Explaining her decision to commission an English-language screenplay, translate it into Mandarin, shoot a feature film entirely on location in China with a largely imported American crew, then complete post-production work back home in New York, Hu continues: “I always have two choices.  Working with American writers and crew and editors helps me break with the traditional Chinese storytelling style.”

"Beauty Remains" is the third film Hu has made in this fashion—sampling and mixing Eastern and Western themes, genres, and storytelling styles with the dexterity and fluidity of a turntable artist.  One of the first generation of Chinese to relocate to the United States following the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, and a graduate of NYU’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts in the early ‘90s, Hu hopes that as interest in Asian cinema continues to grow and international co-productions become more commonplace, she will be at the forefront of a dynamic new filmmaking trend.

“With one foot firmly planted in each culture,” says "Beauty Remains" producer Ira Deutchman, “Ann is uniquely positioned to create something new.”

Gained In Translation

“Ann had a general idea of the themes she wanted to explore but wanted to develop the script with an American writer,” explains Deutchman of the script writing process.  “It was important for her that the screenplay have a different feel from the kind of Chinese films she’d been seeing.”

Hu’s collaborators on the screenplay for "Beauty Remains" were Emmy Award-nominated screenplay and documentary writer Michael Eldridge and  former theater producer and director, Columbia Screenwriting MFA, and IFP/LA screenwriter’s lab veteran Beth Schacter. From the outset, the intention was to develop an English-language script that would later be translated into Mandarin and filmed entirely on location in China.

“I talked with James Schamus about all the work he did with Ang Lee and what to expect when a script is translated into a foreign language,” says Schacter of Schamus, the screenwriter of director Ang Lee’s "The Wedding Banquet" and "Eat Drink Man Woman," President of Focus Features, and a faculty member at Columbia University. 

“His advice was to keep the syntax simple so it translates well, to make the characters as compelling as possible, and trust the director will protect the essential truth of the character.  That was never in doubt: Ann and I knew who the characters were; we developed the story together and talked about these characters for hours and hours.”

Following Eldridge’s and Schacter’s work, Wang Bin, chief screenwriter for world-renowned director Zhang Yimou ("Hero," "House of Flying Daggers," "To Live," "Shanghai Triad") was brought on board to provide authentic Chinese period detail and translate the script into Mandarin.

“Ann would say the American writers provided the story structure, and that Wang gave the script its culture,” says Deutchman, describing the unique, year-long, cross-continental scriptwriting process.  “Historical events aren’t particularly difficult to research and get right.  It’s the cultural nuances—the questions of would this character do or say this in this situation—that only someone who’s lived in the culture can help inform.”

The two-month-long shooting schedule for "Beauty Remains" began in October 2003 with the film shot entirely on location in the Northern Chinese coastal city of Qing Dao.  Deutchman emphasizes that although the film was completed on an indie film budget, the production values one can achieve in China are extraordinary.  Indeed, although no soundstages were used, no sets built, location interiors lend the film an immediate sense of authenticity and affluence that belies its relatively lean budget and schedule.

The crew was comprised of a mix of locals and Americans (with all key department heads imported from the States), an arrangement reminiscent of such recent Sino-foreign co-productions as Quentin Tarantino’s "Kill Bill" and Michael Winterbottom’s "Code 46."  Throughout every phase of production, Hu’s goal was to make a film in China that not only captured the essence of that rich culture, but also attempted to transcend traditional boundaries, creating a synthesis between Asian cinema and the cutting-edge independent filmmaking practiced by American filmmakers. 

“Many films from Asia never make it over here because they’re very backwards,” Hu says, explaining some of the tropes and clichés that make some Asian cinema inaccessible to Western audiences.  “They’re too sentimental, too melodramatic, too obvious, the cutting and pacing is too slow.”  Elaborates Deutchman: “It’s a question of feel that’s not necessarily quantifiable, but Ann was after something unique.  For instance, the music in "Beauty Remains" is not Chinese in any shape or form, yet is entirely true to the period.”

From Petra Von Kant to “The Conformist”:
The Influence of European Masters

“Sidney Lumet once said that ‘style is the most overused word since love,’ and I would agree,” says Hu.  “What he means by that, I think, is that style should always support the story.  When a story is more internalized, like this one, more about conceptual themes than plot, achieving the right style becomes even more challenging, more abstract, because now you have two intangibles—theme and style—trying to make something tangible.”

In order to externalize her characters’ internal emotional states, Hu worked to develop a style that was at once precise and supple.  “I wanted the film to have a kind of cold, austere beauty, but one that would still attract the viewer,” says Hu. 

Some touchstone films that were never far from Hu’s thinking as she and her production heads developed the look of "Beauty Remains" were German New Wave director Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s "The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant" (for its hyper-stylized production design and acting, at once heavy-handed and razor-sharp), and the Bernardo Bertolucci of "The Conformist" (“For many years, my favorite film”) and the more recent "Besieged" (for its sense of psychological compression). 

