A filmmaker's real-life drama(2)

A scene from director Jiang Wen's new movie, Gone With the Bullets. [Photo/China Daily]

"Ma, in the first half of the movie, is much more unscrupulous than I'll ever be. But, in the second half, he exhibits more integrity than I'm capable of."

The absurdist tone of the film is partly lost, Jiang believes, when the beauty contest in the opening scene was required to be toned down.

"It is an event for prostitutes yet voted by the glitterati of Shanghai, and the auction item for charity is the winner's virginity. Can you imagine this actually happened in old Shanghai? But under layers of euphemisms, the sense of travesty is diminished. New Yorkers got it instantly when we tested the scene in that city."

Jiang Wen does not make conventional movies.

His stories take place in a heightened ambience and some of the plots are so outlandish they beg for head-scratching.

Yet, as he explains, even the wildest fancy can't catch up with the madness of real life.

Let the Bullets Fly opens with a train drawn by horses, which engenders the popular interpretation that it was an analogy for Marxism and Leninism. (The Chinese words for "horse" and "train" happen to be the same as the acronyms for the Communist predecessors.)

But Jiang denies it flatly, saying horse-drawn trains existed in some parts of China for decades, and he saw photos of them.

The beauty pageant in the new movie seems like a send-up of China's showbiz, especially the ubiquitous reality programs and the all-important New Year's Eve Gala.

But, again, Jiang says it wasn't meant to be so. He has made it a habit not to comment on specific interpretations but says most of them tend to be so narrow in focus they limit audience imagination rather than expand it.

As for the criticism that he is too "self-indulgent" this time, Jiang responds that it was "self-love", not "self-indulgence".

And among his targets for lampoon he has included himself - a point that has been noticed by some cinephiles.

Hung Huang, a noted publisher and socialite, defends him publicly by saying that an artist has to have a certain degree of "self-indulgence".

Hung has been winning kudos for her supporting performance as the warlord's first wife.

What perplexed her and her director is the audience's reaction toward her character.

"Are you sure you're talking about the woman she plays in the film, not Hung herself?" asks Jiang.

"This is an abominable woman with no redeeming values whatsoever. I don't understand why people are so into her. Maybe they are subconsciously masochists."

Hung expressed a similar shock on a separate occasion.

As for the subliminal scene of the warlord's son and the detective carrying on a gay affair until they formally tie the knot, which eluded most viewers, Jiang explained the brevity of the description was due to star actor Ge You's time constraints.

Jiang's movies are invariably dense and rich with multiple strands and layers, often with little regard for narrative conventions.

But what he serves up is a world of hallucinatory delights.

And this may be too much for a society craving mundane pleasures.