I present to your attention the first part of an article by an expert on Baguazhang Everington's Kioni about how the new film called "Tai Chi 0".
- Studio: Huayi Brothers
- Producer: Jet Li
- Scenario: Chen Kuofu
- Producer: Stephen Fung
- Fight director: Sammo Hung
- Yang Luchan: Yuan Xiaochao
- Chen Village Chief: Tony Leung Ka-fai
The call
Late on Wednesday evening, I received an unexpected call from the woman in charge of casting. Says the director of a Jet Li-financed film liked me: “By noon tomorrow will you be able to show up for the 9-day shoot?” I recently had a dialogue role in Jackie Chan's new film Armor of God 3: Chinese Zodiac, so I assumed that the casting director of that film had passed on the information about me. This was all last minute and just before the Christmas weekend. I would have to leave my family for the holidays with only brief notice, but I had no choice. Jet Li has been my hero since the 3s, and I wasn't going to miss the chance to meet him face to face on set. Even Jie (杰), part of my name, is taken from the Chinese name Jet. It wasn't until some time later that I realized that Jet Li was, at best, only tangentially related to the film, but it was too late because I was already on my way. For a little less than 90 hours, I was traveling in a minibus towards the main film studio located in Huairou, one of the districts of Beijing, to have my measurements taken. Later, as darkness fell and we were being transported through the nearby Changping district, I tried to squeeze in a couple of hours of sleep before we boarded the 5:30 a.m. shuttle bus to the studio.
The first day
The bus to the studio was packed with foreign and Chinese actors, with the foreign contingent cracking jokes the entire way. When we arrived, the air was frosty and the sky was filled with thick brown smog. The building resembled less a studio than an old abandoned factory, however, teeming with hundreds of actors, stuntmen, production assistants and crew members. A quick serving of broth and steamed buns helped perk me up, after which we were quickly taken to the dressing room, where several people helped us try on the uniforms that had been designed for us. We were given gray mercenary suits from the First Opium War. I'm not sure if they were historically accurate - you can look at the photographs and decide for yourself - but to me, they looked more like the military uniform of the Napoleonic army. The upper part of the costumes consisted of black headdresses, copying the hats of grenadiers with bear fur, decorated with white and red trains, which ended in something like a tube, reminiscent in shape of old-style vacuum cleaners. The rest of the uniform consisted of a fancy gray coat with white trim, epaulettes, a white shoulder strap and lapel tails, a white vest, thin gray trousers, white stockings and gray leggings worn over black boots. This type of clothing is hardly ideal for action scenes, and personally I thought the uniforms, especially the beaver hats, were ridiculous. We later joked that the hat could be used to take a big piss, and the plume could be used to clean up afterwards. Then it came to the makeup, which was a bit of a relief as I looked pretty exhausted after only about 3 hours of sleep.
Set
The main feature of the set was a giant multi-story steam tank called “Troy No. 1.” The thing was huge—take a look at the poster to get an idea of the scale—and looked like something out of the writers' imagination. In my opinion, this is something like a steam-punk version of a fascist “shell”, and it was difficult to understand what such a thing was doing in the middle of filming a film about Tai Chi. In terms of scope, realism and attention to detail, the set was amazing. The tank was full of giant interlocking gears and pistons, steam was coming from the valves everywhere, and black smoke was pouring out of the coal fireboxes. There was even added rust to the metal seams into which water could seep. Every time filming began, the car hissed to life, and smoke and steam flew in all directions. The downside was that, in addition to the dust from constant construction on set and Beijing's polluted air, by the end of each day our noses were clogged with a thick layer of soot from the smoke. I quickly adopted the old-timers' skills and put on a dust mask like everyone else.
Passing time with the team
There were so many preparations for filming on this first day that we, the actors, were given a lot of free time. Having worked in several films before, I was already mentally prepared for such a situation. Some seasoned actors turned out to be experts in the field and provided folding chairs, iPads, video cameras, books and playing cards to help pass the time. Any doubts about whether I would be accepted as a new kungfu actor were quickly dispelled, as almost all the actors were very friendly, and I got to know all my foreign soldier buddies properly. One of the actors was particularly talented and entertained us with his magic tricks, mime, dirty jokes and his interpretation of Christian Bale's on-set tirade that recently went viral online. He spoke Chinese with an almost flawless Beijing accent and often liked to hum songs like “I Called Little Shenyang.”
On set, everyone addressed us using our Chinese names. This led to some confusion, as three of the eight foreigners had the word “dragon” (lun) in their names. We had Feilong (flying dragon), Longfei (flying dragon) and Xiaolong (small dragon). It reached its climax when Sammo Hung's stunt team joined us, as some of them also responded to the nickname Xiaolong. Once, in one of the battle scenes, all three “dragons” were present on the set, and then constant confusion began about who should stand and in what place. No one really understood which of the guys was the “flying dragon” and which was the “flying dragon.”
Whether by irony or design, almost all of the eight foreigners were from the “Eight Power Alliance” countries of the Yihetuan Rebellion, including Russia, Great Britain, France, the United States, Germany and Italy, and the list was completed by an Israeli. The seven foreigners, including myself, were proficient in martial arts. Each had its own focus, for example, Shaolinquan, Long Fist, Viet Vo Dao and, in my case, Ba Guazhang. The guy from Israel was chosen mainly because of his height of 194 cm, but he had some experience in Krav Maga, and he also served in the ranks of the special forces of the Israel Defense Forces during the recent military confrontation with Lebanon. The only woman in the group was international Wushu champion Xu Huihui, who had already finished filming her episodes, but she was spending time with her fiancé, who had just started filming. It turns out that her fiancé proposed to her a few weeks earlier while she was filming one of the scenes. One day, several guys got into a heated argument over the true meaning of martial arts, inciting one of the actors to call them “kungfu nerds.” Despite the jokes, during the 9 days we were together, we all took part in interesting philosophical discussions on the topic of kung fu from time to time. We also exchanged our own kung fu and tai chi training methods and even sparred with each other when the filming process was seriously slowed down. We had no idea how difficult the trials in store for us in these coming days would be.
To be continued ...
Posted by Keoni Everington
Source: theworldofchinese.com
Translation: EvilDollaR
Special thanks to DoD Favorit
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Tags: tai chi 0, Jayden Yuan, Jet Li, Sammo Hung, Stephen Fung, Tony Leung Ka-Fai
Tags: tai chi 0, Jayden Yuan, Jet Li, Sammo Hung, Stephen Fung, Tony Leung Ka-Fai
In Chrome it generally says that there is no such site. And who knows, maybe this is not an official site, but someone’s joke? Or was this site just released early?
And yes, thanks for the first part.
I have already sent an email to support.
Interesting interview. What about the site? Red ALARM screams about some errors.
And you seemed to say... Or not... But it became clear from the title, and from the poster (or rather, the inscription at the top of the poster).
I forgot to say: this is the first film in an upcoming trilogy.