Jiang Wen's Gone with the Bullets shot down by Chinese film-goers
Despite his latest film being nominated for a Golden Bear award, director Jiang Wen has incurred the wrath of critics and public alike on the mainland. The irony is not lost on him
Of late, Jiang Wen's life seems to be imitating his art. It's a tragicomic turn for the acclaimed Chinese actor-director, not unlike the fate that befalls the protagonist in his new film, Gone with the Bullets.
Loosely based on a real-life character in 1920s Shanghai, the film tells the story of a playboy, renamed Ma Zouri (Jiang Wen), whose murder of a high-class escort causes a sensation in the city and spawns a slew of stage productions, comedy routines and even a film that many consider the country's first docu-drama.
"It's as if [mainland] audiences are acting out my movie," Jiang says when we meet the morning after the film's Hong Kong premiere. "They're playing out the relationship between Ma Zouri and audiences [of the docu-drama]."
Released on the mainland on December 18 amid much hype, the production is the second of Jiang's planned trilogy set in Beiyang in northeast China during the early Republican period. The first, Let the Bullets Fly (2010), was a critical and commercial success. But Jiang has run into trials with the new production that seem to have uncanny parallels with its plot.
He plays flamboyant man about town Ma, who stages an extravagant beauty pageant with a policeman friend (Ge You) in a scheme to launder money for a warlord's son. But when Ma wakes up next to the corpse of a well-known escort (Shu Qi) the following morning, he goes on the run with his erstwhile buddy giving chase. Eventually captured, Ma is persuaded to appear in a film about his case before meeting his fate.
According to Jiang, its biggest point of departure from the original case is to have the fugitive play himself in the docu-drama, when, in reality, the role went to a friend of the murder suspect.