'Lust' almost gave Lee a breakdown

[summertime]

'Lust' almost gave Lee a breakdown


September 4, 2007 - 10:24AM


A Hong Kong newspaper reports Oscar-winning director Ang Lee says filming the sex scenes in his new spy thriller Lust, Caution nearly caused him a mental breakdown.

The Apple Daily newspaper quotes Lee adding he was comforted he was able to help his actors through the ordeal.

The Taiwanese director, who won an Oscar for best director for Brokeback Mountain in 2006, was speaking from Venice, where Lust, Caution is competing for the top Golden Lion prize at the Venice Film Festival.

The movie was screened in Venice last Thursday but has not been released in cinemas.

Hollywood trade publication Variety has reported the movie features lovemaking in provocative sexual positions, implied oral sex and also full female frontal nudity.

The film has received the strictest rating in the United States, which bans viewers younger than 17.

Lust, Caution, based on a short story by famed Chinese writer Eileen Chang, is about a group of patriotic students who plot to assassinate the intelligence chief in the Japanese-backed Chinese government during the the Second World War era.

Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai plays the intelligence official Mr. Yi, while newcomer Tang Wei plays the Chinese student Wang Jiazhi, who seduces Yi to pave way for the assassination. The movie also features Joan Chen who recently appeared in the Australian film The Home Song Stories and Chinese-American pop star Leehom Wang.

In a separate interview with Chinese news website Sina.com, Lee said he cleared the set to all but four crew members, including himself, while filming the sex scenes involving Leung and Tang.

"The scenes were completely in a very private space," he said.

Lee told Apple Daily he spent tremendous effort training actress Tang - more so than for Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi when she was a budding star shooting Lee's kung fu hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

"She (Tang) was picked from 10,000 people. There was three months' training and five months' shooting. I spent a full eight months on her. I've never spent so much effort on one person," Lee was quoted saying.

AP


http://www.smh.com.au/news/film/lust-almost-gave-lee-a-breakdown/2007/09/04/1188783200880.html

[Marie]

[Eri]

This is the original article in Chinese.

http://ent.sina.com.cn/m/h/2007-09-01/22141699097.shtml

In this I found very interesting about;

When they are rehearsing the scene in which they first went their secret meeting place for an affair, Tony treated her sadistically, so Ang Lee asked Tony,"Why are you so angry at her ?", then Tony answered "He imagined the time when two of them dated first time in HK, having a dinner at a nice restaurant was the most beautiful moment for him but when he saw her again in Shanghai he immediately noticed she was no longer the same and felt angry at her"

This Tony's comment inspired Ang Lee and he could understand that "Mr. Yee is now a traitor but even he once was innocent, so he is angry at her change also angry at himself and angry at the era and the situation he is in."

Also when Ang Lee had a break down and suddenly started crying (this kind of things never happen to him before), Tony went to his side to comfort him and at that time Tony was worried Ang Lee might not be able to continue shooting this film.

Asked about Love, tony answered

"I have love and hate feeling towards Ang Lee but I know he loves me a lot."

There are a lot of very interesting facts in this article, but I can't translate all of it.

Expecting more interviews in English in NY and Toronto.

[summertime]

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Ang Lee: 'Lust, Caution' is about China's past culture

Taipei, Sept. 10 (AP): Ang Lee said his spy thriller ``Lust, Caution'' is a good example of cooperation between China, Hong Kong and his native Taiwan after the film won the top Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival.

The erotic thriller, set against the backdrop of Japanese-occupied Shanghai during World War II, has raised questions about whether it's a Chinese or Taiwanese production.

``We had to shoot many of the scenes in China and use the technologies of Hong Kong,'' Lee told Taiwanese reporters after receiving his award Saturday. ``There's the passing of culture and arts, and it would be meaningless to distinguish the origins of those elements.

``The film is about China's past culture ... the loss and despondency of the past century,'' he said.

Lee said he grew up in both Chinese and Taiwanese cultures, having been born to parents who ``brought things from China'' when they fled the Chinese civil war in 1949.

