時報專訪侯孝賢談新片《刺客聶隱娘》

Beijing — It has been eight years since the Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s last feature-length film, the elliptical “Flight of the Red Balloon” starring Juliette Binoche, opened the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes International Film Festival.

北京——臺灣導演侯孝賢的上一部長片是八年前朱麗葉·比諾什(Juliette Binoche)主演的《紅氣球之旅》，它風格簡潔，曾在戛納國際電影節上充當“一種關注”單元的開幕影片。

During this time, the renowned arthouse director dedicated much of his energy to building up the independent cinema scene at home in Taiwan, serving as chairman of both the Taipei Film Festival and the executive committee of the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival.

在這期間，這位著名藝術導演花費大量精力，在家鄉臺灣扶植獨立電影場景，此外他還出任臺北電影節主席和臺北金馬電影節執行委員會主席。

But Mr. Hou, 68, said there was another reason for his prolonged absence: He was recreating the Tang Dynasty.

但是68歲的侯孝賢說，他之所以那麼長時間沒有新作，另一個原因是他忙於重現唐朝的情景。

In a Skype interview from Taipei last week, Mr. Hou spoke of the painstaking research efforts undertaken for his newest film, “The Assassin,” a Tang Dynasty-era martial arts epic set to premiere on May 21 at the 68th annual Cannes festival.

上個星期，侯孝賢在臺北通過Skype接受了採訪，談起他爲新片《刺客聶隱娘》所做的艱苦的研究工作。這是一部以唐朝爲背景的武俠史詩片，將於5月21日在第68屆戛納電影節上首映。

The film, which features the actress Shu Qi in the title role, is the director’s seventh film to compete for the Palme d’Or, the festival’s top prize. Previously, Mr. Hou took home the Jury Prize for his 1993 film “The Puppetmaster,” the second in his trilogy of films dealing with modern Taiwanese history.

主角聶隱娘由舒淇飾演，該片是侯孝賢第七次角逐戛納電影節最高獎金棕櫚獎。1993年，他的《戲夢人生》一片曾經獲得評審團大獎，該片是他以現代臺灣歷史爲背景的三部曲系列電影中的第二部。

Based on a popular legendary tale from the Tang Dynasty, “The Assassin” or “Nie Yinniang” in Chinese, takes place in the year 809 and tells the story of a young girl who is kidnapped by a nun and eventually trained to become a skilled assassin (Ms. Shu).

《刺客聶隱娘》根據一則廣受歡迎的唐代傳奇故事改編，它發生在809年，講述一個被尼姑拐走的女孩慢慢被訓練成職業殺手（舒淇飾演）。

After failing a mission, she is sent by her master back to her hometown, 13 years after she was taken away, and is given a new target: the most powerful military governor in the North, a man who also happens to be both her cousin and her childhood love (played by Chang Chen).

一次執行任務失敗後，她被主人送回闊別13年的家鄉，執行一項新任務：刺殺中國北部最有權力的武將，他正好是她的表哥和童年時代的戀人（張震飾）。

The film represents the first foray into the traditional martial arts genre for Mr. Hou, who first rose to prominence in the 1980s as a key figure in the New Taiwan Cinema movement. He is best known for his layered meditations on Taiwanese identity within the context of the island’s turbulent 20th-century history.

這是侯孝賢第一次挑戰傳統武俠片。他在20世紀80年代成名，是臺灣新電影運動中的重要人物，他擅長把對臺灣人身份認同的多重思考置於該島20世紀動盪不安的歷史背景之中，這是他的影片最爲人熟知的特點。

“I’ve always had a dream to make this story into a film. I first came across the Tang Dynasty legendary tales when I was in university studying film and before that I had read many wuxia stories when I was a child,” Mr. Hou said, referring to China’s rich tradition of martial arts stories. “But I could never make the film because it required such a large amount of financing.”

“我總是夢想着能把這個故事拍成電影。我第一次讀到唐傳奇故事是在大學學電影的時候，小時候我還看過不少武俠小說。”侯孝賢提起中國武俠故事的豐富傳統，“但這部電影一直沒能拍成，因爲需要大量資金。”

Now, a string of internationally acclaimed films later, Mr. Hou has less difficulty finding investors. With a budget of around $14 million, “The Assassin” is the director’s biggest production to date. Costs were split between Sil-Metropole Organization, a Hong Kong production company, and Mr. Hou’s film studio, 3H Productions.

如今，在拍出了一系列享譽國際的電影之後，侯孝賢終於可以不那麼費力地找到投資者了。《刺客聶隱娘》的預算大約在1400萬美元，是他目前爲止最大手筆的製作。這筆錢由香港製片公司銀都機構有限公司與侯孝賢自己的電影工作室3H Productions分攤。

In taking on a wuxia film, Mr. Hou is joining a growing number of commercial and arthouse directors from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Prominent examples from recent years include Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” (2000), Zhang Yimou’s “Hero” (2002), and Wong Kar-Wai’s “The Grandmaster” (2013). Even Jia Zhangke, China’s top independent film director, is said to be preparing a big-budget martial arts film. (In the meantime, Mr. Jia’s latest film “Mountains May Depart,” his first to be filmed partly outside of China (in Australia), will be competing alongside “The Assassin” at this year’s festival.)

