First-time feature director Constance Tsang makes a splash in Cannes with “Blue Sun Palace,” the first U.S. film in Critics Week that is in the Mandarin Chinese language.
Set in a massage parlor, staffed with Chinese immigrants, in Queens, New York, the melodramatic film tells of how the romantic relationship between a man and a woman is disrupted by a sudden disappearance.
Tsang was careful to avoid stereotypes and to be true to the community that she grew up in and observing. But the feature effort was also a big step up from the short films she cut her teeth on.
Underlining that point, she amassed a powerful cast of leading Chinese-speaking actors, including Lee Kang-sheng (“What Time Is It There” and a dozen Tsai Ming-liang films), Wu Ke-xi (“Nina Wu,” “The Road to Mandalay”) and rising Mainland China star Xu Haipeng.
Popular on PvNew
How did you jump from a succession of short films into your first feature?
I would say that jumping into the feature is exactly what happened. I did shorts because I went to film school. There’s a lot of support there. And a lot of classmates end up crewing for you.
With a feature, you have to will it into an existence. There is so much work and hustle and [a need for] persistence. It’s a marathon, truly. And a very different artistic experience, for me, going from shorts to the future.
Was this also your first completed script?
I’ve been turning out scripts for quite a bit of time now. My first feature script, which was by no means good, was in 2015, when I when I first thought that I might like to do this as a real purpose.
I was writing two other different scripts. And this one felt like it had the most [things] that I could see. I think, when you can see a film, that’s generally a good sign.
Was the COVID hiatus a hindrance to something that was ready to go with? Or did it give you more time to reflect and improve things?
Definitely, [the pandemic] gave me more time to reflect. There was a mix of personal experiences and alchemy. Because of COVID, it became a different film.
How did you pull together such an amazing high profile and international cast for a first film?
I knew that I wanted to work with Lee Kang-sheng. And I had a classmate from Columbia who had either done a movie recently with him or knew someone that had worked with him. I spoke about my projects and was told ‘just DM him on Instagram.’ And that’s exactly what I did. I contacted him on Instagram.
For Wu Ke-xi, it was a mixture of my efforts trying to reach out to her and those of my casting director and producers reaching out to her agents. It turned out that she had watched my previous short film, so there was a place to start the conversation.
And you’ve got a mix of mainland and Taiwanese actors. Are you making some point here?
No. The way that I chose my actors has a lot to do with how I connect with them on a personal and an emotional level. And, so, my decision to cast them was not about mix of mainlanders and Taiwanese. Or about non-actors, or people who are working on a film for the first time. It was just this kind of big mix of people.
You are a first generation American, and it’s a very personal story for you, but you are telling a story about an immigrant generation. Was that an obstacle? How did you do your research?
It was something that I had just watched growing up. A lot of the experiences and stories [in the film] are things that I grew up feeling adjacent to, from my parents, their circle of friends, their community. Even the way that they chose to work. And a lot of this film is actually about work.
Some of the anti-Asian hatred in the U.S. during the early COVID years may have may have influenced the film. Can you explain how?
Yea, absolutely. I had the desire to show my community in a light that is empathetic and caring, with a lot of tenderness and love.
Is the Chinese experience in America obscure or misunderstood?
There was a very specific experience for first generation [Asian] migrants. That is the key and the specificity, here.
What were you trying to achieve stylistically? And how did you set about achieve it?
The way that I approached the filmmaking and my directorial choices was one where the story would always come [ahead of] however I choose to shoot it. Also, I wanted to let these actors and the story breathe. However, with that said, [I also favored] the simplest way to get this across.
Basically, I did all the scenes in one take, where I would choose a very specific camera setup that allowed for the actors and the story just to exist. I tried to weave in the sense of improvisation, but everything’s very well-rehearsed.
What are you doing next?
I’ve been slowly I think piecing together the next film. It’s going to be a story about my mother. My relationship in sort of accepting the role of a parent. I think it’s going to be called ‘My Mother and Yours.
