THE BIG PICTURE
-Collider’s Steve Weintraub sits down with filmmaker Peter Chan and actress Zhang Ziyi to discuss She’s Got No Name at the Cannes Film Festival.
-She’s Got No Name is the story of Zhan-Zhou, a woman accused of murdering and dismembering her husband in 1940s Shanghai.
-Chan and Ziyi dive into the making of this true crime thriller, from the whirlwind production to their Cannes Film Festival premiere.

Eight years ago, director Peter Chan (Warlords) began developing the story for She’s Got No Name, a true crime thriller that recently celebrated its world premiere at Cannes Film Festival. He was trying to find his way into the real-life story of housewife Zhan-Zhou, the “husband killer,” portrayed in the film by Zhang Ziyi (Memoirs of a Geisha), but over the years, Chan saw the period piece as a multilayered tale of self-discovery and resiliency, themes that mirrored the political state of Shanghai under Japanese occupation.

She’s Got No Name is inspired by the brutal, unsolved murder of Zhan-Zhou’s husband (Wang Chuan-jun). The film takes place in 1940s Shanghai, a time when women were not even afforded a name, and Chan’s narrative intertwines the ferocious killing and dismemberment of Zhan-Zhou’s husband with the upheaval of war. When Zhan-Zhou is placed on trial for a murder that seems impossible for her to execute on her own, she’s driven into the spotlight, where public opinion might decide her fate.

During a conversation with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Chan and Ziyi share the whirlwind shooting schedule on the road to Cannes. They both discuss their ties to this particular time period for Shanghai, and their prior familiarity before stepping on set, and talk about why it was crucial for She’s Got No Name to be selected for the festival. Chan also recalls how Ziyi was able to completely transform during a scene, saying, “She’s possessed by the character,” and Zhang Ziyi breaks down her process in order to become “unrecognizable” to audiences.

For more on She’s Got No Name, you can read the full interview transcript below.

COLLIDER: You’ve both done a number of things in your career. If someone has never seen anything you’ve done before, what is the first thing you’d like them watching and why?

PETER HO-SUN CHAN: Oh my god. That’s a tough one. It’s like asking my favorite movie, which I don’t have you do. I would say The Warlords because it’s not a typical Peter Chan film. You always want to try to do something so that you don’t get pigeonholed.

ZHANG ZIYI: For me, this one.

With good reason.

ZIYI: I think at this age, I’ve been doing movies for my entire life since I was 18. But right now, I think it’s different.

Oh, it’s very different from what you’ve done.

CHAN: Well, that’s not fair. I didn’t know this one could be included. [Laughs]

What’s funny is, normally I will say to people, “besides the newest project,” because it’s easy to say the new thing. So, if you picked a previous project, what would you pick?

ZIYI: I would say Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

That Ang Lee, he’s gonna be okay. He’s gonna land on his feet.

‘She’s Got No Name’ Shot on Location in Shanghai To Capture the City in the 1940s

One of the things about this story is that I wasn’t familiar with this. How familiar were you with the time period and the things that went into telling this?

CHAN: Me? Totally unfamiliar. I’ve been brought up by my father, who kept talking about the ‘30s and the ‘40s in Shanghai because that’s where you wanna be, but he never got there. He was too young. He didn’t go. We were an overseas Chinese family from Thailand, so he never went to China until the ‘50s. He kept thinking about the great literary figures and filmmakers, because my dad’s a filmmaker, too, in Shanghai in the ‘30s and the ‘40s. So to him, that’s his dream world. It’s like New York would be to the Western world. So I’ve been hearing about that era quite a bit, but not that I know specifically what happened in those eras.

When I was presented with this, I found it very intriguing and mesmerizing as a story and also as a backdrop. We were lucky enough to be able to shoot in real locations, and those locations were locations that looked exactly as it was 80 to 100 years ago. The places were about to be demolished, and people have vacated and moved out, and we were able to secure those locations and dress it up as 1940 in Shanghai, and I think it’s a blessing that we got to do that.

How familiar were you with that time period and era and the change that was going on in China between essentially three governments in a very short period of time?

ZIYI: So I was born in 1979, and I grew up in Beijing. My parents and most of my family still grew up in the northern part of China, so we don’t know that much about Shanghai, which is in the southeast part of China. So, all the things that I know about the history and the Shanghai I know about from textbooks, from all different documentaries, and also, obviously, all the films that I have done that actually take place in that era.

