In the mood for oriental siren Zhang Ziyi
By ELIZABETH WEITZMAN (New York Daily)
Updated: 2005-08-04 14:48

GIGGLES AND TEARS

Zhang plays Bai Ling, a young woman who makes ends meet as best she can. For a single girl in 1960s Hong Kong, that means finding generous boyfriends.

It is her great misfortune to fall for a womanizing writer (Leung) who has been destroyed by love once (in Wong's 2000 "In the Mood for Love") and has no qualms passing his heartbreak on to someone else.

Italian designer Giorgio Armani (R) poses with Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi at his fashion show in Tokyo April 1, 2005. The fashion show was held to mark his visit to Japan and the 30th anniversary of the establishment of his brand. [Reuters]

The actress captures Bai Ling's vulnerable dignity and immense pain so precisely, it's difficult to reconcile the character with the Zhang who bounds into our interview wearing a denim miniskirt, tank top and flip-flops, and who might pass for 18.

Zhang, who giggles a lot and exudes much warmth, freely acknowledges the contrast between herself and "2046's" Bai Ling.

"For me, this role was most difficult," she says, speaking in halting English for part of the interview, and through a translator at other points.

"I'm not like this woman. My friends are not like her. I have never experienced her kind of disappointment. The only way I could act this character is from using my imagination, what I think she's supposed to be like."

Grady Hendrix, a founder and programmer of the New York Asian Film Festival, observes that it is this deeply felt immediacy that allows Zhang to stand out, no matter how illustrious her co-stars.

"She goes up against icons and more than holds her own," he says. " '2046' is full of good actors, but she's so present, so much more magnetic than everyone else, that she comes across as the most alive human being in the movie."

Eventually, Zhang built such an intense bond with the role that, she says, "I could not separate the character from myself. In the last scene, I started crying and I couldn't stop. And I heard that they said 'Cut! Cut!' but I just lay against the wall crying. I couldn't get up. Her pain was my pain."

Ironically, it is the disconnect between her characters and her own life that usually drives her choices. "I always look for roles [lives] I wouldn't lead myself," she says. "I have a very simple life. I go to school, I come home, I make a film, I come home. These movies allow me to experience different kinds of living. Because in my own personal life there would not be the possibility to feel these kinds of experiences."

Zhang's life is not quite as low-key as she protests it is. She is a major celebrity in Asia, and a favorite of fashion photographers in the West. But though she has become, as Hendrix puts it, "a significant red-carpet presence," she rejects the idea that she's drawn to the more glamorous aspects of her profession.

"It doesn't feel real," she says. "Each time, when I'm wearing the gown, the diamonds, it feels like a part of my work, not my life."

Her next film, "Memoirs of a Geisha," is being produced by Steven Spielberg. If that's a success, surely it would be hard for Zhang to resist the siren call of Hollywood?

She shakes her head, answering carefully. "I'm a very practical person," she says. "I never think about what could happen in the future, as long as I have one good script. I want every character I play to give me the opportunity to contemplate. I like drama, deep, hard - " she smacks her open palm with her fist - "difficulty."

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