A director with change on his mind

CHINESE director Chen Kaige, a member of the Fifth Generation directors, was in town recently to promote his new film, “The Promise.” I met him in his suite at the Park Hyatt in Century City early one morning in late April. Tall, elegant and serious, Chen has the demeanor of a statesman and the contemplative conversational style of a novelist. In perfect English, he spoke about his new movie, his feelings about China’s transformative moment, and his desire to take a pass at making a Chinese-language mass-market movie. Chen’s ninth film, “The Promise,” is a romantic fantasy epic set “3,000 years ago in the future, somewhere in Asia.” It’s the story of a princess, a general and a slave whose destinies become intertwined by forces beyond their control. Only after they learn to trust each other, can they begin to alter their fates. The biggest budget film ever made in China, it was major commercial success there.

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Unlike your other films, “The Promise” is not a historical piece. Why did you set the story in a fantasy past?

Because I still see myself as sort of a young boy. Not only young at heart, what I’m saying is that after doing a lot of dramas, the time came for me to try something different. I was just curious about what we could do with a film that combines different elements of a love story, action, martial arts and special effects.

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What were the film’s origins?

I was inspired by some interesting myths that exist in our history. There’s a very famous one in which there’s a young man who can actually run like the wind. But he has a very big ambition: One day he wants to run faster and catch the sun. Obviously, the story ends in tragedy. But the story is beautiful because it shows the original power of the newborn civilization. The story was written at least 3,000 years ago.

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And do you see the connection to recent changes in China?

Yes, I mean first of all, this is just a fun film to watch. It’s not necessary for everybody to seek real meaning in the film. But this film, in a way, reflects what’s going on in China. You can see it in the characters.

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How?

The General is the one who doesn’t have any sense of love at all. He is crazy about winning battles, to get glory, fame, success. That’s his desire. The Princess is the same. She’s a cursed woman because she made the wrong choice when she was very young. Destiny is a very important theme in the film. Both of them represent the current values of Chinese society. I guess so many people would give the same answer as she gives in the film [when she is asked to choose between material wealth and love], like “What are you talking about? Love? I just want money.”

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Is this because people are coming from a perspective of deprivation?

Those characters are recognizable in Chinese society. Because China is in the middle of a big change, many things are very different, even from when I started the film. We used to have something called dignity and respect. But now in the busy marketplace, it’s become very brutal. A battlefield. And I’m not placing the blame on people who chase money, it’s understandable after people have suffered poverty in the past. But now, the question for me is what should we keep from our traditional culture?

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When you were talking about the myth that inspired you, I remembered the character in your earlier film, “Farewell, My Concubine,” who was so loyal to the king that she sacrifices herself. In this film there is also a character like that, the slave who is so loyal he wants to remain a slave. What do you think about this idea of loyal servility?

It was important to me to have a portrait of this slave character, who is more idealistic than other characters in the film. He’s the one with a golden heart. He’s slightly like me. I put my own life experience into every movie. The reason I’m saying this is because I was sent away to a very remote area to do labor when I was very young. So I didn’t know that I had the right to stand up. But after I’d been in the country for 2 1/2 years, after I’d served as a soldier for five years, all of a sudden, not only physically, but spiritually, I grew up.

I feel like I almost shared the same experience as the slave Kundun does in this film. He doesn’t know that he’s a human being -- he’s treated as an animal by everybody. The only thing he can do is obey whatever people say to him. But love changes him. He realizes that he can change his own destiny, and he’s also ready to help others.

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It’s interesting to think about it in those terms, that there are personal choices you can make, but sometimes the forces of politics are bigger than the individual person.

Yes, history or politics will influence the ordinary person’s life. But for us there’s always a chance to have our own voice. If you travel to China you can feel what’s going on there. A lot of change. Like, you are in your car, then you make a lot of turns, sometimes to your left, sometimes to your right. And you’re not really sure which direction you are going to take. For example so many people -- everybody, actually, including myself in the past -- worked for a certain government unit. But now we’re on our own. As a director, for example, I have to raise money. Then I have to think about how we’re going to get that money back from the marketplace. So I’m quite confused as a director. But we need to get used to that, because this is called market economy.

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What do you feel attracts you to a story? When you start something new, how do you get started?

As an individual living in a society, so many things influence me, make me feel like there’s something I want to express. Because as a film director, on the one hand, I have to think about commercial stuff. But on the other, I always think about what is the important message that I can put into a film. I’m tired of this kind of commercialism, materialism around us. We’re losing our old lifestyle. I’m not saying it’s suitable for everybody, but I think we’re losing the way we used to live. And everybody becomes very busy without a purpose. What is the purpose?

Also, people pay very little attention to the culture. Here it’s different, you know. American culture is very young, people don’t normally look back, learn from history. There’s nothing to learn -- let’s just go ahead and do what we want to do. But in China, it’s a big country, a lot of people and beautiful traditions. There’s always a need for us to get something from the past.

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How old were you when you were sent to the labor camp?

Sixteen.

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And until that point you’d been living a more privileged life? Because your father was a film director?

Not at all. Of course, compared with the peasants at that time it seemed like we were living well. But even though my father was a film director, his salary was almost the same as other people’s. But the point is that it was such an isolated society, and then going through the Cultural Revolution -- I’ll give you an example: I thought I’d never see another foreign film again, during the Cultural Revolution. So then when that political event finished, we got a chance to study in film school. And those professors hadn’t taught anyone in 10 years, so they didn’t know how to teach us, either. But we got the chance to see a lot of foreign films in the film archives, and to have a free discussion and to make our own decisions in terms of what we wanted to do. So that’s why we’re called the Fifth Generation film directors. The character of this small group is that we want to develop a new sort of cinema language in China, after the old way of filmmaking.

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Have you had problems with censors with this film?

What I can say is that, every time, we carefully submit a screenplay to the authorities before we do anything. But when we get a green light for a certain project from the authorities, then we can do whatever we want. There’s nobody standing behind us telling us what to do when we are shooting. But I do hope things get better and better.

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Chocano is a Times film critic. She can be e-mailed at calendar.letters@latimes.com.