Saturday, October 25, 2008

Zhang Ziyi Sings... Breathily

Who knew? This duet (with co-star Leon Lai) is called "You Understand My Love" from the upcoming bio on opera star Mei Lanfang



With the death of music video's prominence as a pop cultural force I had (almost) forgotten about this mode of music video making. Film your singer(s) in less than an hour in one plain setting... maybe with a wind machine. Accessorize the boredom with movie clips. Presto! A 3 minute commercial for your movie is born. Mei Lanfang is from director Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine, Temptress Moon, The Promise). I originally thought his latest would be China's submission to the Oscar but it's not being released until December and the Oscar submissions had to be released in their home country before September's end. Miramax will distribute the film in the US...eventually.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, her singing ability has been troubling people in China since "House of Flying Daggers". She even sang at the last CCTV Spring Festival Gala,and that was real brutal.

J.D. said...

Okay, so she doesn't have the strongest voice in the world.

Glenn said...

Teehee, this reminds me of that Robbie Williams/Nicole Kidman duet of "Somethin' Stupid" except whereas that was one big pisstake, this is so sincere and serious.

Reel Whore said...

Her singing may be breathy, but she's a breath-taking lady.

I'd rather watch a stellar actress try to sing any day over a great singer try to act (cough Beyonce cough).

Oh how I wish we could return to the days when music videos mattered.

NATHANIEL R said...

"Oh how I wish we could return to the days when music videos mattered."

me too. You'd think with YOUTUBE and the 3 to 4 minute form of entertainment being so popular it would really happen. But it doesn't somehow.

Reel Whore said...

I always thought with my short attention span I'd be great at creating music videos. I always had a knack for envisioning stories-images from songs I heard.

Now I just try to find time to scrawl out a complete movie idea before I get bogged down with the daily routine.