中國大陸、香港與臺灣的不少商業與藝術導演都拍過武俠片，其中近年來的著名例子包括李安的《臥虎藏龍》(2000)、張藝謀的《英雄》(2002)以及王家衛的《一代宗師》(2013)，如今侯孝賢也加入了他們的行列。就連中國頂尖的獨立電影導演賈樟柯也說自己正在籌劃拍攝一部高成本的武俠片（與此同時，賈樟柯的新片《山河故人》將與《刺客聶隱娘》一同在今年的戛納電影節上展開角逐。影片有一部分在澳大利亞拍攝，是賈樟柯首次在中國以外的地方拍片）。

Still, Mr. Hou’s decision to make a martial arts film has aroused interest among followers of his work, many of whom are wondering whether he has abandoned his signature contemplative style for high-intensity subject matter.

但是，侯孝賢拍攝武俠片的決定仍然令影迷們非常感興趣，很多人都在猜測，爲了拍攝這種高度緊張刺激的主題，他是否會放棄自己招牌的沉思風格。

“It’s hard to imagine a director with Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s particular style — distant camera, slow takes and long takes — doing a wuxia film, which is very fast-cutting,” said Shelly Kraicer, a film critic in Toronto who is a scholar of Chinese cinema. “It has to be a different procedure for him, so it’ll be fascinating to see a director of his stature approach this experiment.”

“很難想像侯孝賢這種喜歡使用遠景、慢鏡頭和長鏡頭的導演會去拍快節奏的武俠片，”多倫多影評人兼中國電影研究者謝莉·克萊瑟(Shelly Kraicer)說。“這對他來說肯定是一段完全不同的經歷，但是看到聲望這樣高的導演來做這種嘗試，還是挺刺激的。”

Mr. Hou, who began working on the screenplay in 2012, said that it would be different from other directors’ wuxia films and that he had remained true to his long-established approach.

侯孝賢自2012年開始爲該片撰寫劇本，他說這部影片和其他導演的武俠片都不相同，他仍會保持自己長久以來的一貫風格。

“I rarely do costume pictures,” he said. “The Tang Dynasty element will be very new but I think people will see that my filming process is the same. It’s still long takes and a static camera. The actors have just changed their clothes and altered their accents a little.”

“我很少拍古裝片，”他說。“唐朝元素非常新鮮，但我想人們會發現我的拍攝手法還是一樣的。仍然是長鏡頭和固定機位。演員們只是變了衣服，變了一點口音。”

He added that he made minimal use of computer-generated effects. “I didn’t want the actors to be flying here or there,” he said, referring to the acrobatic feats in wuxia films like “Crouching Tiger.” “There’s essentially no flying.”

他還說，片中他儘量沒有使用電腦特效。“我不希望演員們飛來飛去，”他指的是《臥虎藏龍》等武俠片裏那些雜技般的武打場面。“片子里根本就沒有飛來飛去。”

Hwarng Wern-Ying, the film’s production and costume designer and a veteran member of Mr. Hou’s creative team, said this time around Mr. Hou seemed even more meticulous in his attention to detail than she had seen in the past.

影片的製作人與服裝設計師是侯孝賢創作團隊內的資深成員黃文英， 她說，和以往相比，這一次侯孝賢甚至更加謹慎小心地對待細節。

“He might film only one scene in one day, and then he would film that scene five or six times in one week,” she said. “Then a few months later he’d ask us to go back and film that same scene again but I had already dismantled the set.”

“他可能一天只拍一場戲，整個一週都拍這場戲，重複五六次，”她說。“然後再過幾個月，他會讓我們回過頭來，把這場戲再拍一次，但我都已經把佈景拆了。”

Mr. Hou said that he endeavored to make the film as realistic as possible, a culmination, he said, of several years of scrupulous research into historical accounts of the Tang Dynasty, which ruled China from 618 to 906. It is often referred to as the “golden age” of Chinese civilization, a time when trade and culture flourished and Chang’an, the cosmopolitan dynastic capital, was the largest city in the world.

侯孝賢說，他竭盡全力讓這部電影儘可能寫實，這是他花費幾年時間悉心研究唐朝歷史的結果。唐王朝於公元618至906年統治着中國，經常被視爲中國文明的“黃金時代”，貿易和文化極爲繁榮昌盛，其首都長安是世界上最大的城市。

“Everyone has a different understanding of what the Tang Dynasty was like and I think this film will be a very pure representation of Hou’s vision of that time,” Ms. Hwarng said.

“每個人都有自己對唐朝的理解，我覺得這部電影把侯孝賢心目中的那個時代純粹地呈現出來了，”黃文英說。

In the film, the actors speak classical Chinese, a decision Mr. Hou said he made to enhance the period feel. The language also turned out to be the “biggest challenge” during the filmmaking process, said the director, since classical Chinese was mostly used for literary texts and almost never spoken. The final version includes Chinese subtitles.

片中演員們都用古漢語說話，侯孝賢說，這是爲了增強歷史感。他說，最後古文對白成了影片拍攝過程中“最大的挑戰”，因爲古漢語目前已經不在口語中使用，只出現在文學當中。最終影片會有中文字幕。

Admirers of Mr. Hou’s work may be pleased to know that the director does not plan to wait another eight years to make his next film.

侯孝賢說，他的新片不會再讓人們等上八年之久，這個消息無疑會令影迷們感到高興。

“There are so many movies I want to make,” he said. “Even just in terms of Taiwan’s history the possibilities are endless.” He added that he was already in talks to make a film about the Taiwanese Communist Party under Japanese and later Kuomintang rule.

“我想拍的片子還有很多，”他說，“光是在臺灣歷史範圍內就有無窮無盡的可能性。”他還說，他已經開始籌備一部新片，是關於日本乃至國民黨統治時期的臺灣共產黨。