Midi Z, Zhao Liying on the universal themes of The Unseen Sister

Taiwanese-Burmese director Midi Z made waves and earned good reviews with his 2019 film Nina Wuwhich dealt with the exploitation of women in entertainment, and was released in the midst of the global #MeToo movement, a long-overdue public reckoning for powerful men who had committed acts of sexual violence and misconduct.

Selected for the main competition of this year's Tokyo International Film Festival, Z's new film, The invisible sisterat least outwardly, it has similar themes to Nina Wu – that is, the habitual abuse of women in the entertainment industry as well as the trials of women on the margins of society.

Adapted from the book by Zhang Yueran Invisible sisterthe film tells the story of two sisters, one who is officially born as Qiao Yan and the other who takes the name Qiao Yan but lives in a twilight world of lawlessness, under the constant threat of discovery. After swapping identities at a young age, the sisters grow up living very different lives in two different countries. The real Qiao Yan lives on the edge of poverty in Myanmar, and the supposed Qiao Yan becomes a famous actress in China. Fate, inevitably, brings them back together.

The film stars Zhao Liying (The legend of Shen Li, The story of Chu Qiao's Minglan legend, The legend of Lu Zhen AND The journey of the flower and the wild bloom), a major Chinese television actor who is transitioning into feature films. The cast also includes Huang Jue, Xin Zhilei and Chinese rapper Gem.

The invisible sister is produced by Shanghai Linmon Pictures and is part of the company's push towards feature films with international appeal. After screening in Tokyo, the film will screen at the Singapore International Film Festival in December.

During the Tokyo Film Festival, The Hollywood journalist I talked to Z and Zhao about it The invisible sisterthe challenges of making a mainstream commercial film with arthouse credentials and the universal themes of feature film.

AND The invisible sister the first mainstream Chinese film you made?

Midi Z Yes, that's correct. It's the first mainstream film I've made, compared to previous ones. This is the most commercial film, in terms of production budget and production scale. All my previous films were a little smaller and with fewer people on set, in this one there are over 300 people on set. Ultimately, the core of the story and the entire production is very Chinese. It's about the Chinese. It's about family. It's about the values ​​that Chinese people hold dear.

Were there any specific challenges for you as a director working on a larger scale? Has your process changed in any way?

Midi Z I think the most important part [for me as a director] it's communication, especially communication with actors. Within a story, within a production, the chemistry and performance of the actors are actually much more important than the story itself, because the actors are the people who carry the story forward. And so in the two months, right before production, there was a lot of communication between me and the actors, and the actors met very often to rehearse and go over the story together to get the chemistry and get the story rolling. It's very precious and that really helped me bring out the story through the actors' performance.

So in the film there is the use of two languages, Mandarin and Yunnan dialect. Why did you choose to use two different dialects?

Midi Z It's because of the story. It's because of the character's setting. The character is traveling from Yunnan to Beijing.

Do you as an actor, Zhao, speak Yunnan dialect? If not, was it a real challenge to get it right?

ZHAO LYING No, I don't speak it. We spent about a month before production working on the dialect specifically to go over all the lines the script contains in the Yunnan dialect, so we could feel more comfortable during production. This is how we overcame the difficulty of working with a different dialect.

As an outsider, is the use of multiple dialects of Mandarin unusual for a mainstream Chinese film?

Midi Z It's becoming more and more common now to have a different dialect because there are many different people traveling between different cities in China, much more exposure to dialects. Sichuan dialect, Guizhou dialect, for example, are becoming more and more common in content, and I think that's great.

Watching The invisible sisterI felt that the sensibility, and perhaps the audience for this film, would be more international, particularly in regards to the themes and ideas that the film deals with. Is it right to say that?

Midi Z Ultimately, this is a very, very Chinese film. And when we think about the Chinese nature of the film, there are two different parts. The first part is the core of the story itself: the values ​​of the story are very Chinese. It's about the individual and their family, and how the individual's wants and desires clash with the family's wants and desires and how that came about. And then we get to the second part, which is the outside of the story, which is what we see visually: the landscape, the place. Its aesthetics, like all the scenography, the architecture that we see. There was a lot of snow and it's a very poetic aesthetic style, a very Chinese style.

And the themes are universal themes. My films really express people's lives. To speak to an audience, you really have to understand what lives they're going through. And really this film is about women and what they go through in society, the difficulties they face and their struggle. Their fight against what is suppressing them, their desire and desire for freedom and a better life.

Zhao, regarding your role as Qiao Yan, it is very complex and she is also a prominent actress like you are in real life. What attracted you to the project? And were you also referring to the fame and industry-related pressures that Qiao Yan is subjected to?

ZHAO LYING I chose this character and I chose this project because I really wanted to challenge myself. What really attracted me to the project was Midi's style and Midi's very unique storytelling style in his films and stories. And honestly, the fact that the character is an actress is really just setting the character up in the story. And it's not about this character in this setting. It's really about the whole, the overall story, the structure, the style and the storytelling that really appealed to me.

As for whether the character was relatable… obviously, the story is very dramatic. I definitely can relate to a certain extent, but obviously these are very dramatic experiences that the character is going through. It doesn't really happen in real life. The overall pressure, the repression [Qiao Yan] aimed at work, I can definitely relate to that specific thing. There's a scene where my character is filming a scene in the hospital and she gets stabbed with a needle, that really triggered me.

Noon, The invisible sister has some outward similarities to your last film Nina Wubecause there is an actress as the lead, she is exploited by the men around her and the entertainment industry is portrayed quite negatively. Why did you focus on the stories of abused women?

Midi Z I grew up in a female dominated family. I grew up under the protection of my mother and sister. They are both wonderful women. My interactions with my family influenced my considerations when it came to telling stories and drawing characters. This understanding of my mother and sister's life also influenced me when I write and create a female character. In The invisible sisterQiao Yan really expresses this kind of woman who is already successful by the standards of our current society, she's famous, she's rich, and yet she still faces these kinds of difficulties. This situation can really affect anyone.