Story by Ed Lee
Photos by Tamako Sado
How far an actress goes usually depends on how well she does what she's told.
The writer feeds her the lines, the director tells her how and when to deliver them.
Budding starlet of the Chinese cinema Mei Ting, however, has got where she is by not always keeping to the script.
Star of last year's big-budget patriotic epic, A Time to Remember, in which she played a revolutionary heroine trapped in a love triangle between Hong Kong heartthrob Leslie Cheung and obscure American Todd Babcock, Mei made her first adult attempt to break into the movie industry by playing hooky from the People's Liberation Army.
"I acted in my first film when I was only 7," she recalled last month in Beijing, where she was getting ready to rehearse for a play directed by Meng Jinghui, which will be on in May.
"And after that, I had a lot of small roles on television. But at the time, I was a dancer in the Nanjing Small Red Flower Art Troupe and my parents thought I should stick to dancing, so at 13 I joined the Nanjing Frontier Army Song and Dance Troupe.
"Although I liked playing in film and television very much, once I'd joined the army I couldn't do it anymore. In 1993, when I was 18, I heard that a film academy in Beijing had come to Shanghai to recruit students. I told the troupe I was sick and went to Shanghai to take the entrance tests."
 |
| Mei Ting: Fast Facts Born: April 30,1975 Birth Place:Nanjing Height: 1.67m 1988-1996: Dancer in Nanjing Army Frontier Song and Dance Troupe 1996-1997: Central Academy of Drama Starred in: 1995: Chu Chu in TV series Red Cherry 1997: Mei Duo in TV series Nothern Stories 1998: Qiu Qiu in Film A Time to Rember 1998: Jiang Mei in stage play We All Have A Red Heart |
She passed all the exams - without preparation, no-one told had her what to perform - and was offered a place. There was one slight drawback.
"To be able to go, I had to get permission from the army. When I got back, they were very angry. I was isolated, forbidden to talk to anyone while I had to write very serious self-criticisms. I wrote nine of them before one was accepted. I wasn't paid for three months."
Mei's barracks misery didn't end there. As punishment for her Shanghai escapade, she was left behind when other members of the troupe went to perform in other cities.
"As a dancer, I had no future in the army. I wasn't tall enough, I was the worst in the troupe. It's a comfortable life, you get paid every month, get housing, a very stable life, but this was not what I wanted."
Her career as either an actress or a dancer stymied until Mei was rescued by film director Ye Daying when he came looking for someone to take the leading female role in his TV version of Red Cherry. He chose Mei and asked for her release. By this time, her tormenters felt sorry for her, so they let her go. But her desire to do things her own way almost cost her the role.
"After Ye Daying chose me, he left for Russia (to do some research - the story of Red Cherry was set in the USSR), and the assistant director came to Nanjing to persuade me to be in the film. I asked to see the script, but the director wasn't willing to show it to me.
"When I insisted, he gave me one day to think about it. He said they had tested 200 actresses, and if I didn't agree they'd just choose someone else."
Mei thought about it for a day and then still insisted on seeing the script. She said she stuck to her guns as she was suspicious about what was going to be demanded of her. When Ye Daying first interviewed her, he had asked whether she had a scar on her back, so she couldn't help wondering, "What kind of a film is this?"
On orders from Ye, the assistant director backed down. As things turned out, there was no hanky-panky involved; Mei was delighted with the script and agreed to take the job.
It only got her temporary reprieve from the army, though. Once shooting was finished, back to the dance troupe she went. But she wanted out, and it didn't take her long to get her way this time, even if she wasn't happy about the cost.
"After a short time we reached an agreement. I gave them some money in compensation for being let out, and then I entered the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing. That was in 1996. It cost me 15,000 RMB to get out of the army.
"I think that was wrong. If you've finished your service, the army should pay you and help you get a job. It was completely wrong to make me pay. It's not a question of the money, it was just wrong.
"I'd been with the army for eight years. That should be enough. But the army thought I was still useful so it kept me."
She lasted a year at the drama academy before she quit to act in Bei Fang Gu Shi, (Northern Stories), a 20-part TV series loosely based on Jim Harrison's Legends of the Fall, which was on Beijing TV in April.
But fame only really came beckoning when she landed the leading role in A Time to Remember last year.
The film was hardly an unqualified success, but it won her acclaim, including Best Actress award at the Cairo Film Festival - and the chance to act alongside one of Asia's biggest stars - Leslie Cheung.
"Leslie Cheung is a good actor. To judge a good actor you need to say how sensitive he is, and Leslie Cheung was very sensitive to his role, to the character he played. He was careful and professional, down-to-earth. It was a good learning experience to work with him."
It's different with different actors. If, say, you work with someone like Ge You (star of the New Year hit Be There or Be Square) you will be overshadowed. It's not that they want to dominate, but they will, they are dominant presences.
"Whereas with Leslie Cheung, he allowed me to flourish so I could make a better impression. In Ge You's films, the female characters don't give full play to their own talent. Ge You dominates.
"I hope Ge You won't misunderstand me or be angry if he reads this."
In A Time to Remember, Mei's character confronts a romantic dilemma. Does she choose Cheung's doomed, noble Communist Party activist, or Babcock's worthy doctor. She opts for the former, but did she pick the right man?
"I would have made the same choice. My love life has been sometimes very happy, sometimes very miserable. When I look at my girlfriends with steady, happy relationships, I admire them, but for some reason my choices haven't turned out that way."
Mei gets a lot of letters from fans.
"The most popular topic is to ask whether I have a boyfriend."
She does, so put that pen and paper away right now.
With A Time to Remember under her belt, Mei is on the lookout for "more and better" movies to deepen her experience. She remains leery of naming people, having learnt a lesson from a Chinese tabloid journalist.
"He asked me, 'If you have a chance to work with Zhang Yimou, would you like to?' Obviously, I said yes. The article came out with the headline, 'Mei Ting hopes her next film will be with Zhang Yimou'!"
She would admit Zhang Yimou and Ye Daying were her favorite directors. As for actors, "After watching a lot of foreign films, I don't think Chinese actors are good enough. Except Jiang Wen, he can be counted a good actor."
It's clear, though, Mei wants to work with people whose work she respects. She's not in this game just to put her name in lights, but she's smart enough to be aware that there may be trade-offs to be made.
"It is important to be famous to make movies. I'm an actress because I like film, but I do care about being famous. But if I had to make a choice between making a bad film that made me famous, and being in a film I could be proud of that nobody watched? I would choose quality over fame."