The empress strikes back
It's late afternoon when I sit down with Joan Chen, who is perched regally on a white sofa on the terrace of Venice's Excelsior Hotel. 'Are we OK here?' she says, a little concerned at our proximity to some loud Italians. I assure her we are and she relaxes, aided by a stunning view over the calm Mediterranean waters and a breeze. It's the end of a gruelling few days of promotion for Chen - who had two films at this year's Venice Film Festival - though she doesn't let it show. Looking a decade younger than her 46 years in a slim-line fuschia-coloured dress and heels, it's not hard to see why she was once dubbed the Elizabeth Taylor of China.
Yet if movie-star poise and glamour come easily to Chen, it's only a small part of her armoury. 'She's a really intelligent, very professional actor,' says Hong Kong-born director Tony Ayers, who chose Chen for his new, semi-autobiographical film, Home Song Stories. 'I think she's fascinating. The camera does love her. I just find her completely compelling.'
Of her part as a suicidal mother trying to raise two children in 1960s Melbourne, Chen says it was 'a really meaty role' - her first for years, it is tempting to add. It has been a long time since she was in The Last Emperor and Twin Peaks, the projects that pushed her towards international stardom.
But judging by this and her inclusion in Ang Lee's latest Lust, Caution, which won the Golden Lion for best picture in Venice last weekend, Chen's wilderness period is over. Based on a short story by Eileen Chang and set during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai in the second world war, the tale sees Chen play the wife of a cruel collaborator (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) who becomes the target of an assassination plot. It ties up a loose end in her career that stretches back to The Wedding Banquet. Lee wrote a role for her in that 1993 film but, due to funding stipulations about casting people from his native Taiwan, was ultimately unable to use her. While she calls her part in Lust, Caution 'a friendship role', you suspect it means much more to her than that. 'It was a good film school for me,' she says.
The film has been causing controversy for its sexual content. 'It's amazing how it takes over everything,' says Chen. 'You know, we had a Chinese press conference and I would say 99 per cent of the whole conversation over that hour was about this.' With Chen not involved in the explicit scenes - which take place between Leung and newcomer Tang Wei, and have already prompted discussion about whether the sex was real - she admits to having been 'a little shocked' when she first saw the film. Nevertheless, Chen stands by her director. 'It's not exploitative,' she says. 'He's making a point. Very quickly, I thought, 'What a smart thing to do. What an evolution. What a breakthrough.''
Curiously, Chen's other film at the festival deals with sex - albeit in a very different way. Directed by Jiang Wen, The Sun Also Rises is a series of loosely connected stories, primarily set in 1976, that span the width of China. Part fable, part melodrama, Chen's segment occurs at a university campus at the height of the Cultural Revolution. Against this 'puritanical' backdrop, she plays the voluptuous Dr Lin, mistress to Tang (Jiang) but secretly in love with his best friend, Liang (Anthony Wong Chau-sang). 'It's about human nature,' she says. 'No matter how hard you want to party, you want to have fun, you want to have warmth and you have sexual desires, but back then it could mean severe punishment.'