Jiang Wen has become a talking point after his appearance in the latest Star Wars movie. Raymond Zhou reports.

The surprising turn of Chinese superstar Jiang Wen in the latest Star Wars movie has sparked a lot of audience interest, and also some unintended controversy.

Most actors would jump at a chance to be in the Star Wars franchise. But not Jiang Wen. The Chinese star known as a maverick had to be talked into it.

"I've never seen a Star Wars movie, not a single one," he said. "I don't understand what it is about," he added, when first approached.

Chinese actor/director Jiang Wen plays the role of Baze Malbus in the latest Star Wars franchise Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Photos Provided to China Daily

 

Gareth Edwards, the director of Rogue One, wrote him a letter, saying Baze Malbus is a good role.

"Gareth was very sincere, but I did not know who was who in the movie." So Jiang consulted a friend who grew up in the United States.

"Chinese-American actors would kill you if they learned you turned it down. They would never get an offer like that," said the friend.

Jiang was still not convinced. So, he threw the script to his son. "Dad, you've got to accept it," said the 8-year-old, who attends a British school and understands English better than his father.

"It's a small role," said Jiang. "But you are the hero," said the younger Jiang.

"Heroes tend to be more boring than villains," explained the father.

"But yours (the role) is a hero with humor," insisted the son. "The other guys just paved the way. Only when you appear does the real action start."

The Star Wars epic, arguably the most popular sci-fi movie franchise in the world, has never been in sync with the Chinese mentality.

"I didn't mean to be disrespectful, but when I was little, we in China had no access to this series," says Jiang, 54, now more hailed as a director than an actor.

The first three films, dating back to 1977 through 1983, were never released in China.

The prequel trilogy, from 1999 to 2005, gained little footing in the Middle Kingdom. Rogue One is a standalone prequel, and it features two big-name Chinese actors in its very international cast. Besides Jiang, martial artist Donnie Yen plays a blind warrior who believes in the Force.

After the movie opened in China, the talk that the Chinese duo might be cameos died away. They are part of a team who supports the female lead. "You can call it a cameo if you want," Jiang jokes, obviously confident of the substance of his role in the movie.

"I can tell the difference between a cameo and a supporting role," I respond. "I'm a film critic."

The reason for public sensitivity towards this issue stems from previous Hollywood experiments that used Chinese superstars in token roles as a goodwill gesture to break into the Chinese market. After the initial "pleasant surprise", public attitudes in China quickly changed, with many feeling slighted by Hollywood's condescension.

When asked about the Chinese actresses widely considered shortchanged for their Hollywood appearances, Jiang says that it would be wrong to blame the actresses. Perhaps the script was not good, or the director or the producer did not do a good job, or their scenes were cut in editing. "At least they were beautiful," he adds.

It is, therefore, natural that Jiang was grilled about his take on his Hollywood experience. (Rogue One was shot in a studio in London, though.)

But he refused to toe the line of movie-star propriety expected from the press.

"I don't see much difference between a big movie there and a big one here," he says.

"The kind of movies I make in China are pretty big, too. With the money they spent, I can shoot a bigger movie here in China. In my movies, the director, the cinematographer and the actors have a lot of say, just like in Rogue One. It's not just a business deal."

He said the real lesson was that so much money could be spent on a movie.

"Without money, you don't have good quality; without quality, you cannot face the audience. Either you have lots of money or very little money because it's painful to be stuck in the middle." (Rogue One has a production budget of $200 million.)

Jiang thinks it "too much" that China's film industry is constantly being compared with Hollywood.

"When the American cowboys were fighting, we were still in the Qing Dynasty, men with ponytails."

But he did say that the use of English can partially explain the global appeal of some of the Hollywood fare.

When probed about his controversial remark on the importance of "aircraft carriers", which he was credited as an explanation for Hollywood's global clout, Jiang again took a contrarian route. Instead of clarifying his position, he simply says: "If the newspapers wanted to gain more readers by quoting me out of context, it is their thing."

Like Jiang, director Edwards refused to elucidate the relationship between Malbus, Jiang's role, and Chirrut Imwe, Yen's role, which is interpreted by some in China and other parts of the world as a potentially homosexual one.

Both are rebel warriors and cover each other in situations of life and death, very much like the ancient heroes in China and Japan.

The old generation would not think twice before taking a line like "I don't need good luck. I have you." as a sign of simple male bonding.

But today's young tend to read more into it. Fan drawings of the duo in various poses of intimacy have popped up online, eliciting laughs and hopefully more fascination in the Star Wars phenomenon as the franchise gradually gains traction in China.

By Monday, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story had grossed $500 million in the US and slightly less in other markets, including 363 million yuan on the Chinese mainland, according to Box Office Mojo and the Chinese box-office tracking site Movieticket.

Contact the writer at raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn