That's a Wrap

On October 29, something major happened in the country. The State Council approved and forwarded the Opinions on Several Issues Concerning the Implementation of the Economic Responsibility System in Industrial Production, and the contracting system began to appear among urban state-owned and collective enterprises. The gist of it was this: lock in the base quota, guarantee the required remittance, keep more of anything earned above it, and make up any shortfall oneself. Ownership was separated from the right to manage. Later, as policy grew ever more relaxed, China's earliest star entrepreneurs were nurtured under this system. Zong Qinghou, for example, contracted a school-run enterprise in 1987 and slowly built it up, and only then was there Wahaha. A pity that after he passed away, his daughter and Wahaha made a complete noisy mess of things. Rumors flew on every side, and no one knew what was true. ………… "Beep beep!" In the early morning, the crew's convoy drove into a villa district and stopped before a large house with a swimming pool. Fu Chi had come in person. He shook hands with a man in his thirties and said, "Mr. Huo, thank you for your help! We truly needed a setting like this, so I could only brazenly impose on you." "Not at all, not at all. It was nothing!" The other man answered with a broad smile, his manner very warm. "You've made quite a stir this year, and the results have been outstanding. My father and I are both heartened by it. Ah, where is that young friend Chen Qi?" "Xiao Chen, come here!" Fu Chi called Chen Qi over and made the introductions. The man was none other than Henry Fok's eldest son, Huo Zhenting. His son was Huo Qigang, only two years old this year. "A fine young talent indeed. I hear this film is to be sold to the United States?" "That's right. We found two American actors. When it opens, we hope you'll honor us with your presence." "Of course, of course. Then I wish you every success!" Huo Zhenting stayed a little while, then left. In the original Orphan, the story was set in Canada, in a world of ice and snow. In the last scene the heroine fought Esther on the ice and kicked her into a frozen lake. Now it had been changed to Hong Kong, which had no such geography. So it became a fight between the two of them inside the villa. They smashed through the glass and fell into the swimming pool below. The heroine, after all, had an adult's body and strength, and greater endurance. She climbed out first, saw that Esther was still struggling, and kicked her back down to drown... The house had been found with Huo Zhenting's help. The Huo family needed no introduction. Mr. Henry Fok was in gambling and in real estate, but that did not stop him from shipping supplies to the troops during the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, nor from the many contributions he made after Reform and Opening. When he died, the national flag was laid over his body. Over here, the crew was preparing to shoot. Ed Harris and Amy Madigan stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, measuring it again and again. Amy looked distinctly unhappy. She kept asking, "I'm supposed to smash through this glass with that little girl and jump into the pool?" "No. Not you. Stunt doubles." "Doubles? How do you double a little girl?" "You two, come here!" Tsui Hark waved, and two male stunt performers came over, one big and one small. The big one was an adult, nothing unusual in that. The small one really was tiny, about the same height and build as Qiu Shuzhen. "God! He's still a child!" "You're making him do something this dangerous?" The two foreigners started screaming. Tch. Chen Qi rolled his eyes. Child labor and child marriage were still legal where they came from, and he hadn't seen them protesting. Even so, he explained, "He's already eighteen. He's just naturally small, so he often doubles for children. He's very professional, and far more experienced than you." The two foreigners were only half convinced. The man himself, though, looked utterly blank. Chen Qi patted him and said with a smile, "It's nothing. Go and get ready!" "Mr. Chen, I'll be sure to do my best!" He left with no burden on him and no thought about it. Hong Kong did not treat stunt performers as people. To eat from that bowl, you had to stake your life. If you didn't dare, someone else would, and that someone would get ahead first. Besides, Hong Kong had every kind of double for every kind of actor. Take Zeng Zhiwei. When he first started out he was a stunt performer