M1905, Mtime and Sina have all provided press coverage of the press conference. All three have featured the official trailer and photos (18, 21, and 7 large photos, respectively). In addition they each have provide an article. All of the articles say pretty much the same thing so I will only translate one. The google translator was used to obtain the tex along with some smoothing.No copyright infringement was intended.
On June 22 director Keanu Reeves along with Chen Hu, Karen Mok and Yeh Qing presented the official Man of Tai Chi trailer at the 16th Shanghai International Film Festival. Mr. Reeves said that he hoped that the audience will see the spiritual side of Tai Chi as well as the martials arts action when they see the film.
Actress Karen Mok spoke about working with Keanu saying; “We first met and had a pleasant discussion and I particularly liked that he was an actor turned director. It is very difficult (rare) to have such an actor come to China to do a film. He was a VIrgo that I greatly admired. She said that Keanu Reeves was one of her most admired Virgos. He came all the way to China to film in an unfamiliar environment where everyone including the crew only spoke Chinese. Even with the challenge of overcoming the language barrier, he was able to deal with many different situations and complete the film. So only a superman like him can do this.”
In the film, Karen played a Hong Kong policewoman. She had some thrilling actions scenes of which she said: “I liked having a sense of danger. While the scenes seemed quite dangerous, there were very good security measures in place..” In response, Keanu Reeves said that Karen is a unique heroine in his opinion. “When I first met Karen, I knew she was the right person to play the policewoman.”
The male lead, Chen Hu, is a martial arts master who previously served as a Kung Fu instructor to many Hollywood stars. Keanu Reeves said that their cooperation began in 1997, when Chen Hu was his martial arts master. They became good friends and wanted to do a film together.
When talking about his interaction with Keanu Reeves while working on Man of Tai Chi, Chen Hu emotionally recalls: “He always talked me about the play. I don’t think he ever talked to anyone else so much, no one has every told me so much.” (In one of the other articles, tiger says that his performance was due to the patient guidance of Keanu and that he talked to him all the time and also talked to him as he (Keanu) pointed out things on the monitor.) Chen Hu also said: “I can see that directing for the first time for him is much like the first time I participated in Wushu competitions. He is particularly excited about it and will devote a 150% effort to it.”
As a Hollywood actor who came to China to film a movie with an almost entirely Chinese crew, the language barrier was the greatest difficulty for Keanu Reeves. With the movie finished, Mr. Reeves has learned a few words of Chinese such as “hello, sorry, thank you” and directing terms “begin, good, stop”. Keanu was a very dedicated director and learned to use the directing words for when he was filming.
Not long before the Cannes Film Festival, appeared ‘middle-aged’ and overweight. Some said he ate without reflection. Mr. Reeves flew from LA to Beijing on the 21 (I believe it was late on the 19th or very early in the morning of the 2oth when he arrived) and flew to Shanghai early this morning. He appeared to have lost weight and did not have a big double chin. Someone in the media asked him if he had been eating too well. Keanu Reeves appeared dumbfounded as he succinctly said: “Yes”.
Editor’s Note: Just goes to show you that it doesn’t matter what the nationality or culture of the press is, they are rude and snarky everywhere.