A couple of weeks ago, a Hong Kong public relations company, acting on behalf of watchmakers TAG Heuer, asked if I'd like to interview Zhang Ziyi, the Beijing actress best known for her role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I thought Zhang was remarkable in that film, and enchanting in an earlier work - Zhang Yimou's The Road Home - and although I couldn't quite grasp why this qualified her to be what TAG Heuer grandly terms an 'ambassador', I agreed to probe her diplomatic depths. So I said yes.
Shortly afterwards, a request for a prepared list of questions arrived. I mention this here because, after I'd concocted as innocuous a selection as possible (for example, What makes you laugh? And cry?) and emailed it over, it was never referred to again and for all I know is still in cyberspace. Meanwhile, a more urgent document, bristling with legal import, was produced: this was an agreement insisting Zhang had final approval of her photograph, that it could only be used once but that she wanted two sets of pictures 'for reference'.
We're basically a simple bunch at the Post, and although this missive brought an unexpected whiff of Hollywood to Quarry Bay, it was also touch-and-go whether we could be bothered with such shenanigans. When I queried it, I was told the form was issued at the behest of Zhang's brother, who acts in a quasi-managerial role. At this crucial juncture, I went along to the cocktail party at which Ambassador Zhang unveiled a new TAG Heuer watch called Alter Ego that had the unexpectedly apt slogan: Another Side of Me. The press release had promised Zhang would 'spar with the MC in an entertaining evening'. I'm not sure I'd describe the event in those words - basically Zhang appeared in a firestorm of camera flashes (none of which, you may be sure, had been legally cleared) and after gawping at her, the crowd left - but I certainly laughed when she announced to the regional marketing director, through an interpreter, that she had four TAG Heuer watches and wished she had more. Who could resist such determination, such confidence, such - if I may quote from the puzzling, yet strangely inspiring, Alter Ego press release - 'an Expose of Mental Fortitude'?
Thus, a couple of mornings later, Zhang and I met at the Shangri-La hotel. I'd like to say it was just the two of us, gossiping girlishly about watches and how you just can't get enough of them, but at least 10 people trooped into the room with her, including a cameraman. 'In-house video,' explained Tiffany Lau from TAG Heuer, adding she was going to interpret Zhang's answers while Christophe Tseng, Zhang's overseas media manager, was going to interpret my questions.
'Clarity for you, more accurate,' added Lau firmly, seeing my disbelief. Zhang herself, clad in a teeny pair of shorts and a top (both Louis Vuitton - TAG Heuer is part of the LVMH group so this was sartorial synergy in action), looked gravely composed, an expression she maintained throughout every question, while Lau and Tseng scribbled urgently on either side of us. Several times, she seemed on the verge of laughter - it was, after all, an absurd situation, and she's only 22 - but she evidently quelled her bubble of mirth and toed the party line. When I asked about her own alter ego, for instance, Lau translated thus: 'She thinks everybody has a different angle, different perspective, and yes, she really likes this watch.' I wrote this bit of fluff down, with a sigh, and tried again. Zhang grew animated, flung her hands apart. Lau began: 'Just like a river, the energy, the power, the stream is flowing ...' but Tseng interrupted, crying, 'Sorry, sorry, it's not a river, it's like a big shell, your ego has to fulfil this shell.'
Tseng made a gesture, as if he was holding a shell over his ear, Lau made a crushed note and Zhang made ... no movement at all, watching us. I was struck by her control: she is an extraordinarily poised young woman and when, as she occasionally did, she smiled, even her radiance seemed measured as if she chooses to calibrate her own wattage. No wonder the camera loves her. She still lives with her parents in Beijing - what do they think of her success? Zhang spoke with lengthy animation which Lau eventually translated as: 'She thinks whenever her name becomes great, she will need balance. Her mother and father love her the most, they will support her and protect her.'