The many faces of Joan Chen

[summertime]

The many faces of Joan Chen

Talented actor will spend five days at film festival

Glen Schaefer , The Province

Published: Wednesday, October 03, 2007

To see how Asia, Europe and North America have blended on screen, look no further than actor Joan Chen's resumé. Born in Shanghai, she came to international fame in an Italian director's epic (1987's The Last Emperor), did a 1990s detour through TV cult stardom in Twin Peaks and now raises her family in San Francisco while working steadily internationally.

It's fitting that she heads to Vancouver tomorrow for a five-day festival visit-- Vancouver's festival is where Asia meets the West on screen in the popular Dragons and Tigers program.

Chen has three diverse films at VIFF -- as a rich political wife in director Ang Lee's wartime epic spy thriller Lust, Caution (9:15 tonight, Granville 7 Cinemas; Friday, 3:30 p.m., Granville), as a self-absorbed single mother in the Australian The Home Song Stories (Saturday, 7 p.m., Granville; Sunday, 1 p.m., Granville) and as herself in the U.S. documentary Hollywood Chinese (Oct. 10, 7 p.m., Granville).


Multi-talented actor Joan Chen appears in three films showing at the Vancouver International Film Festival, including Lust, Caution, The Home Song Stories (pictured) and Hollywood Chinese.
Handout

Chen says making Lee's film, set in 1940s Japanese-occupied Shanghai and Hong Kong, and filmed on location there, was an international experience to be cherished.

"It was an incredible set -- multinational, multilingual, everybody adapting to everyone else's style," she says over the phone from her home. "Ang brings the Hollywood system, the more organized way of filming, to Asia. The Asian way of shooting is more casual, but there are tricks that these Hong Kong DPs (directors of photography) do to get certain effects very cheaply."

Chen moved to the U.S. as a 20-year-old to attend college in 1981. "I had always considered myself Chinese living in America until I had children (two daughters, aged nine and five). They sing the American anthem, so I feel a little more affinity now to Chinese-Americans. I used to feel I wasn't a part of that."

She recently wrapped another acting role in China, working with a younger crew on the low-budget drama 17.

"A bunch of 20-year-olds," she says, laughing. "This group [is] so different from what I was at 20, more lighthearted, more like the youth that you see now in the West. It's good in a way, they are very brave, the sky's the limit."

She plays a small-town mother whose teenage son gets caught up in the modern city life. "It's a sweet movie, actually. It's interesting seeing 20-year-old hormones making a sweet movie, after working with a middle-aged director having a lot of sex in the movie."

That would be Lee's Lust, Caution with Chen as the woman caught in the middle when her younger friend (newcomer Tang Wei) has an affair with her husband (Tony Leung).

Those two movies show the epic and the independent side of a maturing Chinese film scene that didn't exist when Chen went to China with Bernardo Bertolucci for The Last Emperor.

"It was such a luxury, the first co-production in China. We had the Forbidden City closed for us, we had battalions of army to play extras. Really, at that era, the best of every department."

http://www.canada.com/cityguides/vancouver/story.html?id=11511f90-2c52-4e4a-b048-7b685ccc0070&k=77538

[cutiepie]

Joan looks just fantastic at her age and probably one of the best examples of aging gracefully if there is any. I like her way of looking at her life, family and career, and the way she occasionally mocks at herself is simply a reflection of the thorough understanding of her own life experience and the way she was.

[Marie]

One of Joan Chen's great films is getting the "Criterion treatment". Criterion Edition is releasing a special 5-disk DVD set of "The Last Emperor" in February 2008. The director, Bernardo Bertolucci, has been working the Criterion on this special edition. As with all Criterion releases, it will have the best quality print available, new subtitles, top quality digital sound and loads of special features (in this case, 4 dvd's worth). Check it out at www.criterion.com.

These are the same folks that put out the sumptuous 2 DVD edition of "In the Mood for Love". Soon they will release a special edition of Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm" as well.

Marie

[cutiepie]

I watched The Last Emperor many years ago when I was young (and silly), probably too young to understand many aspects of this movie. I would like to watch it again, and thanks Marie for the new DVD release information.

Ang Lee did such a great job in directing Ice Storm, that I always consider this as his best English movie so far. I cannot think of it without relating it to American Beauty, which I consider belongs to the same category and class.

When I look back at some of Tony's old movies, I would have to admit that he repeated some sort of charactization in some characters, and maybe that is why I was not that much impressed by his acting although he did a good job. By playing the role of Mr Yee Tony enhanced himself to a certain level which I really believe is compatible to the greatese actors in the world.

By the way, currently I do think it is wonderful if Tony can act in a movie about the middle class family and take on a role as a father, in consideration of his age and characteristics. He certainly can do a same great job as Kevin Spacey did. I saw someone mentioned before that Tony took on a couple of roles as a father before, such as a young father in City of Sadness, but he was like a father without communication to his children. Will he be able to relate himself to the children now? I would like to see.