A thriller has been resolved this week on the Shanghai Worldwide Movie Competition (SIFF) as Peter Chan’s reworked model of She’s Obtained No Identify helped open the occasion, earlier than happening an almost-immediate restricted launch on 120 screens unfold throughout this huge metropolis.
The acclaimed Hong Kong filmmaker’s determination to separate the movie — which made its premiere out of competitors at Cannes in 2024 — into two components had raised eyebrows, as did the information that the primary installment would take the marquee billing at China’s main annual cinema gathering.
Ultimately, all of it is smart.
Whereas the Cannes model’s 150-minute working time and twisting narrative arc had prompted questions of the movie’s business potential, the model of She’s Obtained No Identify that screened at SIFF is available in at a decent — and tense — 96 minutes that dig deep into the darkness of the real-life story of an abused lady, Zhan-Zhou (performed by Zhang Ziyi), charged with the homicide of her husband within the Japanese-occupied Shanghai of the Forties. It was a case that gripped war-torn Shanghai, given the ugly particulars of the homicide and subsequent dismemberment of the sufferer, the truth that the sufferer’s head was by no means discovered, and the determined circumstances of poverty and abuse beneath which all of it unfolded.
SIFF additionally offered a super platform to showcase a manufacturing the place Shanghai itself performs a scene-stealing, co-starring position, whereas its stars have been available to ramp up the glamour throughout the competition’s opening ceremony.
The day after the opening finds Chan being whisked between screenings because the movie rolls out throughout Shanghai earlier than its nationwide opening June 21. He’s in a reflective temper, sipping espresso in between engagements at the back of a people-mover because the rain-soaked metropolis streams previous outdoors.
She’s Obtained No Identify‘s narrative is now break up between the aftermath of the homicide — Zhan-Zhou’s incarceration and trial and the emergence of all of it as a trigger célèbre — and what’s to come back within the subsequent movie, which introduces new characters (together with the down-at-heel lawyer who got here to Zhan-Zhou’s help) and the primary whispers of feminism in China.
“It’s a really experimental factor to do, I do know,” says Chan of the daring, two-part method to his story.
She’s Obtained No Identify marks a particular shift in tone and temper for the 40-year veteran who has by no means been afraid of leaping genres, from the romance of Comrades: Virtually a Love Story (1996) to the motion of The Warlords (2007) and on to the comedy of American Desires in China (2013).
This primary installment is all shadows and noir-steeped depictions of determined folks in determined instances, whereas Zhang is sort of unrecognizable within the lead, taking part in a personality crushed down by destiny and by poisonous masculinity.
Dangers have been clearly taken by all concerned, however at present Chan is content material as his imaginative and prescient for the movie has been realized, and he talks by way of the method with The Hollywood Reporter.
So now we have to begin with the choice to show one movie into two. When did this idea first come to you?
Final yr, we obtained all of the help from the China movie authorities to expedite issues so a movie that wrapped in March might go to Cannes in Could, together with censorship and all the pieces. It’s a couple of spouse murdering her husband, dismembering him. Clearly, there may be blood and gore, and even the difficulty of feminism, which is a hot-button subject in China proper now, hotter most likely even than within the U.S. There have been plenty of hiccups that would have occurred, they usually didn’t. It was clean crusing. Besides the two-and-a-half-hour model was too brief for my imaginative and prescient, and it was additionally too lengthy for business launch. So we ended up being neither right here nor there.
What was the work you determined you needed to do?
I ended up chopping a four-hour movie, which truly lends itself to be a four-part [TV] collection, and I believed, “That is my film.” Then I took it again right here, to manufacturing companions Huanxi Media and their pondering was that the primary two components and the second two components could possibly be put collectively and it could possibly be two films. It’s a really experimental factor to do, I do know. It sounds so unprofessional to say one thing is experimental when it’s at this scale and funds in an business that’s fairly superior, China. Nevertheless it really is a really experimental expertise, virtually surreal to a sure extent. So that is most likely one among, if not essentially the most, formidable productions I’ve ever been by way of.
What was the precise work performed on what you had at your disposal? Have been there reshoots?
No. Final yr at Cannes, issues like particular results weren’t performed. We merely didn’t have time. There have been additionally a number of scenes that we initially determined have been too sentimental, small particulars about Ziyi’s character that needed to be trimmed, regardless that I believed that made her somewhat obscure. So we might broaden on that, and in addition small particulars about different characters. There have been scenes that needed to be shortened within the Cannes model to make the two-and-a-half hours. However now the 2 movies can be three-and-a-half hours with the identical materials we had.
It’s such a distinct movie for you by way of tone and temper, particularly. How did you method that change?
It’s such a darkish imaginative and prescient, this primary episode. The second is somewhat bit higher as a result of the second is extra humanistic and extra about relationships, extra like my films, truly. We determined very early on that we needed to make Shanghai look totally different from all of the TV collection which were shot right here. There have been so many TV collection shot right here, spy films, all the pieces. So we all the time thought that we needed to make it extra formalistic by way of how we place our photographs, and we discovered structure, artwork deco, that you possibly can body it in a extra formalistic type, whereas additionally exploring expressionism, German expressionism and its darkish shadows. So, it has change into one among my extra cinematic and trendy films, which is an efficient change for me, after 30-odd years of directing. To enterprise into territories that you’re much less snug with its very thrilling.
How did you develop Zhang Zhi’s character, who slowly emerges with such power?
Like all my films, I’m drawn to the story first, and — apart from Warlords and American Desires in China — all of my films are about sturdy ladies. My central characters have all the time been sturdy ladies and weak males, and so it’s on this film.
And a lot of all of it hinges on Zhang’s efficiency, which is exceptional.
Completely. And she or he didn’t care about what she appeared like; she was fully immersed within the film. Ziyi is so sturdy, as a personality herself, and she or he’s all the time been like that, in each film. So we needed her to be robust on this film, however she needed to find yourself being robust. She begins being fully weak, weak, and victimized, and futile, and slowly you see that power.
How about taking part in right here at SIFF, on condition that Shanghai performs such a task within the movie itself? How has that have been for you?
There may be simply a lot round right here. We discovered a complete block that one way or the other was untouched from 100 years in the past. After I first noticed the placement, three households have been nonetheless dwelling there, however now it’s empty. There’s a coverage right here now the place they’ve realized that there are such a lot of heritage buildings and they need to be preserved. Shanghai was the movie capital of China from the Nineteen Twenties and ’30s, and Shanghai is now experiencing a revival of being a cinema hub. I’m positive they’re making an attempt the most effective they will to get a sure consideration, a nationwide picture for cinema, so the place higher to showcase a film fully shot in Shanghai, helped by the Shanghai authorities to safe all of the areas, than right here?