Pushing her boundaries

There was still a slight chill in the air in Beijing in early spring. On the day of her interview with China Daily, He Saifei had a cold, so she wrapped herself in a black down jacket, her voice carrying the hint of nasal congestion. But the actress approached each question as seriously as she does her work.

In late 2021, He took on one of the most challenging roles of her life, portraying a former Yueju Opera star in the art-house movie, Off the Stage. The opera is originated in Zhejiang province during the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

The character is obsessively focused on pursuing success to the neglect of her family, and is portrayed as a somewhat selfish mother.

Although she initially hesitated to accept the role due to the stark contrast in personality, He eventually found a connection to the character as she listened to the songs of the late pingtan (Suzhou ballad) musician Xu Lixian, who, like her character in the movie, died of cancer.

"I have been studying pingtan for over two years. It's hard to describe the moment I suddenly grasped my character, but it was the passion and dedication in Xu's voice that helped me understand the enthusiasm of a traditional opera actress for the art," says He.

Born in Zhoushan in Zhejiang province in 1963, He was recruited by a local troupe in 1982 before rising to fame in the popular Yueju Opera film Five Daughters Celebrating a Grand Birthday in 1984. Since then, she has performed on opera stages and in dozens of movies and TV dramas, and became well-known for acting in a series of blockbusters, including Zhang Yimou's Raise the Red Lantern (1991) and Ang Lee's Lust, Caution (2007).

Off the Stage, He's first lead role in a feature-length movie in the last decade, won the Best Actress award at the 36th Golden Rooster Awards last November.

For her vivid portrayal, He — who was 58 years old at the time of the shoot — overcame a number of challenges, from wearing a qipao dress and walking barefoot across a beach in the winter, to holding ice in her mouth as she delivered lines to prevent her breath from steaming. "As an actor, I believe these are the least things that we should complain about. This is normal in the film industry, and I think I should treat every role seriously," she says.

The film is 123 minutes in length and also stars Yuan Wenkang and Lou Yujian as her character's eldest and second sons, and was given its domestic release on March 8, International Women's Day.

It is adapted from Ai Wei's Guo Wang (Past), one of five winners of the Best Novella Award at the 8th Lu Xun Literature Prize — one of China's top honors for literature — in 2022.

Set in a small southern city, the story revolves around Ms Qi, a former Yueju Opera actress, who returns home after being diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer. Her eldest son, a successful businessman, refuses to reconcile with his long-estranged mother because she left her family to pursue stardom in the provincial capital when they were young.

During a particularly hard time, his youngest sister becomes pregnant after an affair with a married man. Qi remains indifferent to her daughter's fate, even after her eldest son rides a bicycle to her home in the city to ask her for help. In frustration, the son ends up severely beating the married man, earning himself a six-year prison sentence and causing his sister to suffer a mental collapse.

The gentle second son, who is a Yueju Opera actor in a local troupe, is the first to accept their mother, and despite her scheme to steal his girlfriend's debut, her mesmerizing performance wins over them all. In a final act of sacrifice to save her eldest son, Qi succeeds in killing the hitman who's hired to murder the son, upon knowing her own late-stage cancer diagnosis. Thus she reconciles with all her children.

Director Qiao Liang, a professor at the Beijing Film Academy, says that the academy's president recommended he read Ai Wei's novel in early 2021, and that he was quickly hooked up by the unlikely protagonist.

Saying that the role reminded him of independent female figures like Nora Helmer in Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, Qiao says he believes Qi represents the dilemma of contemporary women after liberation — even in modern society, women are still scrutinized from a male perspective.

A native of Jilin province, Qiao spent most of his childhood time backstage of the Jilin Opera troupe to which his father belonged.

"I refused to go to kindergarten, so my father took me to the troupe when he was working. There were other children there whose parents were also in the troupe. Because the adults were busy with their own work, we entertained ourselves by putting on wigs for fun and using prop swords as toys," he recalls.

"I still remember my father searching everywhere for me and finally finding me asleep in a large wooden trunk, which I had turned into a makeshift bed because I was too tired after playing," he adds, with a smile.

Life backstage left a deep impression on Qiao's childhood memories. He was captivated by its drama and by the ordinary "aunties and uncles" who ate with them casually in the canteen, but once in makeup and onstage, transformed into great heroes, emperors, and nobles, shining brightly and beyond reach.

"I feel this moment is magical, and this is what I wanted to express in the movie," the director says.

In an attempt to capture the nuances of Yueju Opera, the film was entirely spoken in the dialect of the provincial capital, Hangzhou. Principal scenes were filmed in Shaoxing and Shengzhou in Zhejiang, with the seaside scenes shot in Fujian province.

Late last December, Qiao organized a personal film exhibition in Seoul, where he screened Off the Stage and Crested Ibis, a film about a Chinese journalist's investigation into air pollution, that drew the attention of South Korean industry insiders.

"It was my first time in front of a foreign audience in person since the pandemic. I was delighted by the strong interest shown by the South Korean viewers in the films. A few even recognized that Off the Stage is spoken in dialect. I was proud to promote Chinese culture and traditional art overseas," Qiao recalls.