As Hu sought a unique blend of references between East and West, these and other European masters acted as something of a stylistic North Star for the director.  Hu speaks at length about the influence of Italian films in general upon the look of "Beauty Remains", referring to a contrast between foreground and background imagery found in many Italian classics. 

“In China, most places are fully modernized, but where we filmed, all the buildings were over one hundred years old or more,” Hu explains.  “So there’s this nostalgic yet coarse, harsh background, and all of these extremely delicate Chinese elements in the foreground: women in silk, jewelry, flowers.  That contrast between foreground and background adds tension, and broadcasts the dual theme in every frame.  The story’s conflict is right there on the surface of the film: you see a cold, harsh background and a sensual bright foreground subject.  There’s always a visual comparison, a visual contrast.”

Says co-screenwriter Beth Schacter about the choice of the film’s late-40s historic frame: “The time period felt right.  A little dangerous, a little sexy.  That time frame also had a complex interplay between Eastern and Western influences that echoed, to some extent, the fashion in which the film was made.  There were lots of Americans and Europeans in Asia at that time.  It was kind of a decadent time in the country’s history, between two violent periods, almost like China’s equivalent of the Weimar years.” 

While the larger historic backdrop never encroaches upon the central love triangle of "Beauty Remains," that context is never far from the viewer’s mind.  Indeed, in its final passages, its sense of large historical forces rolling over the vicissitudes of smaller personal struggle, "Beauty Remains" becomes reminiscent of Luchino Visconti’s "The Leopard" or Fassbinder’s "The Marriage of Maria Braun."

Somewhat surprisingly, perhaps the only kind of films Hu and Schacter didn’t discuss during their work on the early stages of the screenplay were works of Asian cinema.  “We didn’t talk about Chinese movies,” confides Schacter.  “We talked a lot about psychological dramas, which aren’t really a big part of Chinese cinema.”

Finding Fei

Hu first met Zhou Xun—who plays Fei, the lead character in "Beauty Remains"—five years ago when the actress auditioned for Hu’s first film, "Shadow Magic." 

“Zhou was still very young and very small,” Hu recalls.  “But by the time I began casting "Beauty Remains," I’d seen some of her new films, and sensed a kind of subtext she carries with her.  She’s always thinking about something while doing something else.  She had a proud façade but a vulnerability that makes a person want to look at her more.  Her face is a really rich mix, especially for so young an actress.  She has so many layers.”

Indeed, Zhou holds the frame with a silent film star’s integrity and grace, transforming Fei into a genuine feminist hero.

Sex Is Forbidden!
Or: Making Opportunities From Limitations

Asked about her experiences with China’s notoriously rigid Film Bureau, Hu recounts the painful story of the termination of her previous project, entitled "Sex Is Forbidden."  “Everything was budgeted and cast and we were days away from the start of filming when the picture was vetoed by the Chinese Film Bureau,” Hu says.  “I had to learn from that mistake, learn how to tell a story without compromising my intentions and still get it past the censors.”

Was Hu at all conflicted about tackling so sexually provocative a story for her next project?  “As far as on-screen sexuality is concerned,” Hu says, “the limitation becomes an opportunity.  Watching nudity in films here [in the States], you’re not terribly affected because you see everything.  I think it’s important to treat sex with the same kind of control as other aspects, in that the indication can be more powerful than the demonstration.”

Fortunately, too, one of Hu’s lead actress’s, Vivian Wu, had made many motion pictures outside of the Chinese film system, including Peter Greenaway’s sexually explicit "The Pillow Book," and “was open to exploring some of those possibilities.”

"Beauty Remains" opened in China in the number one spot on Valentine’s Day weekend, 2005; coinciding with Chinese New Year, that weekend is traditionally the biggest movie going box office weekend in China.  How did Hu find the audience reaction in her native land?  “People were shy talking about it, like they’d just gone to watch an X-rated film or something,” Hu admits, adding that while part of that reaction was no doubt engendered by the film’s sexual content, most of it has to do with the film’s implicit themes.  “This is a big woman’s story, it’s not a girlish story.  In a philosophical sense, it’s a Godmother-type story.  And those class issues and feminist issues make some people uncomfortable.”

While to the lay moviegoer, some of Asia’s more adventurous filmmakers seem to have marked a retreat, backing away from controversial subject matter in favor of traditional themes or martial arts epics, Hu pushed the envelop as far as she could.  Says Deutchman regarding the facility with which Hu negotiated both the Chinese censors and expectations or Western audiences, “I’ve never seen anyone navigate the lines between two cultures like she does.  Ann has a really keen sense of a larger vision than just China, and is absolutely at the forefront of a new kind of international cinema.”