Monday, Sep. 12, 2005
Peter Chan says he doesn't actually like musicals, which is not something you'd expect to hear from the filmmaker helming the first musical to be shot in mainland China for four decades. But nowadays only the biggest Asian movies seem to survive at the box office, so when the Hong Kong-based director sat down to plan his first Chinese film in years, he decided to wrap a small love story in a musical coat. "It was like the sugar that helps you draw the audience back into the theater," he says. "But I had no idea what it was going to look like."
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Chan, best known for the handover-era drama
Comrades: Almost a Love Story, can stop worrying. The early word is that his musical,
Perhaps Love, is brilliant. The $10 million movie was selected for the closing spot in the Venice Film Festival before Chan had finished post-production. (The movie will be released in December.) Indie icon Takeshi Kaneshiro (
House of Flying Daggers), pop idol Jacky Cheung (
Ashes of Time) and luminous mainlander Zhou Xun (
The Little Chinese Seamstress) star as actors in contemporary Shanghai filming a musical set in the decadent 1930s. A love triangle ensues, giving the stars a chance to work out their feelings in song—and dance, choreographed by India's Farah Khan. ("Chinese people don't dance," Chan explains. "I had to go to Bollywood.") In a Christmas season choked with high-profile Asian films like
Memoirs of a Geisha,
Perhaps Love promises to sing out above the rest.
- Bryan Walsh
- Can a Chinese Musical Capture Discerning Movie Audiences?
