Guan Hu on Releasing ‘Black Dog’ and ‘A Man and a Woman’ in the Same Year

Chinese language filmmaker Guan Hu has been on the transfer relentlessly in 2024.

In Could, his tenth function as a director, Black Canine, gained the Cannes Movie Competition’s prestigious Un Sure Regard competitors, giving him the best worldwide honor of his profession up to now. A couple of weeks later he premiered one other completed movie, the pandemic-set character research A Man and A Girl, in competitors on the Shanghai Worldwide Movie Competition. By July, he was prepping manufacturing on Dong Ji Dao, a big-budget WWII motion movie that’s anticipated to be launched subsequent 12 months. And simply this previous week, Guan has been discovering time to function head of the competitors jury at China’s First Worldwide Movie Competition, the nation’s premiere platform for rising movie expertise.

A key member of China’s influential sixth era of movie administrators, Guan debuted in 1994 with Filth, a gritty portrayal of the Beijing rock scene within the early Nineteen Nineties. He has since alternated between well-received low-budget tasks, such because the black comedy Cow (2009), and extra grandly staged industrial spectacles, just like the WWII epic The Eight Hundred, which grew to become China’s top-grossing movie of 2020 with complete ticket gross sales of $461 million.

Clearly falling into the off-beat auteurist class, Black Canine stars Eddie Peng as Lang, an effortlessly cool however seemingly mute ex-con looking for his footing in a desolate rural city on the sting of the Gobi Desert. The story takes place because the 2008 Beijing Olympics are kicking off within the capital, however China’s de facto second of ascension onto the world stage feels a universe away from the bitter issues of Lang and the tough characters he consorts with within the nation’s far northwest. The movie finds its momentum when Lang joins a stray dog-catching crew — solely to kind a mysterious emotional bond with town’s nastiest road canine as a substitute of catching and subduing it. Praising the movie’s “attractive” visible aesthetic and black humor, The Hollywood Reporter‘s critic summed up Black Canine by saying it’s “largely a few very unusual time and place, the place males and canines appear to be endlessly chasing one another round a desolate metropolis on the verge of state-sponsored demolition.”

A Man and A Girl stars native A-listers Huang Bo and Ni Ni within the title roles of two troubled strangers who land in Hong Kong on the identical switch flight throughout the pandemic and find yourself confined in side-by-side rooms in the identical quarantine lodge. The movie’s delicate story activates a rising bond between the characters as they share cigarettes and dialog on their adjoining lodge balconies, ready for Hong Kong’s fabled skyline to blink again to life.

Forward of China’s First Worldwide Movie Competition, THR linked with Guan by way of Zoom to debate the creation and overlapping themes of his two acclaimed new options.

Your two new movies have a profound sense of place: Distant northwest China throughout the 2008 Beijing Olympics for Black Canine, and Hong Kong throughout the peak of the pandemic for A Man and a Girl — each landmark moments for better China. What broader themes, moods or messages did these locations and instances help you discover?

Time and place are crucial in movie. Movies, after all, do have a industrial operate, however one other crucial operate is to document occasions and remind individuals of what occurred. For instance, after I watch Chinese language movies from the Thirties, I can see how Chinese language individuals lived in that interval — how they walked, how they ate, what they had been serious about and the way they moved by the world. So, when individuals watch Black Canine or A Man and a Girl, one factor I need them to grasp is what individuals had on their minds throughout the 2008 Summer season Olympics or throughout the pandemic. With Black Canine, I needed to point out a few of the large change China has gone by over the previous 40 years. I selected the Olympic Video games [as a marker of time] as a result of it was a really symbolic occasion — it represents a interval of extraordinarily fast financial and social development. When movies discover the modifications Chinese language individuals have skilled over the previous 40 years, they often deal with the massive cities. With Black Canine, I needed to discover what occurred in these small distant locations throughout these instances. I felt that these distant cities [near the Gobi desert] had been very symbolic in their very own method. Within the Nineteen Sixties, they had been very affluent locations. However now they haven’t any sources, nearly the entire individuals have left, and the one factor that continues to be are the buildings — however the buildings have their very own historical past, and their very own story to inform. They’ve their very own temperature, in case you like.

One other vital issue for Black Canine was that I lived with 5 canines throughout the pandemic. Spending a lot time in isolation with them, I skilled a sure language that people and animals use to speak. So, I needed to make a movie about intimacy and communication between people and animals. In the course of the pandemic, issues had been quiet and fewer demanding in a method, in order that was time to begin.

One other key element that informs the spirit of Black Canine is that the protagonist is a former rock star. I do know the Chinese language rock music motion of the early Nineteen Nineties was crucial to you and your inventive cohort. Your debut function Filth (1994) is a tremendous time capsule of that interval and scene. 

Rock music was actually vital for younger individuals like me in that interval of the Nineteen Nineties. Earlier than we heard that music for the very first time, we had no thought there was even something like that on the earth. It was a really highly effective expertise — an awakening and an enlightenment, in a method. It was an expression of rebelliousness, I suppose — the truth that you may say no to every part. So it actually marked me. The rock music that’s in [Black Dog] is a mirrored image of the issues I used to be feeling in that interval. It’s in regards to the animal nature that all of us have inside us. 

It simply occurred to me that rock music can be actually vital to A Man and a Girl. The protagonist of that movie was additionally a participant of that Nineteen Nineties scene, however now he’s center aged and coping with the entire problems of center aged, center class life. For me, each movies shared a sense of resignation. Moderately than making an attempt to rekindle the spirit of freedom and rebelliousness that this music as soon as symbolized for them, the 2 protagonists appear to be making an attempt to easily discover a strategy to keep it up — every in a really totally different method.

