娱乐英语资讯:Interview: Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou says new film Ying (Shadow) to achieve desaturated_娱乐

娱乐英语资讯:Interview: Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou says new film Ying (Shadow) to achieve desaturated

VENICE, Italy, Sept. 7 -- Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou said on Friday he used real objects to achieve the desaturated effect in Ying (Shadow), his new martial arts film that premiered Thursday at the Venice Film Festival.

Set in feudal China, Ying tells the story of one of the "shadow" men who impersonated kings and commanders in times of danger.

Zhang told Xinhua in an interview that he had the idea for this movie when he saw seminal Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's 1980 film Kagemusha (Shadow Warrior), about a petty criminal who gets hired to become the double of a samurai warlord.

Told in elegant visuals featuring a desaturated palette that draws on traditional Chinese ink brush painting and the yin-and-yang symbol, Zhang's film alternates exquisitely composed and designed interior scenes with spectacular battle sequences in perennially rain-drenched exteriors -- in which umbrellas are turned into weapons.

"The use of the umbrellas was my personal creation, but they are based on the yin and yang concept in Chinese esthetics," the acclaimed director said.

"When you have a strong, tough power you must counteract it with soft power, so yin energy overcomes yang energy," he explained. "The umbrella becomes very shiny and slippery in the rain, so the concept is: discharging the force of the enemy."

As far as the drained color palette of the film, Zhang explained that he eschewed computer-generated effects in favor of set design, building complex structures in specifically colored materials, and using rain-making machines.