too, and because he was short he often doubled for female stars. The original pane had already been taken down and replaced with a very thin sheet of prop glass. Chen Qi ran downstairs and stood at the edge of the pool, looking up. Qiu Shuzhen followed beside him, watching just as eagerly. Tsui Hark directed from above. "Jump once first and see how it looks!" "Ready?" "Three, two, one, go!" There was a crash. The big pane shattered. The two stunt performers, tangled together, jumped from the height of the third floor and plunged into the pool, throwing up a high spray of water, all of it faintly accompanied by the two foreigners screaming. Qiu Shuzhen couldn't help a shudder. She suddenly felt lucky. Thank goodness it wasn't she who had to jump. "How was it? Anyone hurt?" Tsui Hark shouted from above through a megaphone. The two stunt performers poked their heads out and waved. "We're fine, we're fine. It works!" "Then try it again. Your positions just now were a bit off. You have to pin him underneath. That way he is hurt worse, and you're the one who lives." "No problem, Director!" Soaking wet, the two of them ran back upstairs. Chen Qi shook his head. However little he liked the Hong Kong film circle, stunt performers truly earned their money with their lives. Without them, there would not be so many fine action films. "This is insane! You're out of your minds, jumping straight down from that high!" The two foreigners were still worked up. They had been shooting here for nearly two months and had come to feel deeply the rough, untamed spirit of Hong Kong film, a coarseness and daring even wilder than Hollywood B-movies. In truth the leftists were not really like that. It was mainly something Tsui Hark had brought with him. Soon they shot it for real. The two stunt performers jumped once more, dressed in women's clothes and wearing wigs. With a bang they smashed through the glass and leapt down. The bigger one pinned the smaller one underneath as a cushion, so the little girl was badly hurt... Splash. They climbed out soaking wet again. The shot was good. No one paid them any mind, and they went off to clean themselves up. Qiu Shuzhen and Amy had their makeup done, streaks of blood across their faces and bodies, and were soaking in the pool. "Action!" Amy surfaced first, gasped twice, thought the little demon was already dead, and swam for the side. She braced both hands on the rim and got her upper body out. Suddenly Qiu Shuzhen burst up from behind, her hair a wet sticky clump, blood and water running together down her face. Wild as if mad, she lunged and clamped tight around Amy's legs. "Mom, save me!" "Mom! Save me, don't let me die, I don't want to die!" Amy's character had been a little softhearted before, but her husband and son were already dead, and her younger daughter and she herself were under threat. At last she steeled herself, spat one vicious curse, and then kicked out hard. Here they would use a dummy and shoot from behind, so Amy's kick landed hard on the face. Of course they couldn't kick a real person. Qiu Shuzhen's part, though, was shot straight through. She threw her head sharply back, bit open the blood capsule in her mouth, and played the look of having been kicked in the face... "Cut!" "Okay!" Tsui Hark called a pass. Only then did Qiu Shuzhen climb out. Chen Qi already had a big bath towel and wrapped it around her at once. Shivering, she lifted her face. "Master, how did I do?" "Fifty points!" "What? How am I still failing?" "I'm holding back ten points so you won't get conceited. Hurry and shower and change. Ugh! Don't smile at me. Your face is covered in blood..." "Can't you praise me properly just once!" Qiu Shuzhen pouted, wrapped in the big bath towel, and ran off. In the washroom she peeled off her clothes in a few quick motions and started a hot shower. Suddenly she gave a petulant little huff. "He just won't give in. He clearly thinks I did well, but he refuses to say it. Sooner or later I'll make him say it once!" …… The crew spent one last week shooting at the villa. Besides the fight scenes, there were some slices of ordinary life, because the male and female leads were very rich, and this villa was their home. In the blink of an eye, a full two months of Orphan had passed. After they finished a shot of daily life, everyone stopped of their own accord. Crews anywhere had a similar sense of ritual. Tsui Hark and Chen Qi each tried to yield to the other, and at last they said together: "I hereby declare that Orphan..." "That's a wrap!"