SCMP: Michelle Yeoh (original) (raw)

Saturday December 8 2001

Touch and go

by Winnie Chung

Michelle Yeoh's latest film has a lot riding on it after the success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Winnie Chung goes on set to check out the action

THE CHAIR WAS to blame. It wasn't doing what was expected of it. As a result, the film crew had to do 52 takes over almost four hours to complete just one action sequence. But Michelle Yeoh Choo Kheng doesn't look any the worse for wear on the set of the $150-million romantic action adventure The Touch.

'That was really difficult and tiring but, fortunately for us, Peter [Pau Tak-hei, director and cinematographer] usually cut pretty quickly as soon as anything was amiss so we didn't have to exert unnecessary energy,' explains Yeoh. 'Our aim with the action this time is more demanding because we want everything in one long shot, instead of intercutting the scenes like we used to do in other Hong Kong films.'

The action adventure, which is in the mould of Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones series, features Yeoh as a circus acrobat, Yin, who is drawn into the adventure of a lifetime when an ex-boyfriend (The Truth About Cats And Dogs' Ben Chaplin) reappears with a mysterious medallion. It turns out the medallion holds the key to the Sharira, a holy relic that has been hidden by Tibetan monks in a secret place. The skills needed to reach that location are known only to one family of acrobats: Yin and her brother Tong (Yeoh's 18-year-old protege Brandon Chang Tsoek-nam) are the last in the line.

Yeoh says the action for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was easier because it was more magical and mythical. 'With qing gong [weightlessness] you can literally almost fly, but here it's more realistic. I can't jump from the ground to the roof in one bound. I would look like Peter Pan.'

Yeoh is relaxing in her makeshift dressing room stationed in the grounds of Xiao (small) Qingdao Park. The grounds, situated next to the Qingdao Marine Museum, offer a spectacular view of the Yellow Sea. 'Small' would also describe the dressing room, which is little more than a converted 14-seater van fitted with mirrors and a 60-centimetre-wide bed, which is piled high with down jackets and winter coats. The only luxury evident is a heater in the corner, which adds much-needed warmth in the face of the cold front blowing in from the sea. Luxurious dressing-room trailers are a Hollywood dream here, although not one that Yeoh seems to dwell on, despite her experiences on the James Bond flick Tomorrow Never Dies.

The set consists of a facade of a circus tent and some trailers, which represent the dressing rooms of the circus stars. The rest of the big top will be added by computer and the interior shots will be taken on the set in the Beijing Film Studios, where The Touch cast and production crew move next.

Yeoh has high expectations for the action on the English-language film, which has been snapped up by Miramax Pictures for North American distribution. She turned down roles in both sequels of the Wachowski brothers' hit The Matrix and in an American television series to concentrate on this Hong Kong production. It marks the Malaysian-born star's first effort as a producer, a role she shares with partner Thomas Chung Choi-sze, who produced New Wave action films Gen-X Cops and Purple Storm.

Being both leading lady and producer has not been as difficult as Yeoh expected. 'I think in the beginning it is very important to know yourself and what the two roles are. Once I come on set I'm the actress. You can't be schizophrenic on the set. I don't do any of the production stuff on set. That's for Thomas to do. If not, it gets too wacky. Once I'm off the set, at night, then I can get back to being the producer.'

The set feels like an aerobics centre. Chung and Pau are gearing up for a competition in a couple of weeks to see who can kick higher - front, side and back. Crew members are placing bets on who will win. Chung, 42, thought he was a shoo-in until he found out Pau, 49, had trained in dance. 'This director is very devious,' Chung complains good-naturedly. 'He set a trap for me to step into.' Between takes, producer and director have grabbed the chance to perform stretching exercises, goading each other all the time. The rivalry seems to have whipped up an enthusiasm for exercise among the crew, too.

The 52-take sequence has been the biggest action scene so far in the six-week shoot. Most of the other action will be shot on set in Beijing. The scene requires Yeoh to hit a bad guy with a chair - that uncooperative piece of furniture - which leads to fisticuffs and then a chase on the trailer roofs, all in one, long, smooth shot.