Sure, I agree. I feel you’re right in saying that. I suppose once you’re middle-aged, you begin seeing the total sweep of your life. You may keep in mind the power and pleasure you as soon as had, however you additionally get a glimpse of the top — and also you don’t wish to get there. It’s about looking for a few of that feeling and vitality you as soon as had. Each movies are merely about life. 

I feel Western movie reviewers can be tempted to attach the sentiments these characters are going by with some broader commentary on China’s improvement over the previous couple many years. Was that additionally a part of your challenge with these two movies? I began visiting China round 2008 and I keep in mind the joy and power that was within the air in that interval. 

What I can say is that China’s improvement over the previous 40 years has been extraordinarily fast. In the event you had been there in 2008, I’m positive you noticed a few of it for your self. I suppose now we might name this a relatively secure interval in China. Social change is the actual background to Black Canine. In a way, I feel I’m very fortunate to have been born in China within the time that I used to be, as a result of individuals very hardly ever get to expertise 40 years of such profound change. I’ve witnessed how totally different individuals tailored to that change in numerous methods. With out this firsthand expertise, I feel it will be very troublesome to make a movie like Black Canine. 

Are you able to inform me a bit of extra about what the protagonist of Black Canine represents for you — notably his reluctance to talk? 

So, the character, Lang, is an ex-convict who hung out in jail for a criminal offense and we will assume that he’s been by numerous struggling and trauma. Lang can communicate, however he simply doesn’t wish to. That is his method of rejecting the society he’s returned to, as a result of he doesn’t actually really feel that he belongs to it anymore. You possibly can describe China in that interval as being a very quick locomotive — some individuals managed to get onto it, some are nonetheless making an attempt to catch up and others can be utterly left behind. With this movie, I needed to discover how issues look for individuals who have been misplaced or left behind by the large modifications which have occurred in China during the last 40 years. I feel it’s vital to document the lives of these individuals as nicely. What had been they considering? The place had been they going? Are they making an attempt to nonetheless meet up with the locomotive or not? Or can they discover a totally different strategy to set themselves free? 

The 2 lead characters of A Man and A Girl are feeling a few of the identical lostness as Lang from Black Canine, however they’re middle-aged cosmopolitan individuals coping with lives which might be difficult in a way more frequent, modern method. Their story takes them in a route the place it could be tempting to depart every part behind, however that’s clearly simply not going to be attainable for them. I discover it attention-grabbing how each movies cope with related emotions of frustration and resignation, however they appear to offer the alternative reply. 

Movies exist to lift questions — after which the filmmaker sees if he can discover a strategy to clear up the issues which might be raised. With A Man and A Girl, neither character actually needs to return to the life that they’d earlier than. Is that incorrect? It’s not very clear to me. When Huang Bo [who plays the male lead] was describing the movie to me, he mentioned he might relate to the pressures you begin to really feel from all sides of your life as you become old. You’ve obtained your work life, your private life; maybe you have got kids and aged mother and father to take care of. And the entire household type of climbs a mountain collectively. While you get midway up the mountain, that you must take a relaxation. Often what occurs is that everybody seems to be at every and realizes they simply want to hold on going up the mountain collectively. That’s what I used to be making an attempt to point out with this movie. We’ve discovered these characters throughout a break when they’re quarantined throughout the pandemic. In some ways, the 2 characters don’t actually wish to return to their typical lives; however due to numerous social and household pressures, they don’t actually have a alternative. They should go on climbing. Is {that a} tragedy? I don’t know. 

What appealed to you in regards to the pandemic expertise because the premise for a personality research like this?

Personally, and as a filmmaker, the pandemic had each optimistic and unfavourable sides. The human and social prices had been very extreme, after all. Many individuals misplaced their lives. From a private standpoint, I misplaced numerous work. But it surely was additionally factor for me creatively, as a result of it created area for me to consider new issues, or to replicate on life from new angles. I attempted to replicate a few of this within the movie. Due to the pandemic, these two characters get caught in a lodge quarantine that forces them to cease and replicate on their lives — and truly discuss to at least one one other. Being “trapped” in quarantine permits them to consider the methods they had been trapped of their on a regular basis lives. On this method, I feel the pandemic expertise was optimistic for some individuals. 

Earlier than these two character research movies, you made a pair of big-budget battle films that grew to become blockbusters. Was there a aware cause you pivoted on this much less industrial route? 

Properly, I’ve type of moved backwards and forwards between auteur-style movies and industrial films all through my profession. It’s a really pure course of. In some intervals of my life, the problem of a giant blockbuster appeals to me, and at different instances I’m drawn to a extra intimate auteurist challenge. 

So that you don’t have a choice? 

Properly, I feel most filmmakers all the time wish to make auteur-style movies. However clearly, industrial movies have some benefits. You may experiment with totally different kinds of movie language and collaborate with every kind of individuals. And blockbuster filmmaking permits for a extra comfy life. (Laughs)

I have to ask about how you bought the rights to make use of Pink Floyd’s music on the soundtrack. This was the very first time the band has personally approved their music for use in a movie, proper? 

Yeah, I believed it will be inconceivable to get them to agree. However I wrote them a protracted letter, explaining what it meant to me and asking if they’d give us the rights. I think that when Pink Floyd learn the letter they knew they’d empathize with the spirit of the movie. The truth that they agreed was very stunning to me, however I took it as an indication of their belief in me. 

You additionally devoted Black Canine to your father. Do you thoughts sharing the story there?

In direction of the top of the making of the movie, my father died. I suppose this movie was additionally an try and attempt to replicate that relationship — which is the connection between numerous fathers and sons — generally one among antagonism however nonetheless ending in reconciliation. That’s what occurs within the movie, and in that sense, I suppose it was a present to my dad.