The phrase 'acts against humanity' brings to mind images of horrific deeds committed by genocidal tyrants and fundamentalist militias - not the first draft of a screenplay by a 37-year-old independent filmmaker. But that's exactly how the mainland's film censors described Li Yu's rough draft for her fourth movie when she submitted it to the authorities.
'Maybe it's because of the story being about some kids planning to derail trains,' Li says. 'But the film's more than just that. The kids are thinking of doing it because they feel neglected by society; they see on the news how [President] Hu Jintao visits the sites of train wrecks, so they think they can get the attention they crave if they manage to get a train off the rails.
'It's pretty strong stuff, my original premise - but it's so obvious it's not a film praising terrorism,' Li continues, sighing. 'And they had to say my film would be inhuman or something.'
Such overreaction probably stems from Li's track record of making films that tackle social taboos and then taking these films to international film festivals without official approval. Her rocky relationship with the authorities came to a head four years ago when she defied official instructions and insisted on screening an uncensored version of her last film, Lost in Beijing, at the Berlin International Film Festival. It was shown complete with scenes deemed inappropriate by the mainland authorities, including one in which the film's protagonist is raped by her drunken employer. The film caused a furore and led to her being branded a 'troublemaker'.
'That film has surely landed me on their blacklist,' Li says. 'The censors have been coming down on me pretty hard since then. While other filmmakers can just submit a synopsis to get approval for shooting, I have to send in a complete script. And even then they comb through it so many times ... I've been scrutinised on a different standard. But that's probably what you have to put up with if you want to be a filmmaker on the mainland these days. Now I want to transcend these barriers rather than confront them head-on.'
Li says she's now a more reconciliatory figure than the firebrand who made waves with Lost in Beijing. Her new strategy, she says, is to create sugar-coated stories - and the result is her rewriting her 'anti-human' treatise into Buddha Mountain. It's a seemingly heart-warming drama about the growing friendship between the bitter middle-aged Peking Opera actor Shang Yuqin (played by Sylvia Chang Ai-chia) and the three unruly but kind-hearted youngsters who rent rooms in her flat in Chengdu. The derailing element in the original script has been reworked; instead, the young rebels (played by Bolin Chen Bo-lin, Fan Bingbing and Fei Long) are seen joyriding on trains to escape the mundane and socially oppressive existence they lead at home and work.