No Business like Show Business

This afternoon, while eating my lunch, I clicked through the channels to eventually select a Chinese program about travelling around Shaanxi Province. As I began watching a Western host spout out perfect Chinese on top of some mountain, I quickly realized that it was Cao cao. Cao cao was an ancient Chinese warrior and poet during the late Eastern Han Dynasty, and the name chosen by an American actor who has made his career in China. I had the pleasure to spend a weekend with this young man from L.A. when I was invited to be in a Chinese film as an extra. I already had a few commercials under my belt, one involving full body spandex, an exercise machine, machachas and techno music - it was trippy. Once, at a black and white dinner, I had to fool a whole group of investors that I was French while showing them French art in a real chateau outside Beijing - if they asked me any questions, I had to guess or lie.


But this Chinese film was a big motion picture. The director is the mom of one of my good friends from college and the lead actor was the Hong Kong star Aaron Kwok. Although I was just an extra, it was great to meet the stars and go through the whole process of costumes, makeup, and then literally waiting hours to shoot 30 seconds of film. Cao cao was pleased that my friend, Janine, and I were American since most of the time they are Russian and are just not as damn fun to talk to. Being on a movie set and meeting famous Chinese stars, including Cao Cao who has been here more than a decade, was an interesting and educational experience.

For the first location, we flew to Pingyao, an old preserved Chinese city, very useful for films taking place around the turn of the century. I was dressed up as a Chinese carriage driver working for a Catholic missionary.




The second location was in Tianjin, just south of Beijing. Janine and I barley got there because our driver kept falling asleep at the wheel as in began to snow. When we did arrive, we realized that we would be filming will a group of Russians and Kasaks (who eventually joined us in clubbing the next night). In these scenes we were all high-class imperialists walking the streets of a downtown coastal city. It was freezing, the costumes were thin and barley covered my body, and all I wanted to do was go to the bathroom... but the show must go on.






I forgot the plot, something about love, something about tradional China, making a choice between the West and the East - I am sure it will be a marvelous movie. I don't even remember the name, put I'll ask the director's son or Cao cao, and I will let you know when it will be showing at theaters near you!