Japanese megastar Hiroyuki Sanada shares his thoughts about the film's cultural identity, learning Chinese, and the spell of the crimson armor, both on and off the set.
The Promise isn't Hiroyuki Sanada's only transnational epic; in 2003, he appeared in The Last Samurai and in 2005, he starred in The White Countess. But whereas the latter two are English-language projects boasting big-named Hollywood stars, The Promise is an altogether different beast: a co-production combining the talents of various Asian countries. For Sanada, that meant learning Mandarin Chinese from scratch and cooperating with a cast and crew of mixed linguistic and cultural backgrounds.
APA's interview with Sanada reveals some surprises about the so-called "pan-Asian" blockbuster. First, whereas English served as the lingua franca in Hollywood's transnational The Last Samurai, Chinese serves that function in this pan-Asian film with "no nationality." Second, the diversity of ethnicities bolsters the sense of cinema as a transcendent or universal language. Third, what is pan-Asian in a theoretical sense becomes localized when actually consumed in each local nation, as Sanada reveals in his comment on the Japanese DVD. Finally, and possibly most interesting, is the difference between what Chen Kaige told Sanada about the film's "Asian-ness" from what Chen tells the press. If the "pan-Asian" film is itself an economic/political/cultural retaliation against the Hollywoodization of Asian markets, the comments made in APA's two interviews remind us that this retaliatory gesture is itself not without power asymmetries and ethnic hierarchies.
Interview with Hiroyuki Sanada
April 26, 2006
Interviewed by Brian Hu
Click here to view the interview in Windows Media Player.
APA: When the director Chen Kaige first approached you about the film, did he describe it to you as a Chinese film or an Asian film?
Hiroyuki Sanada: It's directed by a Chinese director, but this is an Asian film I believe. I asked the director, "Is my character a Chinese character or not?" And he answered, "No, this is an Asian role." So there is no nationality on the set or in the story. Just that we're speaking Mandarin.
APA: Did you talk to the other actors -- for example, the Korean actor?
HS: Yeah we did, especially with Jang Dong-kun. We thought if it's a Chinese character, then we cannot do it. The director said it's an Asian role, but we should learn Mandarin. So we shared the same feelings in learning Mandarin from the beginning and then going to a different culture. We shared the same feelings. It helped our friendship grow easily and quickly.
APA: What was the process of learning Mandarin like? They asked you to learn Mandarin. Did you do that phonetically?
HS: At first, I tried to just memorize the dialogue, but I think that's not a good way to learn another culture, so I started from the beginning: the characters, the meanings, the sounds, the intonations, everything. So we spent two months before shooting just learning the basics. And just before shooting I started memorizing. It was so hard and tough, but after we started shooting, a month passed, then two months passed, and my pressure was gone. When I used some words on the set to the Chinese crew and when they understood what I was saying I thought "Oh my god, my Mandarin is much better than before." So yeah, I felt better.
BH: Was it shot sync-sound? Or was the dialogue added later?
HS: ADL you mean?
BH: Yeah.
HS: We edited it all after shooting. We spent three weeks just for me. The director said to me, "You cannot go back to Japan until you can speak fluently like a native." And I said, "Of course I want to do that." Three days, four days, a week, two weeks, and finally three weeks; 12 hours a day in the studio. I ate breakfast in the studio, lunch in the studio, dinner in the studio.
BH: When it came out in Japan, was it dubbed into Japanese?
HS: In the theater, it was in Mandarin with Japanese subtitles. But on the DVD, you can choose.
BH: Did you do the voice for the DVD?
HS: I will. At the end of the month, I will dub it in Japanese.
BH: The director obviously made this film from his heart. However, were there ever any moments on the set when people didn't really know what he was trying to do artistically?
HS: No, you know, the system and the culture are different, but filmmakers are the same and acting is the same. So we didn't need language to make a relationship on the set. It was eye contact or just heart-to-heart. Japanese actors speaking Mandarin and Korean actors speaking Mandarin in the same scene looks strange but after the shoot, I felt, "Oh, did I speak Mandarin?" During the shooting we communicated soul-to-soul or heart-to-heart, so the dialogue and language were not a big deal. And that's a good thing, and a good moment.
BH: What was your initial response to the costumes and the backgrounds because they're very audacious and over the top?
HS: Colorful. I was so surprised when I saw the armor for the first time. "Oh my god!" But you know, after continuingly shooting -- one week, then two weeks -- it was fit for me. When Jang Dong-kun was wearing the armor, I felt jealous. "That's mine!" [laughs] Just like the role. So only at the beginning was I surprised. It's a mixing of Japanese and Chinese cultures I believe. It's not Japanese, it's not Chinese. We made a new style in this film. That has a deep meaning in this film.