Interview
*In Conversation with the Director
Reported by Sodam Jeong
01 How did the story draw your attention to make the film?
The inspiration for this story came from some of my close friends. When I found that they started to be crazily superstitious about fortune-telling, tarot cards, or horoscopes, I discovered that such superstitions could make them completely forget about standard logic in reality but irrationally believe in prophecy. In remote areas of China, fortune-telling and palm reading are still present in people's lives. Chinese fortune-telling is about 'Feng Shui (geomancy)' and 'Ba Gua', which coincide with the theoretical basis of Chinese medicine. One of the core Chinese traditional values is the unity between heaven and man and it indicates the same concept with Chinese fortune-telling. Thus, I portrayed a paranoid woman; she firmly believes that the prophecy from a Chinese doctor during the fortune-telling killed her mother, and she wants to make the doctor pay for it.
02 How did the artistic approach of "YU ZHEN TANG" come about?
The design of Yu Zhen Tang came from an unintentional casual conversation. One day, I had some barbecue with the designers (Ruofan Lin and Jingyang Huang), and we ended up building a sample design of the film set for the whole stage with bamboo sticks. You can say that the set design is entirely for a single shot- the studio is 12 meters long, 5 meters wide, and 3 meters high. The ceiling is 4 meters wide, leaving some room for the top light design. Before building the set, we watched the behind-the-scenes record of The Grand Budapest Hotel and obtained great inspiration from the film. The shape of the Yu Zhen Tang also went through graphic drawing and 3D modeling before it turned out to be a physical set. The interior design took more amount of time. We visited several contemporary Chinese medicine houses for better inspiration. During the construction process, we first settled on the color of the walls. We wanted to give a sense of oppression by using green for large areas on the screen. Then, we brought old wooden furniture which added up the beauty of oldness and tradition. The biggest challenge was the lighting line. The actors themselves had to control the light switches in the film, so the lighting team designed the lighting lines before shooting. We basically had to change the power supply system of the studio and used a dimmer switch to control to shoot the film.
03 How did you get this film up and running?
Everyone on the team is my friend. We've worked together many times over the past two years, and this time I brought everyone together to work on a project like no other. Some of them are graduating, so this should also be the last film they make as students. The process was pretty impressive; many of them participated to see our design and script cooperatively.
04 Tell us about the young lady.
If you watch the film until the end, you can hear the sound of a handcuff, which implies the success of her scheme. The story illustrates a paranoid woman who believes that her mother's death resulted from Wang's fortune-telling. Since Yu Zhen Tang was accused to be selling fake medicine, she visits the place for revenge. The phone call at the beginning of the film was already the start of her plan.
05 Tell us about Mr. Wang.
Mr. Wang is a Chinese medicine pharmacist at Yu Zhen Tang. He can read 'Feng Shui' and tell fortunes, which some modern Chinese people in remote areas still believe in. Mr. Wang can read fortunes and predict future possibilities, and people, just as the ones in real life, fall for it. He could gain such great fame for this reason.
06 Let's talk about the setting. The sound of fireworks and the contrast of light in the background of the film were impressive. What made you use those filmic devices?
The time background of the film is the Chinese New Year, which is also known as the Spring Festival. The Chinese New Year symbolizes unity, beauty, and good wishes in Chinese culture. Around this season, the woman is supposed to celebrate the new year with her mother. However, the woman's mother was killed. Her death is the dramatic factor, contrary to the fireworks in the Chinese New Year, which aims to wish good luck and happy beginnings for the new year. The fireworks also represent the joyful moments outside, in contrast with the tragedy happening indoors. The lights outside imply that this story occurs at night, and we used cool toned lights to embody the moonlight and warm lights to represent the streetlights through the windows. The lighting design of the windows also comes from the structure. Without the wall panels, it would have been impossible to create a sense of interior and exterior in one space.