In ``Lust, Caution,'' an idealistic young acting troupe in Hong Kong, driven by patriotic fervor, embark on a naive plot to assassinate a Chinese official collaborating with the Japanese during World War II. Their star performer delves into the role of a seductress.

``Lust, Caution,'' which contains explicit sexuality, has been given an NC-17 rating in the United States, banning viewers under 17.

Taiwan's United Daily News quoted Lee as saying the sex scenes were necessary in depicting the poignant love and fierce hostility between the lead characters.

``They first hate and then love each other, a love that in turn generates hatred,'' said Lee. ``If the scenes were less direct, the audience would fail to get it.''

The award Saturday came two years after Lee captured the same prize for the gay cowboy movie ``Brokeback Mountain.''



http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/009200709100321.htm

[summertime]

Shooting sex scenes 'was hell'

Lee Ang almost had a breakdown because he was worried how the Chinese would view Lust, Caution


VENICE - Oscar-winning director Lee Ang says shooting the explicit sex scenes in his new tragic melodrama, Lust, Caution, was harrowing - like taking a trip to hell.

He thought he was going insane and broke down in tears once on the set, he told Taiwanese reporters at the Venice Film Festival, where the movie is in competition.

The Taiwan-born Lee, who won a Best Director Oscar for Brokeback Mountain last year, said making movies, like cooking, had always been easy for him.

But directing actors Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Tang Wei in those sex scenes was difficult because 'I worried about how Chinese people would see it, and didn't know how to face my family, my children', he said.

Based on a short story by Chinese writer Eileen Chang, Lust, Caution is set in the 1940s, mostly in Japanese-occupied Shanghai.

Tang plays the heroine, Wang Jiazhi, who belongs to a university drama troupe plotting to assassinate a collaborator named Mr Yi, played by Leung.

Assigned to seduce him, she falls into an affair driven by both passion and suspicion.

So over 11 days on a closed set, with only the main camera and sound personnel present, Lee would talk through the physical and emotional content of each sex scene with the two actors.

In a New York Times interview published before the Venice premiere, he had said: 'It was hard for me to live in Eileen Chang's world. There are days I hated her for it. It's so sad, so tragic... this is the story of what killed love for her.'

The writer had a doomed romance with an older man publicly known as a traitor and her story, though inspired by an actual assassination plot in the 1930s, incorporated elements of her own life.

In Venice on Sunday, Lee said: 'Shooting the sex scenes left me on the verge of breaking down. The only thing that sustained me was the thought that I had to get the actors through this hell.'

On the day the usually repressed Lee lost control of his emotions and cried before the cast and crew, Leung had to hug and comfort him.

The actor, who was also at the interview with the Taiwanese press, said: 'I was worried that we couldn't continue shooting.'

The director can now heave a sigh of relief. When he showed his wife and two sons Lust, Caution, he got excellent reviews from them. They said he had gone a step further in film-making.

The movie has received the strictest NC-17 rating in the United States, which means viewers under the age of 17 are banned.

But noting that his US-born teenage son liked the film, the director said: 'This proves that there is no need for age-related ratings. A 14-year-old minor doesn't necessarily understand less than a 41-year-old.'

The other difficulty of the shoot, he said, was playing mentor to Tang, who had never acted in a film.

'Three months' coaching, five months' filming - I spent a full eight months on her. I've never put in so much effort on one person.'

It was not the same as coaching Zhang Ziyi, the then newbie who shot to stardom in his gongfu hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Explaining that Zhang was in a supporting role and Tang is in a leading role, he added: 'Zhang Ziyi was the one stealing the show. Tang Wei is the one shouldering the show.'

And he had hand-picked the classically beautiful woman for Lust, Caution, after all.

'I looked at more than 10,000 people. I also met Zhang Ziyi for a meal. But Tang Wei is Wang Jiazhi. It's very difficult to find somebody like this nowadays.'


http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_154419.html