'Having the sequence done in one long shot retains the energy and the realism,' explains Yeoh, between make-up and a massage. 'The action director [Philip Kwok Chung-fung] can attempt this because he knows the camera will be able to move with him. In the old days, it used to be like this but now there's a lot of intercutting. It's come to the point where that is kind of passe. The emphasis these days seems to be on the whole movement. When I first did action, I equated it with dance. It was very smooth and fluid but it later became stilted because of all the intercutting.'

Kwok, who isn't on set this day, doesn't have to worry about the camera being able to follow his action. Pau, making his return to directing after 10 years, is undoubtedly one of the world's best cinematographers - further confirmation of which came with the Oscar for his incredible work on Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

'His photography is unrivalled. The scenes are beautiful but even beauty has to have some action in it. Even with a painting, you need some life in it. They both go together. In the past, the scenes were all cut and joined, which is difficult on the eyes. Now with Peter, we are aiming for aesthetics as well as the action,' says Kwok, who is better known to his fans as Guo Chui, the star of many of Chang Cheh's classic Five Venom kung-fu movies in the 1970s. Kwok, who is contracted to TVB, was also the action director for Tomorrow Never Dies.

'You can't bully the audience any more by splicing the action,' explains Pau, who also dropped out of negotiations for two Hollywood movies, with Woody Allen and Tommy Lee Jones, in order to work on The Touch.

'The audience has to believe that they are part of the action. The cut-and-paste action is not something I personally like to see in movies either. You have to be very convincing. You have to have continuity. I want people to see real kung fu.'

However, not all the stars are skilled in martial arts. Yeoh is the only one who has been through any significant training. Chaplin - who featured in Terence Malick's The Thin Red Line and Lost Souls with Wynona Ryder - and Chang Tsoek-nam, who is making his acting debut, have had only a few training sessions. The movie's other international star, Australian Richard Roxburgh (Moulin Rouge and Mission Impossible 2), who will be rejoining the team in Beijing, has more than his fair share of henchmen to do his fighting for him. 'It's a lot tougher for the actors who know how to fight because they have to adjust to those who don't know,' explains Kwok. 'I still have to look after Michelle because if anything happens to her, shooting will stop, but the new ones are harder to deal with.'

Chang, who has been doing extra training on his own each day, receives pointers from his si fu (master) Yeoh on set most days, but trains under Kwok as well. 'Action is so different from what I expected. I thought I knew a little bit of kung fu, but what I know is really nothing compared to these guys,' he says.

Chaplin, however, has it a little easier. 'I'm not a really serious fighter,' explains the actor. 'I'm the kind who tries to see what he can get away with. I cheat and I kick so I don't really have to know kung fu. It's fun, nothing like I expected it to be. The stuff they have to do is so complex. I thought there was going to be a lot more inserts but now it's like, let's see how far we can get before we have to cut,' says Chaplin.

It is Chaplin's debut shooting in China, with a predominantly Chinese crew - and his first action movie. 'There's a different way of working here. It's a little bit faster, but there's also that greater visible freneticism taking place. There's louder noise, more shouting, but that means there's also more energy and excitement.'

It has been Pau's job to get Yeoh to lighten up. 'She's always had to play these intense and serious characters who were not very feminine. In this movie, she is funnier, wittier and certainly a lot less intense. And Ben has that British sense of humour, so there's a good chemistry between them,' says Pau.

The biggest challenge the crew has faced has been the altitude in Tibet. The scenes at the Potala Palace in Lhasa form the film's biggest spectacle and involved 2,500 extras - all People's Liberation Army soldiers who shaved their heads to play Tibetan lamas. Cast and crew were all debilitated by altitude sickness at one time or another, with Yeoh needing frequent intravenous drips to keep her energy levels up.

'If we succeed in what we have set out to do, we will have found another genre for Hong Kong films. This is not a minority ethnic movie, it is a movie,' he says.

Yeoh has a lot riding on The Touch. As her first project since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the movie will attract international attention, especially with Pau's name attached.

'It's very important for us Asian film-makers to show that we make international films, that we make movies that reach out,' she says. 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was very good in that it proved that Western audiences could appreciate a very Chinese culture. It's not just action and no substance. It makes a statement. That's why we're making a contemporary film. What I don't want to see is other film-makers riding on the wave of Crouching Tiger because it was a hit. We don't want to kill the goose that laid our golden egg.'