China’s Growing Role in the World of Movies

The emperor of film in China was sitting excitedly on the edge of his chair describing his version of “The Last Emperor.”

Jinxian Teng, director of the Film Bureau of the People’s Republic of China, essentially the chief authority of all film activity in the People’s Republic, was remembering a movie that he planned in 1982--only to have it squelched by authorities then in power, partly because the opening scene included a shot of a female breast.

His movie was “The Last Emperor.” No, not the “Last Emperor” filmed in China by director Bernardo Bertolucci and now in contention for nine Academy Awards.

In an interview on a balcony off China Film’s suite at the Beverly Hilton, Teng, leader of China’s first delegation to the just-ended American Film Market, recalled that when he was a film director: “I was fully prepared to make the film, I wrote the script, everything, I had the first shot in my mind.”

He thrust one of his hands high above his head, to show that he could still see that first shot.

Teng’s script covered the same territory as Bertolucci’s film--the life of China’s real last emperor, Pu Yi, who was raised in lonely luxury as a boy emperor in the Forbidden Palace and later became a puppet emperor under Japanese occupation in World War II. Ultimately, Pu Yi spent 10 years in a prison camp under the communist regime.

Teng described his opening scene: “Pu Yi is at his mother’s breast, sucking his mother’s milk and then suddenly he is taken away to become the emperor. . . .

“At that time, we cannot make a film with a breast of a woman. If the same situation happened right now, I would like to give full support to any creative film makers.”

But back then, “First, our leaders lacked self-confidence. They don’t think we can make such a picture.” Second, the Chinese economy wouldn’t permit financing a film on “such a grand scale.”

Teng doesn’t seem to lack for self-confidence. Until very recently, Chinese officials edited out even kissing scenes in movies imported from the West. Desheng Zeng, second in command to Teng, told Calendar in an interview last year that such shots are “against Chinese customs.”

Teng commands a system that employs 500,000 people, oversees nearly 70 million daily movie admissions and is responsible for all film production, distribution, exhibition and foreign exchange in China.

But it’s been an extremely conservative and isolated system, though Teng’s appointment could signal change.

As Teng discussed his plans for leading China’s film out of isolation (with a translator-aide beside him), Zeng poured Diet Coke for everyone, occasionally nodding in approval at the remarks.

Speaking of the Bertolucci “Emperor,” which has bare breasts, kissing scenes and a bit more, Teng pronounced the film “OK to be shown in China in the original version. We don’t have to cut any of the scenes.”

(However, at a later press conference, Teng was more cautious. Two scenes--one involving the Red Guards and another showing Pu Yi in bed with his two wives--may have to go, he said.

(Reconciling the different statements, Xiaolin Chen, president of China Film’s Los Angeles branch and one of Teng’s translators on the visit, explained: “As a person, he thinks Bertolucci’s film is a masterpiece and it would be a pity to cut it. He personally thinks it’s OK (unedited). But we have to wait until we get the word from higher authority.”

Teng’s admirable posture and ready smile bring to life a mention in his press biography that refers to his “prize pupil” status at the Sichuan Drama School, where he was graduated in 1961. After a 12-year acting career, he enrolled in Beijing’s Film Academy and ultimately became a director. His next job, as general manager of a provincial film studio, led to his current appointment.

The press kit doesn’t mention how Teng maintained the acting life during the Cultural Revolution, when China’s artists and intellectuals were vilified, imprisoned or killed. Or, commonly, reduced to laborer status. Teng’s explanation of how he spent those years didn’t come easily.

Leaning forward slightly and touching his back, he said he was forced into the countryside and made a farm worker. Carrying bags of manure was “a very heavy burden on my back.” After the farm, he worked as a laborer in a factory.

“That part of history is totally denied (discredited) by our party and our people,” he said, referring to a popular Chinese novel, “Minus 10 Years,” as a title that means, “Everybody wasted 10 years.”

However, Teng said, the experience turned out to be valuable for him in his later career as a director. “Everybody revealed their true nature during the Cultural Revolution. It was like a stage where everyone showed themselves.” There is Hollywood interest in a film project of the book “Life and Death in Shanghai” by Nien Cheng, which recounts the author’s imprisonment and the murder of her daughter, an actress at Shanghai Film Studio, during the Cultural Revolution. Could this story be filmed by Western producers in China?

Teng’s answer was roundabout. Noting that one of the films China was selling at the Film Market, “Hibiscus Town,” is about the cultural revolution, Teng said: “If the film studios in China want to make films on Red Guards or anything that happened during Cultural Revolution, they can make any films. But that is for our part. For your part, we have to see the script first. If you have some scripts much better than this one (‘Hibiscus’), why not? We think it will be easier to get approval by high authority.

“The important thing, we think, is that when the film is made, the audience will have confidence in China.”

For Western film makers, that could be tricky to achieve, in light of Teng’s admission in the press conference that the rather mild Red Guards scene in Bertolucci’s film may have to be cut. Teng also said at the press conference that China would not “agree” with projects that “damaged or destroyed the image of Chairman Mao,” whose regime unleashed the Cultural Revolution in 1966.

In addition to Teng’s “Last Emperor,” Calendar found other projects carrying the same or similar title.

One, a Hong Kong film originally titled “The Fire Dragon,” was shown in Japan recently with a subtitle of “The Last Emperor” that was “bigger than the main title,” said Jeremy Thomas, producer of Bertolucci’s “Emperor.” “It opened on the surge of our publicity.”

A Chinese production called “The Last Empress” was released in China last year. “They were making it whilst we were making ours,” Thomas said.

“ ‘Empress’ is no comparison with Bertolucci’s film,” Teng said. “Bertolucci’s film is much, much better,” but “Empress” has been well received by Chinese audiences, he said.

According to Teng, “Empress” picks up with Pu Yi’s No. 1 wife and “ . . . her feelings as the Empress as well as the ordinary woman, how something happened to her when he became puppet. She was discarded by Pu Yi and became a drug addict and died of drug addiction.” But, “Pu Yi is also very well described,” in the movie, though not his early life.

The concept of a film on China’s last emperor is “the best subject I can think of for a film,” Teng said. “It has never before happened in Chinese history that a man can become Emperor three times (as Pu Yi was) and he was not killed at the last!”

Teng still has “complicated feelings” about Bertolucci’s film: He is pleased with the “very talented” Bertolucci’s success and “honored” by “Emperor’s” Oscar nominations. And yet, “I regret that this film did not come from a Chinese director.”

In the wake of “Last Emperor’s” success, there has been much more Western interest in co-productions with the Chinese.

“Emperor” producer Thomas, who is clearly interested in maintaining his “good” relationship with the Chinese, said he has tentative plans to use a Chinese director for a film project that he’s discussing now with China Film.

“That is a good idea,” said Teng, flashing his grin.