I read that you guys used minimal coverage with cameras and tried to use specific minimal coverage and tried to do it on the first take or the second take. Peter, what was your motivation for that? And for you (Zhang Ziyi), what is it like knowing that you might do one take of a scene and it’s powerful stuff that you need to deliver as a performer?

CHAN: It’s not by design. I don’t go in with a set of really well-planned shots and tell people that, “Okay, we’re gonna do this in one take. It’s like a scene, and we’re gonna do the whole scene as one take.” I don’t do that. I don’t plan my shots. I’m very much about instinct. I work with my actors and give them as much freedom as I can throughout my career, and in this film particularly, more so than any of my previous works. I want the actors to be happy, to be comfortable, to be free to be able to express themselves through the characters however they want, even to an extent where it could alter the script that we shoot every day. That makes my team go crazy because whatever we’ve planned, it’s gonna be thrown out the window that morning. So we usually spend half a day discussing how we’re going to do the scene, with the actors blocking it out, almost like on stage.

And then, as we said, we shot in real locations which are tiny, and my DP, Jake [Pollock], was able to somehow hide these three cameras in different angles so that we could get all the coverage as much as we could. I don’t even know where he put the camera. I would just sit behind the monitor. Most of my crew members have on their iPhones, like, 10,000 steps a day because you’re running up and down. I have, like, 1,500 steps a day from just sitting in front of the monitor for 15 hours. Jake, my DP, would place the cameras and beg me to go look at how clever he hides his camera. You would have to drag me to the set to see his camera work. Obviously, we did block it. When I was blocking, I was obviously on set, but when we block it and all the actors are happy, then I go back to the monitor and sit comfortably there for the rest of the day.

So it’s not by design, but the thing is, I do not believe that if you cannot get things on the third take, you could get it on the 15th or the 30th take, because I don’t like to drain my actors, to milk the performance out of them when they don’t know what the hell they’re doing. That’s not my style. I want them to be happy. I want them to feel satisfied. I want them to be very gung-ho on set. That’s how I work.

Zhang Ziyi Wanted to Defy Expectations in ‘She’s Got No Name’

I think it’s also because the script must be locked prior to stepping on set. You’re not figuring out on set what the story is going to be because if you’re figuring a lot out on set, I would imagine it takes a lot longer.

CHAN: I don’t try to figure on set. I know what I want. But also, there is a thin line between knowing what you’re doing and having the rest of the team, especially the actors on board, loving what they’re doing. You gotta make sure that they love what they’re doing, and sometimes they love what they’re doing that is not what you planned, and you gotta leave room for that. That’s something where I have an advantage because of my age and because of my years of experience and because of the fact that I can let them have the freedom. We have the luxury of time.

I remember on my first couple of films, or my first 10 years of filmmaking, if anyone came in with a little bit of a note, my whole blocks would crumble. My blocks would be crumbled because I wouldn’t know what to do next because everything is planned. But now, I leave everything very open so they can do what they want, and at the same time, I can be relaxed and not get crazy over it and let them do what they do.

ZIYI: For me, I do not plan my performance. You cannot have something already in your mind, and then you just let it out. I think everything just happened on set. That moment when you speak your line, when you talk to your actor, when you act together, everything just happened. This time we wanted to play more, we wanted to have more takes, but he didn’t like us to do it. He said, “That’s good enough. That’s the best. You cannot be better than this.” And he stopped us.

CHAN: Let me give you an example. There was one scene, a specific example, where she did take two and it was perfect. It couldn’t be better, and she wanted one more take. And I said, “I bet you this take is gonna be better than the next take.” Then she went on to the next take, and she did her scene, and in the middle of the take she stopped acting, and then she paused, and then she continued. She lowered her head, and she raised her head again — the camera’s obviously on the top angle — and then it’s a different character. She suddenly becomes a different person, a different character. Then, she finished the take with such a powerful performance that we were all in awe. I make sure that we’ve got that all documented, not just on the camera, but also on the EPK, which I think that take alone could be at least one class in a hectic class. It’s amazing.

And also, she has a tendency to overanalyze a character. We would spend all morning talking about her motivation. Sometimes it gets a bit crazy. But then, the minute she’s on camera, she’s possessed by the character. She’s a different person, and all her analogy is gone, and she becomes the character. It’s almost like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Is this true? Do you get in your head a lot with a character?

ZIYI: Yes.

With a lot of actors I’ve spoken with, some of them will start preparing for a role the second they have a script. For others, it’s a very intense period right before filming begins. For you, for a role like this, how long did you have prior to filming to start figuring out the character? What was it like building behind the scenes before you stepped on set that first day?

