn around and turn back to the court? That was the question. That was the final question of the movie, and everybody had a discussion of that. That was the most interesting part of the movie. You don’t know what happens in the end.
In SHADOW, Sun portrays a noblewoman trapped in a deadly game of deception, as she must pass a body double off as her husband, a great and powerful commander at odds with their king.
In an exclusive chat with LMD, Sun spoke about her role in the film, working beside her husband, actor/director Deng Chao, and joining the pantheon of Director Zhang Yimou’s indomitable, unforgettable female characters.
Dig it!
SHADOW
Sun Li
The Lady Miz Diva: First, please tell us how the role of Madam, the Commander’s wife, came to you?
Sun Li: My husband, Deng Chao, was set to perform in this movie, and I was so excited about that. Then a little bit of time passed, and Deng Chao told me that Director Zhang wanted to invite me to perform in the film, and I was absolutely thrilled, and that’s how I got cast.
LMD: I’m happy to hear that Director Zhang had both of you in mind when he cast the roles. Was that part of the allure of appearing in the film?
SL: It was really interesting to me. I had previously worked with Deng Chao on a number of projects before, but this one was such an interesting challenge to both of us. First of all, to work with such a great director, but also, even though we are husband and wife in real life, the husband and wife that we play in the movie were obviously very, very different from anything that we had performed together before -- anything that we had seen before -- and we really liked the opportunity to have this challenge for acting.
LMD: Please tell us how you initially read the character when you received the script? What were the aspects of Madam on the page that stuck out in your mind?
SL: What really attracted me was the fact that the role that I was playing was a woman in a palace; I’ve done palace dramas, palace movies, palace television shows, most of the time it was sort of a prefabricated stereotype. You know, the beautiful princess, or beautiful queen, who doesn’t really have her own volition. That doesn’t have to talk to the men in a way that gives them ideas, or helps themselves solve problems.
In this role, because I was really caught between not just the great Commander, who is my husband, but a situation where very complicated decisions have to be made, and choices have to be made, it gave me a lot more opportunity to have volition, and to have ideas, and power, and reactions. And so, it was just a very non-stereotypical role that was offered to me, and I really liked the idea of playing it.
Her feelings were changing -- the character’s feelings were changing and reacting throughout the entire movie. In every section of the movie, she has to make important choices; she has to measure her feelings. She is very complex emotionally. Again, not like predictable emotions; she has to make decisions that have to do with how power should be exercised, how things would be resolved, what was right and what was wrong -- but not just for what was right to do as a woman, what was right to do as a person. And so, it was a very emotionally complex role that I really put myself into and developed.
LMD: True to what we’ve come to expect from Director Zhang, he centers the most important moments around the women in his films. There is so much importance in Madam’s asking to step in during her husband’s battle training.
Not only is she teaching Jing, the body double, that the only way he can defend is to embrace his feminine side, or his yin; she is also showing what a force she is against her powerful husband, and how they have related together as a married couple. The scene changes the entire film.
Please talk about both the mental and physical challenges of that scene.
SL: I really loved the scene, because, as you said, it is so critical in the movie. It was such a breakthrough to not just talk about using the soft to overcome the hard -- using yin to overcome the yang -- but they were actually doing it physically, and it was in a way that showed the yin and the yang side of each of the characters. It was very, very well thought out.
Actually, I started from a very young age as a dancer. And you asked about my preparation for the scene; I love doing action films because it takes me back to my early roots as a performer, as a dancer. I didn’t feel it was much of a challenge, physically.
I love action scenes, and I love beautiful dance scenes; so this was something that was not only up my alley in terms of what I was comfortable doing, but it also enabled the character development to move together with the action, and what was happening on scene in a really beautiful way.
LMD: Subsequent to that, the sequence of Madam and Commander Yu playing music together is like an entire movie’s worth of romantic drama in one short, wordless scene. Please take us through the meaning of that scene, and what they are actually saying to each other?
SL: Every scene that was constructed -- particularly scenes that I was in with the commander, who was my husband -- every different scene was expressing an important emotional message, that there were different kinds of connections between Madam and the commander throughout the movie.
It’s that scene in particular -- which director Zhang asked us to do over, and over, and over, to get it right -- was about opposition. It was almost an angry opposition. It’s basically Madam saying to the commander, ‘I am opposed to what you are doing. This is not good,’ and letting out all of her feelings through this angry opposition. This was also encapsulated inside the battle scene.
