Oscar-winner and box office smash Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon might have launched Zhang Ziyi as a global superstar, but it also almost broke the Chinese actress. “It was truly painful,” said Zhang, who would wake nightly on the shoot in tears. “I was experiencing various things every day, various kinds of injuries.”
The actress made the confession during a masterclass in Hong Kong, where on Sunday she was presented with the Asian Film Awards Academy’s Excellence in Asian Cinema Award. Director Ang Lee’s masterpiece turned a new generation of people around the world on to the wuxia — or “martial heroes” genre — that often features elaborate sword play and death defying stunts using high wires. Zhang revealed that it was her training as a dancer that helped her endure the shoot, physically and emotionally.
“I used my dance background to support all the action movements, and then added a bit of stubbornness from myself,” she said.
Zhang also threw her weight behind the push for more opportunities for Asian talent as the film world turns its focus to the region, and to Hong Kong for the city’s annual Filmart industry gathering.
As the acclaimed star of 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the Steven Spielberg-produced Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) and Chinese auteur’s Wong Kar Wai’s lyrical martial arts epic The Grandmaster (2013), the 47-year-old Zhang has packed her 40-film CV with a cross-section of characters and genres. She called on Asian filmmakers to “carry a spirit of exploration”, especially when it came to roles for women.
“I have always felt that our East is not marginal, but rather a base filled with countless colors,” she said. “Actors are not symbols, but bridges. We walk towards the world, towards a larger stage, and it has never been to cater to anyone, but to let the world see the power of Asian stories, to see the spirit of Asian women. I have always felt that Eastern aesthetics have an irreplaceable light. The qualities embodied by the many women portrayed in films are tenacity, an unwillingness to accept defeat.”
Before taking to the awards stage, Zhang had treated fans – and industry peers – a masterclass that dug into her career and her roles.
Zhang was famously recruited out of China’s Central Academy of Drama by Fifth Generation director Zhang Yimou and cast in the lead of his The Road Home (1999) at age 19. But it was Zhang’s turn as the martial arts upstart Jen Yu and her battles of wits, wills and swords with Michelle Yeoh’s Yu Shu Lien in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that drew her to global attention. The actress said playing the young rebel gave her a chance to explore a side of her own personality she had hidden.
“I was thinking, just at that age, actually, all children should have a time to be rebellious,” said Zhang. “I didn’t have it in my life, but filming might have given it to me.”