Nevertheless,
Fa-Gor as Chow is affectionately called is at ease addressing
the huge group of local and international media present
with his fluency in Cantonese, Mandarin and English.
The veteran jovial actor clad in casual sports attire
has more jokes to crack than serving the usual heaps
of PR praises upon his co-stars, Gong Li and famous
singer/rapper Jay Chou who plays Second Prince Jai.
Chow
cheekily puts on a fierce look when he claims Gong keeps
teasing him about his less than perfect Mandarin diction.
In addition, Jay Chou’s renowned magic performing
tricks on the movie set irk him as well. Not surprisingly,
Chou has all the attention from all the young girls
on the set. And Chow being the Emperor ironically has
little or none of Chou’s luck.
It’s
clearly shown that Chow has achieved milestones in his
acting career and is enjoying his current lifestyle
as an actor who don’t mind taking up supporting
roles not even nominations at the prestigious Academy
Awards can stir him. As the man says, whether “The
Curse of the Golden Flower” has any nomination
for the Best Foreign Language Film, it meant nothing
to him because he has fulfilled his task as an actor
and he should move on to his other film projects. It
would be too stressful to keep pining for awards but
he wouldn’t mind being invited for a night of
free luxurious food and entertainment if the film gets
nominated at the Oscars (refer to “The Curse of
the Golden Flower”).
Answering
a media’s enquiry, Chow never deemed his career
in Hollywood as a “failure” ever since he
moved his base to the States since 1997. He seems to
take it in his stride despite receiving lukewarm responses
to his Hollywood productions as compared to his numerous
memorable hits in HK. But to the ever optimistic Chow,
this is just part of learning progress for him.
Nevertheless,
he did have a great time filming “The Curse of
the Golden Flower” despite shooting the film for
6 months in Beijing. Perhaps only the atrocious Mandarin
diction as required by Director Zhang Yimou is a bit
hard on him, other than that, every Monday is a BBQ
day for him and the crew.