This was the ultimate battle scene, this was the ultimate opposition; this was opposition, and anger, and passion, all rolled up into one complete scene that was a story within a story, but also wrapped within a bigger story. It was really supposed to be the most dramatic shocking, high point of the energy and repressed anger that was there in the movie all along.
ZHENG KAI
After appearing in his monster fantasy, THE GREAT WALL, Director Zhang Yimou was so impressed with actor Zheng Kai, that he brought him back for a starring role in his latest wuxia symphony, SHADOW.
Zheng spoke exclusively with LMD about his second collaboration with Director Zhang, finding a new take on a mad king, and his own aspirations as a filmmaker.
Dig it!
SHADOW
Zheng Kai
The Lady Miz Diva: How did the role of the King of Pei come to you?
Zheng Kai: I worked with director Zhang Yimou two years ago in THE GREAT WALL. At that time, I just had a few lines in that movie. Everybody had just a few lines in that movie. That was the first time that I knew the director, and he asked me after that time, “Maybe we can collaborate again?” He called me to his office, and he told me that he was preparing for this one, which is called SHADOW, and that’s it! He didn’t tell me any more information about it.
After that, after more than half a year or maybe one year, he called me again and said, “Okay, we’re ready to shoot.” That’s the story. I didn’t expect it. It was very, very shocking for me.
LMD: What was your initial impression of the character after reading the script?
ZK: Actually, when I read the script, I really liked the character, because he was little bit like a Shakespearean character. He was very ambitious, and very self-indulgent, and sometimes happy, sometimes unhappy. In Chinese, we call it “cloudy face;” he changed every time, every minute. So, that was very interesting to play that kind of role, which I prefer to do, a very interesting character.
LMD: You have a very delicate balance here, playing this type of role because we have seen evil rulers, tyrant, dictators, on the screen before. Your king is something different.
What you said about him changing every minute made sense to me because there are points where he seems very lost and empty and pathetic, then, in the next moment, he is very ambitious, or reckless, or mean. In your creation of him, what aspect of his character did you focus on?
ZK: This movie is like a traditional Chinese movie. Director Zhang Yimou, he put in a lot of Chinese ways to think. For example, yin yang; yin yang is a very Chinese way to think, so you cannot judge a person as a good man, or an evil man, so they both live in the body of this man. We didn’t want to make too evil a guy of this one. People can have different sides to their personalities.
Also, for this character, he is a king; he should be very great, and have a great mind, and be very clever. He has everything a king should have, and of course, the evil side of his personality. So, that’s the way we did it.
LMD: Please talk about working with Director Zhang. Was he open to your interpretation of the character?
ZK: Yeah, absolutely. He is a very open-minded man. He lets you do whatever you want. We tried everything; every different way to act. He is very respectful. He very much respects his actors. Every time, we would discuss; we can say, “Okay, Director, can we do this this way, or can we do this that way?” He would say, “Okay, whatever you want to do, we will just try it, and I will just choose it.” I think this is a very good way to build a creation.
LMD: Your co-star, Ms. Sun Li said that they were many, many takes.
ZK: Yes, there were many takes, but not the most! {Laughs}
LMD: One of the things that struck me was the complicated love that the King had for his sister. It’s so clear he adores her, yet was he really willing to essentially sell her to placate the enemy general? Tell us about working with Director Zhang on achieving the character’s duality.
ZK: Yes, actually, we discussed the battle scene for a long time. As you can see, after he cried like a baby in that scene, you can see all his emotions on his face. We wanted it to be a face that looked like nothing, but everything. That’s how we did it. A king should be someone who shows nothing in his face, but he has everything in his heart, so that is how we thought of him.
LMD: That makes sense, because he is quite mysterious. All through the film, I wondered if the king knew the man before him wasn’t really the Commander, but a double? There were so many times that even through his drunken haze, you sense he knew something wasn’t quite right.
Also, later on in the film, I was confused about whether the King really sent his assassin to kill a relative of one of his enemies?
ZK: That’s a very good question. We asked the same question to the director. He would say, “Okay, you can think he killed the relative, or you could think he does not need to do that. You can have different thoughts of that, and both are right.” We had asked the same question of the director.
Also, we had asked the director, after the Commander walked out of the court and closed the door, what happened? Did he just go away back home, or did he turn around and turn back to the court? That was the question. That was the final question of the movie, and everybody had a discussion of that. That was the most interesting part of the movie. You don’t know what happens in the end.
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