The rising Chinese filmmaker discusses the making of his bittersweet humanistic drama and working with his hero Jia Zhangke, who plays the part of a benignly charismatic cult leader.
The rising Chinese filmmaker discusses the making of his bittersweet humanistic drama and working with his hero Jia Zhangke, who plays the part of a benignly charismatic cult leader.
A leading voice among China’s post-1990s generation of filmmakers, Wei Shujun has made four thematically diverse features in as many years — with three premiering at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. This week, he’s in Japan to present his critically lauded latest, Mostly Sunny, at the Tokyo International Film Festival.
The new film, which premiered at the Shanghai Film Festival in June, stars Huang Xiaoming in a transformative performance as a cheerful but mentally challenged man who lives with his nearly 70-year-old mother (Hsiao-Fen Lu). Just as the man has begun to find community and joy with a mysterious organization called Sunshine Club — led by a vaguely cult-like figure played with considerable charisma by leading Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke — his mother falls gravely ill. The man and his brother, a medical doctor, then embark on drastically different missions to cure their mother, the elder relying on medical science and the younger turning to the feel-good vibes endorsed by the Sunshine Club.
‘Mostly Sunny’
Shanghai International Film Festival
Ahead of the Tokyo Film Festival, The Hollywood Reporter connected with Wei to discuss Mostly Sunny‘s humanistic message — and how he convinced China’s most acclaimed auteur to play a key supporting part.
How did the premiere of Mostly Sunny go at the Shanghai Film Festival over the summer?
It was pretty good. Unfortunately, the theater only had 300 seats, so it was a rather small audience. But the atmosphere was light and friendly. Towards the end of the film, when that long last shot came on the screen, I felt we were all in the story together, breathing the same atmosphere — and that’s what the movie theater experience is all about.
Do you have different feelings when you premiere a new film at home in China versus at the Cannes Film Festival, where you unveiled your last three features?
Premieres in China make me much more nervous because the audience here understands the language and the culture and the details of my work much better than an international audience ever can. So it’s a lot more stressful waiting to see whether they will accept what I was trying to do. I was really nervous going into the premiere of this one — but I felt the audience connected with the film, so I was content.
So, Mostly Sunny doesn’t have a release date yet. During the period right after the pandemic, there seemed to be a shortage of high-quality Chinese films in the local market. This was true on the festival circuit, too, where Chinese titles became rare for a while. Even though China’s box office is sagging, the industry seems to have a made a comeback in terms of output. That was on display at Cannes, where there was a strong lineup of Chinese premieres; and it’s true in Tokyo this year too. There are four Chinese films in competition here. Is the release calendar at home starting to feel more crowded?
Yes, I would say so. Picking a theatrical release date is very important in China — more so than other markets, I think. You really have to pay attention to what kinds of films are in the theater at the same time, and how your title will fit into the options for cinemagoers at the box office. But Hollywood films really don’t have guaranteed good box office results in China the way they used to, so scheduling against Hollywood films is less of a concern for us with our scheduling than it used to be. That’s one less thing to worry about for a smaller film like this.
Mostly Sunny sets up a contrast in the way the two sons respond to their mother’s deadly cancer diagnosis. The older brother, a medical doctor, turns to science and travels to the U.S. in hopes of finding a long-shot new treatment that might save her. The younger, mentally challenged son, tries to help her with unconventional means inspired by his naive convictions, which amount to an innocent sort of faith. I was struck by the fact that the younger son’s efforts — such as knocking down a wall in their house and creating an enormous window, so the mother can get more sunshine — arguably help and comfort her more than any of the science-based medical interventions the doctor son attempts.
So, the older brother is an elite in our society. He has education, a distinguished job, plenty of money and high status — but none of this is able to help his mother at this stage. And as the story goes on, we see how the older brother becomes more superstitious, or non-rational too, as he starts to lose hope in the power of medicine to save her. What I wanted to show is that as we grow up into educated adults, we are trained to rely on our rationality and our evolved frameworks of thought. But there are times in life — often the most important times — when all we have left is the innocence and purity of our feelings. There are no miracles, but the inner power of our will and our wishes is all we have left sometimes when we face tremendous difficulties. And the [younger] brother is still in touch with this.
Tell me about using Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” in the film.
It’s similar to what I was just saying about the brothers. I’ve loved “Don’t Worry Be Happy” since I was a kid. It’s such a pure song, I think many people just fall in love with it as a child. Later, maybe you start to think it’s kind of simplistic and saccarine. But then if you listen to it again, depending on your circumstances, maybe it’s pure beauty will hit you all over again. It’s a simple, beautiful song — with a simple, beautiful message.
What can you tell us about casting director Jia Zhangke in the role of the guru, whom the younger brother follows as a kind of spiritual leader or life coach? He’s an ambiguous character. At first, I assumed he was a cult leader operating some kind of scam. But as the film goes on, he seems quite genuine in his convictions, and you never give us clear evidence that we should interpret his motives suspiciously.
Jia Zhangke is someone who genuinely cares about young people and the next generation of filmmakers. He started the Pingyao Film Festival in China to support young directors and he’s always undertaking activities to bring us all together and create community. He’s also someone who is really good at persuading people by speaking from the bottom of his heart. So, when I wrote this part, I thought of him right away. Thankfully, he agreed to do it. I didn’t want the character to just seem like a crazy guru, so I gave him a PhD in agriculture. So when he says he believes he can help people and the earth by raising money to plant trees in the desert, there’s some credibility there. I was very careful to give this character a subtle balance, so it’s really hard to say with 100 percent certainty whether his intentions are good or bad. What’s certain is that he’s charismatic. Jia has appeared in films before — also in some of his own movies — but he usually takes the part of really scummy gangsters (laughs). He loves doing that. But he said he was happy to play a character that’s so different. I thought he was perfect.