夜上海见"的姐"赵薇土气造型
26th April 2006
Youth Daily
Rustic-look attire of ‘Taxi Sister’ Zhao Wei
Although her appearance is just as gorgeous as before, and though she would be a beauty among the taxi sisters across the country, it is a pity that Zhao Wei is to portray a rustic look. Honestly speaking, it is rare even to find such a rustic-looking tax sister in small and medium cities, let alone Shanghai. Zhao Wei’s attire is a s dull gray uniform and a pair of overly long hand wrap around her sleeves, with her hair combed into the traditional ponytail.
In contrast, she will be driving a Santana 2000, Shanghai’s new car, a vehicle of an established company. Facing with such a country look, the “taxi brothers” on the road had their “views”. One of the taxi brother, who accepted a speedy interview expressed that nowadays, all the big companies request employees to wear standard suits. Although Zhao Wei is really beautiful, wearing that attire makes her look ‘too plain’. As for how the arrangements are in the film, it can only be known after seeing to the end product.
“Taxi sister” Zhao Wei tested the car around the buzy areas of the city
The film tells a story of taxi sister Zhao Wei driving at night to help a Japanese customer to search for an address. Basically, Zhao Wei drove around Shanghai mostly at night, with a route that’s hard to follow. Zhao Wei, who drove a yellow taxi of the Johnson tax company finally had the chance to show off her diving skills. On the night of the 22nd, Zhao Wei drove her own taxi to the Tianjin Road, near its intersection with the Nanjing Road, and parked it there.
Although the area usually prohibited parking, but due to the filming needs, they requested the assistance from a few police cars to coordinate the shooting. The residents nearby and a great number of Zhao Wei fans all rushed to the site to watch. Thankfully, the weather was pleasant, so Zhao Wei was able to complete her acting and wrap up the work at about 12AM, and didn’t affect the traffic by much. The scene filmed this time was merely for Zhao Wei to move out of the parking space. She was not “confident” with her own driving skills, for though she could steer the car out of the parking spot, the skill to steer the car back into the original spot was accomplished by a proficient driver.
‘Taxi sister’ Zhao Wei washed the car excessively
Since she became a taxi sister, Zhao Wei naturally needed to accomplish the daily preparatory routine as a taxi sister, that is, car washing. On the night of the 21st, Zhao Wei attempted to wash a car at a top quality car wash centre in the western area of Shanghai. Taxi sister Zhao Wei chose an expensive washing equipment to embellish her beloved car. Frankly speaking, the Shanghai taxi brothers and sisters did not greatly approve of this exceptionally expensive way of washing car. Most of them wash their cars by themselves. Nonetheless, due to the request of the script, Zhao Wei went on accordingly.
Due to filming needs, the beloved car had to be ‘washed’ several times. That day, when Zhao Wei continuously filmed until nearly dawn, at 3am, she appeared somewhat dispirited. Inside the taxi, she proceeded through the wash with her head leaning down, but her professionalism kept her to keep on going. Since there were a lot of spectators crowding the filming site, Zhao Wei attracted the crowds’ attention when trying to get some rest inside the car. Thus it was difficult to guarantee a rest for her.
The Story of [The Longest night in Shanghai]
Zhang YiBai created a pleasant dream of love in reality
Director Zhang YiBai revealed to the reporters that the film tells the story of a professional Japanese makeup artist who got lost in Shanghai and later met by chance a female taxi driver. Masahiro Motoki who had won the best actor award at the Tokyo International Film Festival played the Japanese makeup artist, while Zhao Wei played the taxi driver. Zhang YiBai introduced to the reporter that the met each other by chance when both of them are at their emotional down point. They attempt to understand one another and help one another by overcoming their language barrier. “The film’s expression of romance is certainly not the vagueness of a love at first sight. Rather, it is the satisfaction of finding a dreamlike love in reality.”
In addition to the involvement of many Japanese actors in this film, there are also many behind-scene staffs from Japan. Nonetheless, Zhang YiBai expressed that the language barrier did not cause too much fuss for the filming, “During the first week of the filming, the Chinese and Japanese staff started an active language learning process, learning the pronunciations of the basic yet vital technical phrases in both Chinese and Japanese, such as “action”, “stop the equipments” and “silence is needed on the set.” These phrases were quickly mastered, thus the filming was extremely smooth!”
Translated by Rain(Malaysia), edited by ShenXianMeiMei(Canada)
