SINGAPORE: He came, he saw, he conquered. That sums up Chow Yun
Fat's first official visit to Singapore since 2000.
In a press conference held at the Shangri-La Hotel on Tuesday to
promote his new film Curse of the Golden Flower, the 51-year-old
Hong Kong actor had plenty of his legendary charm to spare.
Curse of the Golden Flower, a lavish period epic directed by Zhang
Yimou, is set in the Tang Dynasty and co-stars Gong Li, Liu Ye and
Jay Chou. It opens in Singapore next Thursday.
Gong was also supposed to be in town to grace the gala premiere of
the film at VivoCity last night, but she had to fly home to Beijing
instead because her mother is ill.
When Chow first stepped into the function room where the press
conference was held, he looked tired, despite being dressed
casually - and youthfully - in a white track jacket, khakis and
sneakers.
But he soon warmed up, cracking jokes, flashing that trademark
boyish grin and making every journalist in the room, regardless of
gender or nationality, smile along with him.
In the film, Chow plays a ruthless Emperor who is mired in court
intrigue, including betrayal by his Queen (Gong) and the Crown
Prince (Liu).
Despite the weightiness of the role, the actor revealed that it was
actually very light-hearted on set.
"Once the camera stopped rolling, I'd always be joking around. I
never bring my character home with me once filming ends. In fact,
I'm a very talented member of the cast because on set, I'm involved
with everything that doesn't concern me," he said with mock
seriousness.
As Zhang told newspapers in China, Chow once invited a street
hawker onto the set to feed the cast and crew with barbecued
kebabs.
He then paid for everything.
"The filming took six months because there was more fooling around,
and barbecuing, than actual acting," Chow quipped.
Oh yes, Chow is quite the charmer. When a journalist from China
started off her question by calling him Mr Chow, he interrupted
her: "You can call me Fa ge (Brother Fa), you don't have to call me
Mr Chow."
Later, when she revealed that she was from Dalian and grew up
watching him in The Bund, he teased: "Dalian girls are the
prettiest in China. Did you have a good impression of me in The
Bund?"
While Chow seemed more comfortable answering questions in Mandarin
than in English, his Cantonese accent made it necessary for him to
be coached ahead of the film on how to pronounce Mandarin words
properly.
He revealed that he had told Gong that the film set was beautiful,
but had ended up being teased by her for mispronouncing bu jing
(the Chinese word for set) as bao jing.
"She told me: 'You have such bad Mandarin, how did you ever become
an actor?' So, if there's ever a chance, I want her to try acting
in a Cantonese movie," he said.
"It's because she was so mean to me that I told the director that
she had to die at the end of the film!"
Chow also seemed to have an easy-going relationship with Chou, who
plays his second son.
The Taiwanese singer has a reputation for doing magic tricks, a
habit he continued on set whenever he wasn't doing a scene.
"Jay stole so many of my female fans because of his magic tricks
and he refused to stop when I told him to. I'm the Emperor, yet all
my subjects left me alone because they had all flocked to him. So,
I told the director to kill him off, too!"
What Chow didn't enjoy was the scene where he had to whip his
youngest son with a belt. Apparently, the child actor playing the
role - Qin Junjie - was so intimidated by Chow's star status that
he didn't dare speak up when it hurt.
"It was the saddest thing to hit the kid. When he moved and I
accidentally hit his face, he still said it didn't hurt. In Chinese
culture, it's the norm for parents to beat their children. But it's
not in the West, so maybe the movie will get an R rating," he
joked.
Recently, it was announced that Curse of the Golden Flower will be
China's entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category at next
year's Academy Awards.
Chow, for one, seemed rather nonchalant about its prospects.
"As an actor, when I've finished acting, I'm done," he said. "If
the film makes it to the Oscars, I'm happy because I get a free
ticket to the show. I get to stay at a first-class hotel and eat
good food.
"I don't care if it wins or not. The film company and the director
would be concerned about such things, but not me. I'm easy. Why put
so much pressure on yourself?"
Similarly, when a reporter raised the question of whether he
considers his career in Hollywood a failure - Chow has done only
four films in the nine years he has been there - the actor
displayed the same attitude.
"It's up to you what you think of my work so far. I think all of
them have been good. It doesn't mean that just because you've made
a lot of movies, it means the movies you've made are good
ones."
When the signal came from Chow's minders to wrap up the press
conference so that he could have lunch, he protested: "But these
journalists haven't had lunch yet."
He took one last question, before thanking everyone profusely -
something stars rarely do.
"Thank you for all your support all these years. I'm a very lucky
man. Let's hope the next time I'm here, we can get in the mood for
love."
