Zhang Ziyi's latest mission

MANILA, Philippines - There are 740,000 AIDS victims in China.” That’s not the kind of movie tagline you associate glamorous Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi with. But her latest film, Love for Life, is more than just martial arts or cinematic eye candy: it touches on China’s HIV-positive population, formally a taboo subject in her homeland. In fact, it’s a wonder the film even got made or released there. Set in China during HIV’s first outbreak in the ‘90s, it focuses on poor rural villagers who contract the disease by selling their blood. It’s a love story between international star Ziyi and Aaron Kwok, two AIDS patients who fall in love and marry though they’re essentially doomed to death.

We spoke with the actress, also a ScreenSingapore ambassador, during the sidelines of the weeklong film event. Was she gorgeous in person, the screen siren made famous in films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? She was. Was her English much improved since the days of her early Hollywood roles? It was, and Ziyi proved to be a thoughtful, intelligent interview subject.

How personal is Love for Life to you?

I think it’s 100 percent. Shooting this movie, I couldn’t find, where is the character and where is me? Sometimes you are scared, because after you are off the set, you still think — because you wear the same clothes every day, and we lived in the countryside for the shoot, very far from the city, and you don’t see your friends at night, and you really have time and space to go inside the character, the person. And when she cries, when she laughs and speaks, I don’t see myself. Sometimes I’m scared, because I couldn’t figure out who was who.

Was it difficult to get this film about a very important issue made in China?

I think it’s very meaningful and I’m glad I did this movie. I respect the director (Gu Changwei) very much because he had to go through a lot of difficulty. For the last four years, he did nothing but this film. You know, in China, we don’t have a rating system for films, so everything has to be approved. So I’m glad we had this step — and it’s a big step. This year in Cannes, the audience watched this movie and really loved it, and for us it’s a great message. It’s time for people to really sit down and have a quiet moment to think about what we really want, and what you can do to help this world.

Do you see yourself as a role model for Chinese women?

I don’t want to give myself too much pressure. I want to be myself and do what I like, be natural and free. You know, if every day you have a kind of title, you are kind of missing your own life, and miss who you are.

What kind of research did you do for this movie on the subject of AIDS?

When we were shooting this movie we had three Chinese AIDS patients on the set, they were volunteers. Normally, they don’t want to show their faces. One of them who acted in it was a 12-year-old boy who got AIDS from the mother. He did a really good job in the movie. During the process we spent a lot of time together with the volunteers, and you slowly learn who they are, and that they really need equal treatment.

In the Philippines, AIDS has become a bigger problem because use of contraceptives is very controversial. Do you think Love for Life presents a message about preventing AIDS?

This is not a documentary, but we did touch on this message. But while shooting, we did a separate documentary about the three AIDS patients called Together. I think that movie shows much more about their lives and how hard they are.

The love scenes in this film have an undertone of sadness. Was it emotionally more difficult, doing love scenes as characters that are HIV-positive?

You know, when you really get into the character, I don’t think there’s that difficulty — there’s no more, because you’re the person, when she is feeling sadness, it’s you; it’s not her. Some scenes, I don’t think you can redo, because that moment — the temperature, the air, the people around you give you the mood. I think whenever you use your true feeling, you cannot repeat. It’s not acting. Acting, you can. But some things you cannot. I’m just glad it’s captured by the camera.