ZIYI: I think this is a character that is really outside my comfort zone.

CHAN: I don’t believe her. [Laughs]

ZIYI: The first thing I want for this character is sort of a physical transformation. Obviously, the director and the crew helped me a lot in this perspective. I think the audience, they are very familiar with my previous roles and characters that I played, so I wanted to present something different or almost unrecognizable to the TV audience. That’s the preparation I need to do from the outside, but from the inside, there’s also a need to do a lot of research about the character and the time period. I read a lot of books about that period, about the women in that period, read a lot of history books, and also a lot of documentaries that helped me prepare to understand the situation of the characters in that specific period. But I think the most important thing for me to portray this character is that I think I need to grow with this character. It’s almost like when I get on set I need to be with this character like a seed that’s growing up from the earth.

When you guys were both looking at the shooting schedule, what day did you have circled in terms of being very excited to film something and what day did you have circled in terms of, “How are we going to film this?”

CHAN: We’re not that organized. Our schedule changes a lot. We’re not like a Hollywood production where everything is set, but I do have a system that I do. They kept asking me every day. I put it on my calendar on the iPhone of what I do every day, and today is day one, day two, what scene, whatever, and I put stars on them. One is bad, two is okay, three is good, four is exceptional, five is a miracle.

ZIYI: And six?

CHAN: No. No six.

ZIYI: [Laughs] There is a six!

CHAN: Actually, we had a lot of fives. Sometimes we have sixes, a lot of fours, and seldom do we have three, two, or one. I mean, it was almost unbelievable that everything went so well when we shot, but that was after the fact, right? Because every day, I go back to the script. It doesn’t mean that when you edit the film those scenes are exactly sixes because those are sixes that are emotional feelings that you get while you’re doing it because it’s a surprise. But when you put it in the context of the film, it served the storytelling, so the sixes might become a four or five, and the four or five might become a six in editing. So, it’s really hard to say. That’s just my way of doing it.

One thing I want to add, when you were talking about her preparing the role with the script, you should show him the photograph of the script that I gave you two days before the shoot. Because we kept changing the script, and she kept saying, “You gotta give me something solid.” I gave her a script two days before the shoot and she asked me to write something on it. I wrote, “Don’t take it too seriously. There are better ones coming.”

I’m sure that’s great as an actor. So I guess when you saw the script, that obviously changed. What was the scene or two that you were incredibly excited to film, and what was a scene that you were very nervous to film for whatever reason?

ZIYI: I think I’m pretty excited every day.

Was there one that you were in your head a lot about? For example, in the third act, there’s the trial, and you’re in the center. There is some emotional stuff, and you’re in front of a lot of people.

ZIYI: For that particular thing, besides the excitement, there’s also a lot of unknown for me, and that unknown is the most interesting thing for me because you don’t really know which direction it will take you and what my acting situation will be.

Why Cannes Film Festival Was So Important for ‘She’s Got No Name’

You’re at the Cannes Film Festival. What does it mean for both of you to be here with this film? It’s such a prestigious festival.

CHAN: It was certainly one of the most important things because this is what we scheduled our film around, around Cannes. We were struggling to start shooting earlier because we wanted to try to make it for Cannes this year, obviously not knowing whether we will be able to get in, but this is the goal in the perfect world. We wanted to start shooting in September so that we’d be able to make it, and we ended up starting shooting in November, the end of November. The schedule was we’re gonna wrap by the end of February. That’s a load of crap. I told my AD, “It’s crazy. We’re gonna wrap at the end of January because it’s a talkie, it is not an action film.” Two and a half, three max — that’s how long usually it takes me to shoot a movie without action.

We ended up shooting until early March, and we have a cut two days after wrap, because we’re cutting as we go. We had a very long cut two days after that, which is, like, three and a half hours, and we needed to cut it down to show Cannes, the selection committee, and we pushed it until early April. So we had about a month’s time to cut it down to two and a half hours, and what we ended up showing Cannes was two hours and 45 minutes. I promise that we’ll cut it down to two and a half, ultimately. So, we worked everything around so that we’d be in Cannes this year, and it’s great that we’re here.

What does it mean for you to be here?

ZIYI: If you have a movie to show in Cannes, I think that means you have something really meaningful and different. You always can be proud of this because you have something to show not only our audience back in China but there are more people who get a chance to see a good Chinese movie. That means a lot to us as filmmakers.

She’s Got No Name doesn’t have a North American release date, but we’ll keep you updated when we get news.

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