November 1, 2011

Attending a Press Conference

Wow! It’s been 8 months since I last recorded my diary for you to read. As you may already know, I’ve been busy filming my new movie, 12 Chinese Zodiacs, and I’m still busy filming at the moment. Before, I was in Hong Kong doing a lot of preparation work for the film. Afterwards, I went to Shanghai for a while, and then my production crew went to France where we started filming. Now I’m in Huairou, China and will be here a few months. Later, I’ll be filming in Taiwan, Dubai, New Zealand, and then back to China again.

Do you remember the huge film production base in Huairou that I told you about in my previous diary? (Read it here)  Just in case you’ve forgotten, let me briefly remind you. My friend Han Sanping established The China Film Group Corporation Film Production Base in Huairou, China, which was completed in October 2008. The complex houses many sound sets, studios, digital production offices, resource centers, and a hotel. It covers an area of 119 thousand square meters (1.28 million sq ft), the largest film and television production base in Beijing.

Buildings around the Huairou Film Production Base

An ancient style Chinese lake within the complex

Inside the Huairou Film Production Base gounds

This morning, I had a press conference to attend in Beijing. I woke up at 9am, had a shower and got ready for the event. Before I headed out to the press conference, I stopped by the film set to make sure everything was going okay, and then we set off for Beijing.

We arrived at the hotel a little early, so organizers arranged a room for me to rest a little while before the press conference started. The room had a view of the Beijing Olympics Water Cube. Too bad the weather wasn’t very nice; you can hardly see it from my window.

You can hardly see the Water Cube outside the hotel window.

The room I was in was very nice. The ceilings and walls was beautifully decorated.

Here is a design I saw on the ceiling.

I went down to the hotel ballroom to attend the press conference for the film, Legendary Amazons. I’m the producer of this film and my good friend Frankie Chan is the director. The Legendary Amazons is based on a very famous Chinese opera, Lady Generals of the Yang Family. I love this story. 

For those of you who are not familiar with the Yang Clan folk tales, let me try to tell you a little about this story. The Lady Generals of the Yang Family is a sequel to the story, The Heroes of the Yangs, which is about how a loyal family defended the country against foreign invaders during the Song Dynasty. General Yang Ye was the patriarch of the Yang clan. He had seven sons and two daughters with his wife She Saihua, a heroine like her husband. During a fatal battle at Golden Sand Beach, the Yang clan lost three sons when they acted as decoys for Emperor Tang Taizhong to escape from Liao forces. Yang Ye proved his sincere loyalty by hitting his head against Li Ling tablet when he became outnumbered by Liao forces and refused to surrender. His seventh son was ambushed when he attempted to break the encirclement to call for enforcement, his fourth son was captured by Liao forces, and his fifth son fought his way out and escaped to Wutai Mountain. Only Yang Ye’s sixth son returned (he later married princess Chai Meirong and had a son Yang Zongbao), leaving behind a clan of Yang hero widows and young sisters. Later, the Song Dynasty borders were under attack again. But there were few males left in the Yang clan to protect the borders of Song, so the ladies of the Yangs put on their armor and led the army to a victorious battle. Yang Zongbao’s wife, Mu Guiying, is a well-known heroine in Chinese folklore and this film Legendary Amazons is based on Mu Guiying and Yang Zongbao, played by Hong Kong actress Cecilia Cheung and Taiwanese actor Richie Ren respectively. Cheng Pei Pei plays the Yang clan matriarch, She Saihua (also known as She Taijun). Other actresses that play the Yang clan widows include Katy Chow Haiwei, Liu Xiaoqing, Chen Zihan and others.

After walking the red carpet, Cecilia Cheung, Richie Ren and I went into room for a rest before the ceremony started.

On the stage at the ceremony with director Frankie Chan.

They introduced two new kung fu artists in the film and they performed live during the ceremony.

After the ceremony ended, I went straight back to the film studio and continued filming for the rest of the afternoon.