Taiwanese-Burmese filmmaker Midi-Z made a splash and earned good ratings with his 2019 film Nina Wuwhich addressed the exploitation of women in entertainment, and was released amid 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 in Tokyo this year International Film Festival, Z’s new film, The invisible sisteroutwardly at least, has similar themes to Nina Wu — that is, the usual abuses against 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 born officially as Qiao Yan and the other who takes the name Qiao Yan but lives in a twilight world of illegality, under constant threat of be discovered. After changing their identities at a young age, the sisters grow up in very different lives in two different countries. The real Qiao Yan lives on the fringes of poverty in Myanmar and the supposed Qiao Yan becomes a famous actress in China. Destiny inevitably brings them together.

The film stars Zhao Liying (The legend of Shen Li, The story of the Minglan legend of Chu Qiao, Legend of Lu Zhen And The journey of flowers and wildflowers), a prominent television actor in China who is making the transition to 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 efforts to create feature films with an international appeal. After screening in Tokyo, the film will be screened at the Singapore International Film Festival in December.

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

East The invisible sister the first mainstream Chinese film you directed?

MIDI-Z Yes, that’s correct. This is the first mainstream film I’m doing, compared to the previous ones. It is the most commercial film, in terms of production budget and scale of production. All my previous films were a little smaller with less people on set, this one has over 300 people on set. Ultimately, the core of the story and the core of the entire production is very Chinese. It’s about the Chinese. It’s a family matter. These are values ​​to which the Chinese attach great importance.

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

MIDI-Z I think the most important part (for me as a director) is communication, especially communication with the actors. In a story, in a production, the chemistry and performance of the actors is actually much more important than the story itself, because it is the actors who make the story stand out. And so over the course of two months, right before production, there was actually a lot of communication between me and the actors, and the actors were meeting very frequently to rehearse and go through the story together to get the chemistry and to prepare this story for rolling. It’s very valuable and it really, really helped me bring out the story through the acting.

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 travels from Yunnan to Beijing.

As an actor, Zhao, do you speak Yunnan dialect? If not, was it a real challenge to succeed?

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

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

MIDI-Z It is becoming more common to have a different dialect, as there are many different people traveling between different cities in China, which exposes them to dialects much more. The Sichuan dialect, the Guizhou dialect, for example, are becoming more and more common in their content, and I think that’s great.

Look The invisible sisterI felt that the sensibilities, and perhaps the audience for this film, would be more international, especially with the themes and ideas the film addresses. Is that fair to say?

MIDI-Z Ultimately, it’s a very, very Chinese film. And when you think about the Chinese nature of the film, there are two different parts. The first part is the heart of the story itself – the values ​​of the story are very Chinese. It’s about the individual and their family, and how the wants and desires of the individual conflict with the wants and desires of the family and what that looks like. And then when we come to the second part, which is the exterior of the story, this is what we see visually – the landscape, the location. The aesthetic, like all the production design, 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 are really expressive about people’s lives. To speak to the audience, you really have to understand what life they are living. And really, this film is about women and what they experience in society, the difficulties they face and their struggle. Their fight against everything that represses them, their desire and their aspiration for freedom and a better life.

Zhao, regarding your role as Qiao Yan, she is very complex and she is also a top actress like you are in real life. What attracted you to the project? And did you also understand the fame and industry pressures Qiao Yan is under?

ZHAO LIYING I chose this character and chose this project because I really wanted to challenge myself. What really attracted me to this project was really Midi’s style and Midi’s very unique storytelling style in his films and his stories. And honestly, the fact that the character is an actress is really just a set-up for the character in the story. And it’s not just one character in this one setting. It was really the whole thing, like the overall story, the structure, the style and the storytelling that really drew me in.

As for whether the character was relevant… obviously the story is very dramatic. Of course I can understand to a certain extent, but of course these are very dramatic experiences that the character is going through. This doesn’t really happen in real life. The general pressure, the repression that (Qiao Yan) faces 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 external similarities with your last film Nina Wuas there is an actress in the lead role, she is exploited by the men around her and the entertainment industry is portrayed as quite negative. Why did you focus on the stories of abused women?

MIDI-Z I grew up in a family dominated by women. I grew up under the protection of my mother and my sister. They are both wonderful women. My interactions with my family have affected my thoughts on storytelling and character design. This understanding of my mother and sister’s lives has also affected me when writing and creating a female character. In The invisible sisterQiao Yan really expresses this type of woman who is already successful by the standards of our current society, she is famous, she is rich, and yet she still faces these kinds of difficulties. This situation can really affect anyone.