He’s Trying Humor--Really

China’s best-known filmmaker, Zhang Yimou, in recent years has moved away from the period epics that depicted China’s turbulent 20th century history with stinging social criticism--”Red Sorghum,” “Raise the Red Lantern” and “Shanghai Triad”--to more intimate contemporary dramas such as “Not One Less,” about a teenager drafted into a teaching position, and “The Road Home,” in which an illiterate wife devotes her life to her husband, a rural teacher. Both these films deal with seemingly ordinary young women confronting extraordinary challenges.

With “Happy Times,” which opens locally Friday, he continues his concern with the lives of everyday people and the value of striving for a worthy goal, but expressed with considerable humor, which is unusual for a Zhang film. Zhao Benshan plays a hapless, foolhardy, aging bachelor who believes he has at last found the woman of his dreams and in desperation pretends he is wealthy. Needing funds, he turns to his friend (Li Xuejian), who hatches a scheme to turn an abandoned bus into the Happy Times Hotel, which privacy-starved young couples can rent by the hour.

The humorous pitfalls of this endeavor give way to the bachelor’s growing concern for his beloved’s neglected and ill-used blind stepdaughter (Dong Jie), which takes the film in an unexpected and far more serious direction.

“I read the novel, which the film is based on, and the inspiration came to me,” said Zhang, 51, on a recent trip through Los Angeles. He was accompanied by Dong Jie and actress Lisa Lu and interpreter Sarah Xu, although Zhang does speak a little English.

“For years, China has been gradually becoming a more commercial society, and I think that the ‘small’ people who are caught up in it really appeal to the public. I am just describing simple emotions in these people. The character in the novel was a hero for his class, a model citizen, but becomes corrupted,” he said. “The government doesn’t want pictures to be shown with somebody of that kind of status who becomes so corrupt, so we turned him into a retired worker. Then we added the character of the young girl, played by Dong Jie.”

Zhang said the film has been a popular and critical success in China, which has not always been the case for him. One example was “To Live” (1994), with its unblinking depictions of the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. While the government restricted some of his earlier period films, Zhang said that now only “To Live” is restricted; all the others are available.

After “Shanghai Triad” (1995), which marked the end of his professional and personal relationship with actress Gong Li, Zhang said he wanted to change his style, and he began to think about everyday contemporary life.

Toward that end, making “Happy Days” proved a satisfying experience.

“It took only around 40 days to make ‘Happy Days,’ which is quite fast for me. I was able to do this because the actors are very experienced and the plot quite concentrated. Zhao Benshan is the most famous comedian in China today, but he seldom takes parts in films. He works mainly in the theater and in stand-up comedy.”

The challenges of filmmaking in China, including censorship, remain about the same and have not gotten any easier. Concerning censorship, “in different periods there are different requirements but no change,” he said. “And if you have a script that you cannot get approved, then the film will not be approved. There’s not much foreign co-production because the requirements are so hard to meet.” However, veteran producer Edward R. Pressman and director Terrence Malick, both Americans, are executive producers of “Happy Times.”

“Every day, the number of young people going into film is decreasing,” Zhang said. “People like to watch TV shows and that’s all they want to watch. TV series are very popular in China, and TV is a far greater influence than film. Those TV series can really make an actor a star.”

Even so, he said, “every year there is a new generation of filmmakers from the universities. In China, the actors come from either the Beijing film school or from a stage acting school. Most of the Chinese directors are now independent producers.”

A graduate of the Beijing Film Academy, Zhang in 1985 returned to his hometown, Xian, where he began working as a cinematographer at its renowned film studio.

After 14 years as a director, he has changed creative direction again. “I am just finishing ‘Hero,’ a period action movie like ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,’ set 2,000 years ago, the opening period for China with the Ching Dynasty. I shot it in my hometown, and it’s about the Ching emperor and a swordsman. It stars Jet Li and two other big international Hong Kong stars, Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung. It’s a big picture, and it’s fun, but I also just want to express something about Chinese tradition and culture. I want to break through the traditional kung fu movie, like Ang Lee did.”

Like Ang Lee, Zhang also admires the late King Hu, whose period martial arts movies, most notably “A Touch of Zen,” possess a strong spiritual dimension. “A lot of Hong Kong movies are a total mess because they lack this,” he said. “I just want people to think back and realize that the characters are three-dimensional. I want to learn from King Hu, and I may want to make some other kung fu movies.

“I have many plans, but maybe some of them I cannot accomplish,” he continued. “I want to shoot another film about the Cultural Revolution, but maybe I should wait for a time when conditions are good enough that I could shoot it. I would like to shoot historical movies about China. I have few plans for more contemporary movies. I think that Chinese society is changing so fast that maybe I cannot catch up. The biggest problem is that China is becoming very westernized.

“The current situation of the Chinese film is not very good,” he said. “The new generation of directors is doing its best to make good Chinese films. Many are doing TV series to gain experience. They also have many opportunities in the non-Chinese film--in Korea they have many opportunities. They can absorb things very quickly. I think that maybe in 10 years there will be some great, great directors.”

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Kevin Thomas is a Times staff writer.