Tian Yuan is set to rock China’s cinema by choosing unconventional roles for a sweet, young girl

Keeping Busy

Her First Project
Releasing the album,
“A Wishful Way,"
with Hopscotch in 2002

She Became Known
Two years ago in her
debut film “Butterfly"
Now in Theaters

Go see her in Wang Chao's “Luxury Car”Just Finished Shooting “Adolescence” in Beijing

Tian Yuan’s panda-shaped purse and shy demeanor may not be an act to intentionally deceive, but this girl's not that innocent. Arriving at the photo shoot with her mom and an actress friend, Tian slides in front of the camera, looking down, down, down until the moment before the shutter snaps, creating a look that is part baby faced, part alluring. She picks up a lime, then a knife as props, playing to the camera.

“I often feel like I’ve lived so much more than my 21 years,” says Tian. “My life is always dense with feelings and thoughts and possibilities, like it’s always damp and sticky.”

Act or not, such precariousness soon disappears as she pops into an accessory shop in Beijing’s Nali Mall with a naive curiosity that is more akin to her age. She tries on earrings and her mother purchases a pair of shell and silver ones for her daughter, along with a pair for herself. On the way out, tipped off by the entourage following Tian, the shop owner asks if Tian is famous. A follower repeats the names of the movies Tian has starred in, the name of her band, the title of her book. The shop owner listens and nods with no clear understanding of who Tian is, but knows she is somebody.

From high school student to singer-songwriter-rock star, novelist and award-winning actress garnering international attention, Tian says her sudden success is, like a Claude Lelouch movie, all by chances and coincidences.

While lady luck has dealt Tian a good hand, she isn’t leaving it all up to chance. Every song Tian sings and every role she takes are carefully chosen to convey her own voice – something a bit melancholy tinged with irresistible Japanese manga cuteness. In other words, she is alternative for a Chinese girl.

“I dream that one day I can go to Hollywood to make a movie. But I’m very aware of who I am. I’m not any of those Chinese actors who fight their kung-fu in Hollywood. I hope to have a chance to show American audiences that Chinese actors are not just about flying kicks or deadly strikes,” Tian told international media during the Cannes Film Festival four months ago.

Tian Yuan’s most recent film “Luxury Car,” directed by art house filmmaker Wang Chao, was selected for the 2006 Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard category and won best film. In the movie, a father migrates from his village to the city, seeking his money-driven lost children. Tian plays his rural daughter who works as a prostitute in a Karaoke bar, a fact she tries to conceal from her father, speaks with a heavy Wuhan accent (Tian’s real hometown) and dresses as a gaudy KTV girl should.

“The father said something wrong during the Cultural Revolution and was sent to the village for reeducation,” explains Tian. “And the life of my character is thus changed.”

In real life, Tian looks more like the young woman in her maiden film, “Butterfly.” She plays a girl escaping the harsh realities of Wuhan and its accent, throwing herself into a dreamy bohemian life. Her character, a mainland rock ’n roll girl, sets out to seduce a Hong Kong schoolteacher in an adventurous lesbian romance. “I was lucky to work with Yan Yan Mak for my first film. She let me play myself, and used some of my writings and music in the movie,” says Tian.

"Butterfly" got Tian a Best New Performer nomination at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Award and later won her the Best New Actor title at the 2004 Hong Kong Film Academy Awards. From there her acting career took off. This year, other than “Luxury Car,” she just finished filming “Adolescence,” a drama about the love and friendship between two Beijing girls set in the 1970s, directed by Tang Danian. Co-operation with Hong Kong director Yan Yan Mak, for the second time, is up next.

Unlike Zhang Ziyi and many Chinese actresses who graduated from the Central Drama Academy or the Beijing Film Academy and were later handpicked by the fifth or sixth generation filmmakers, Tian was discovered in a rather unique way. “I really feel it’s a journey of chances and coincidences,” says Tian. “If I did not listen to the Smashing Pumpkins CD my uncle lent me, I would not be in love with rock and have wanted to learn guitar. If I did not learn guitar from Li Tao, he would not have asked me to be the vocalist for Hopscotch when the original singer went abroad; if it wasn’t for Hopscotch, Yan Yan Mak would not like my music and would not have gone all the way to Wuhan to give me a role in ‘Butterfly.’”

Active, almost to the point of exhaustion, Tian looks forward to finishing her new book (authors Mian Mian and Yin Lichuan commented that, “She is an incredible girl with very intriguing ideas,” after her first novel, “Zebra Forest” was published) and pursuing her new passions, namely directors David Lynch and Pedro Almodovar and her photography collections.

As we walked away from the cafe where Tian alternated between childish play with a white cat and making insightful comments on her career and the industry, she mentions she will attend the Beijing Pop Festival to see her music idols, Placebo.

“I really don’t think the younger generations of Chinese are so different from young people in the West anymore,” she says. “I share the same interests in Placebo and Radiohead with many people in Europe. In a way, we have an equal level in appreciating arts and expressing ourselves.”

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editor@cityweekend.com.cn

Tian Yuan's First Love

Her first role, as a rock 'n roll lesbian in “Butterfly,” separated Tian Yuan from the crowd of young Chinese hopefuls and earned her a position as an alternative actress, a label she welcomes. Much like the American actress Zooey Deschanel, Tian actively seeks out “indie” roles and possesses a darker beauty than more conventional actresses. In “Butterfly,” Tian says she was allowed to play herself, but as a lesbian. "I did not feel strange when I was offered the role,” says Tian. “I have a few gay and lesbian friends and I think I understand their feelings." But that doesn’t mean it was natural for the young actress. In a scene where Tian was to take the initiative and hug co-star Josie Ho, it took eight tries for a believable take. In another scene, the two actresses had to sit in a bath, that eventually turned ice cold, for six hours in their bikinis to get the right intimate connection. It was worth it though, reports Tian. “I'm happy to be in a love story that has emotionally moved many gay and lesbian people. Just a few weeks ago I bumped into a lesbian couple in the toilet,” recounts Tian. “They recognized me and said the film is like their story. They are now very happy and in love and will fly to Paris to get married.”