Post by Webmaster on Jan 18, 2005 22:38:53 GMT -5
Note the funny part: it's saying that Takeshi is "half Japanese half Korean". Obviously they've got the facts wrong! What is he again? "half Japanese half Taiwanese" to be exact. Thank you!
www.empireonline.co.uk/site/features/festival/lff2004/events/flyingdaggers.asp
Life imitating art, that’s how you could best sum up last night’s interview with Takeshi Kaneshiro, star of Zhang Yimou’s new epic tragedy House Of Flying Daggers. It was like a bizarro version of Bill Murray’s whisky commercial scene in Lost In Translation; everything was inverted. We had an extremely nice half Japanese / half Korean star and his interpreter, facing a small group of British and European journalists. They would ask a question, and naturally the interpreter would translate into Takeshi’s preferred language (apparently he has a grasp of six), and then he would attempt to reply. Pretty straightforward, one would think, but somewhere in that process comprehension would often hit a hurdle. Pressed for time and in a very crowded bar, everyone did their level best.
Takeshi Kaneshiro
Not only were some of the questions baffling to the actor, but several of them were spoiler-related, so without further ado, here is what remains of the conversation:
Journalist: Can audiences expect more than just an action film?
Takeshi: Actually, I don’t think of it as an action movie. When I first heard about the project from the director, it was described as a love story, and the action is more like an offshoot. There is not so much action in this movie as there is plot. And I didn’t have as much action – my part. So yes, for me it was a love story, about how you fall in love with a girl in three days.
"For me it was a love story, about how you fall in love with a girl in three days."
Journalist: Is this your first time at the London Film Festival?
Takeshi: Yes, my first time.
Journalist: How are you finding it?
Takeshi: I still have jet lag! I didn’t go anywhere yet, but it’s exciting to be in London.
Journalist: Can you give us any tips for aspiring actors?
Takeshi: (pause) I don’t know! Because I didn’t go to acting school; I didn’t have any training, and I’m still learning how to act. But you have to have your own… something only you have. It can be acting, or a working style, but it’s good to have something that is your own; you are the only one.
Takeshi Kaneshiro with Zhang Ziyi
Now officially, that was the end of the interview, but we did manage to catch Kaneshiro a minute later, while his PR people were making preparations to take the actor on to the stage. Interested in the comment about his smaller number of action scenes, and the training required, we got a few more words from the star. “I did about a month of training in how to use the sword, but only in the basic, basic action. A lot of the decisions were made on set, and we didn’t know what they were going to involve before we got there. By the time we arrived, the director just got us up on camera and said 'now, do this'. We just knew the basic fight moves.”
And did he enjoy working for one of the most highly regarded filmmakers in the world? “Erm, yes!”, he laughed. “Yes now, but at the time it was very hard, because the weather is cold, and every day we didn’t have much time of light – the sun would go down very early, so we would have to get through a normal shooting day in that time”.
By this time anxious publicists had located their man, and Takeshi had to go and introduce House Of Flying Daggers to it’s sold-out-well-in-advance audience, leaving Empire to head for the bar: it’s Suntory time.
www.empireonline.co.uk/site/features/festival/lff2004/events/flyingdaggers.asp
Life imitating art, that’s how you could best sum up last night’s interview with Takeshi Kaneshiro, star of Zhang Yimou’s new epic tragedy House Of Flying Daggers. It was like a bizarro version of Bill Murray’s whisky commercial scene in Lost In Translation; everything was inverted. We had an extremely nice half Japanese / half Korean star and his interpreter, facing a small group of British and European journalists. They would ask a question, and naturally the interpreter would translate into Takeshi’s preferred language (apparently he has a grasp of six), and then he would attempt to reply. Pretty straightforward, one would think, but somewhere in that process comprehension would often hit a hurdle. Pressed for time and in a very crowded bar, everyone did their level best.
Takeshi Kaneshiro
Not only were some of the questions baffling to the actor, but several of them were spoiler-related, so without further ado, here is what remains of the conversation:
Journalist: Can audiences expect more than just an action film?
Takeshi: Actually, I don’t think of it as an action movie. When I first heard about the project from the director, it was described as a love story, and the action is more like an offshoot. There is not so much action in this movie as there is plot. And I didn’t have as much action – my part. So yes, for me it was a love story, about how you fall in love with a girl in three days.
"For me it was a love story, about how you fall in love with a girl in three days."
Journalist: Is this your first time at the London Film Festival?
Takeshi: Yes, my first time.
Journalist: How are you finding it?
Takeshi: I still have jet lag! I didn’t go anywhere yet, but it’s exciting to be in London.
Journalist: Can you give us any tips for aspiring actors?
Takeshi: (pause) I don’t know! Because I didn’t go to acting school; I didn’t have any training, and I’m still learning how to act. But you have to have your own… something only you have. It can be acting, or a working style, but it’s good to have something that is your own; you are the only one.
Takeshi Kaneshiro with Zhang Ziyi
Now officially, that was the end of the interview, but we did manage to catch Kaneshiro a minute later, while his PR people were making preparations to take the actor on to the stage. Interested in the comment about his smaller number of action scenes, and the training required, we got a few more words from the star. “I did about a month of training in how to use the sword, but only in the basic, basic action. A lot of the decisions were made on set, and we didn’t know what they were going to involve before we got there. By the time we arrived, the director just got us up on camera and said 'now, do this'. We just knew the basic fight moves.”
And did he enjoy working for one of the most highly regarded filmmakers in the world? “Erm, yes!”, he laughed. “Yes now, but at the time it was very hard, because the weather is cold, and every day we didn’t have much time of light – the sun would go down very early, so we would have to get through a normal shooting day in that time”.
By this time anxious publicists had located their man, and Takeshi had to go and introduce House Of Flying Daggers to it’s sold-out-well-in-advance audience, leaving Empire to head for the bar: it’s Suntory time.
