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When I saw Reeves, it was already noon; having done uninterrupted interviews since morning had made him tired. He requested a break to go out for a smoke, and the workers around him joked: "Don't ask him questions about his one-eighth Chinese heritage. He's answered that over a hundred times and if you ask him again he'll collapse. Or about Chinese food. We're tired of hearing about it."

"That's right, I come here quite often. Sometimes for my film, and somtimes to see friends." This is how Keanu opened our interview.

A thick black beard covered a large part of his face, and his similarly dark hair had a casual, messy look that suggested it had only been combed through twice with his fingers. Reeves said, apart from the few times he's been filming (it's possible that this is referring to paparazzi), being a star didn't bother him and he found freedom and comfort with his wandering lifestyle. "Ultimately, I feel that if I can still be myself, that's what's most important. Isn't it?"

The fact is, the purpose of Keanu Reeves' current visit to Beijing is very clear: Man of Tai Chi, the Chinese martial arts film that he directed, will soon be showing on screens through China and the US. It is also the first film he's ever directed. "The time it took was a bit long, give or take 7 years, with the script undergoing revisions over five years. To tell a story, you first need to be clear on what you want to express, and then you have to get a suitable writer to write that down, and then you learn a few things from that process, and know from which direction to continue writing in, or which parts you need to re-examine, until you end up with a draft. After that you need to revise the draft, and that is a never-ending process. Now I realise that creating stories isn't as simple as it looks on the surface, but in order to make everything flow nicely, you need to put in twice as much effort behind the scenes."

Reeves said that the Man of Tai Chi script was 134 pages long, and would have resulted in a 5 hour movie. Therefore, some hard sacrifices had to be made to get the script down to 90 pages. Reeves said that it actually made the script a lot tighter. "For instance I had to learn how to focus, and make all the narrative strands focus on the two masters: the Master of Light symbolised meditation, thinking thrice before acting, letting yourself develop a clear idea of the kind of person you want to be; whereas the Master of Darkness tells you to be daring and forward, to find pleasure in the release of your passion, to enjoy being yourself. It was not difficult to get a sense of conflict from that. But when it came to knowing how each master would speak, how he would treat his student... going deep into those actual details of the plot was really tricky for me.

Reeves was blunt about how it was the action that most attracted him to the project: "In good martial arts films, the fight choreography looks really beautiful on the screen and looks like a dance to me! And at the same time, those martial arts films have a very beautiful, very profound heart to them. I love martial arts films."

Keanu Reeves himself rose to fame through kungfu and action. Speed, the low-budget action movie he starred in, earned US$1.21 million at the box office and became the first huge success of his career. The Matrix trilogy made extensive use of Chinese martial arts and traditional American action movie gunfights, letting its subversive cyberpunk science-fiction plot complement its action scenes to create an insurmountable classic.

"It's a pity I never learnt actual Chinese kungfu, and only worked to accumulate a richer understanding of kungfu and kungfu movies. But those two things are different. For example if I'm focusing on the application of kungfu (??), on the performance front I will train hard, but I never spent time pursuing actual Chinese kungfu. When I was really young I learnt a bit of it, but unfortunately I stopped soon after. But since then I've since learnt that behind real martial arts is philosophy, and it's led me to a deep respect of actual kungfu."

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My 14 years of studying Chinese shall finally be put to use.

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fandom, educational, etc, you know ;) :D

billion thanks for putting your Chinese knowledge to use for a noble purpose XD

Perhaps it's because of this that in Man of Tai Chi, Reeves gave the male leading role of taichi master to Tiger Chen Hu, someone who has 30 years of experience in kungfu movies, while he himself took on the role of the villain who operates a series of underground fighting games. Reeves was interested in how Chen Hu's training and classes since childhood had given him a solid foundation in martial arts. Chen Hu majored in taichi, but in the movie, be it with karate, [various other martial arts whose translations I'm uncertain off], broadsword or cudgel, he is similarly adept. He had an earlier career in Hollywood, working as stunt doubles for Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Jet Li, Cheng Pei Pei and Stephen Chow. "He knows martial arts, and he knows movies."

Keanu Reeves mentioned Chen Hu, describing the two of them as brothers. "We met in 1997 because of The Matrix, and have had about ten years of friendship between us. His upcoming starring role is his best ever; furthermore, he's my brother. I feel that martial arts is a very emotional kind of art, and is also about what it means to be a person. Love and righteousness form the most beautiful manifestation of the martial arts. Chen Hu is my respected teacher, and I always learn dilligently from him.

(gah, why is this article so long. it's almost bedtime for me, so I'll go off now to write a poem about the adventures of zachary quinto's hair. more tomorrow.)

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earned US$1.21 million

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is that figure chinese box office?

source: https://www.facebook.com/ayako.ueda2/posts/454125961349025

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As for his own move behind the camera, Reeves has never denied those rumours of being a 'has-been' or in a 'crisis'. "Oh, mid-life crisis? Maybe, but I have also always wanted to create, because it allows me to have that progression in my artistic career."

Among the creations Reeves was referring to, 2012's Side by Side - a documentary which he produced on the future of film - can't be left out. It was one of the most popular documentaries of the year. Reeves said that the documentary originated in 2006, as he started getting more and more puzzled about how digital technology was changing his work; the possibility of film being discontinued in the future made him feel sad as a filmmaker, on the one hand, but on the other hand it made him even more eager to record this revolution that was happening in the industry. Incredibly, Hollywood leaders including David Lynch, George Lucas, James Cameron, David Fincher, Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese and Steven Soderbergh all agreed to let Reeves interview them, sharing their thoughts and feelings on this moment in film. From the younger generation, Lena Dunham, director and writer of the hit TV series 'Girls', also joined Reeves. Their topics of conversation extended from screen images to the everyday phenomenon of babies watching Nickleodeon cartoons on the iPad. "At first I was very in love with film, but thinking that at this stage, hundreds of years of film techniques are being gradually replaced by new technology, and I was willing to investigate that. But afterwards I discovered that what I was concerned about wasn't digital technology itself, or how it had revolutionised the whole film industry, but how it had changed the way we tell stories. I wanted to record everything that was happening at this moment, because it's something I find necessary: storytelling's traditions and its future, which is a huge thing for every person."

According to The New York Times, The New Yorker and other mainstream media reviews, the documentary Side By Side does not lose out to any aggressive drama; other than addressing the revolution of human visuals and storytelling, people also said that Reeves' career transformation was off to a beautiful start. Most of the time, such a journey from the front of the camera to behind it is, for most Hollywood superstars, an important tactic to maintain their influence in the industry, and it is unusual that very few people viewed Keanu Reeves in this way, seeing his whims as more meaningful.

Keanu flew via Frankfurt/Germany. Newspapers (Daily mail) don`t write very friendly this morning. I think Keanu was just tired after that long-distance flight. They should leave him alone!

I post the link for the photos, forget the text...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2327024/Keanu-Reeves-unrecognisable-packs-paunch-boating-Cannes.html

Welcome to Europe Keanu , we love you very much!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/may/18/cannes-living-on-past-glories
There are intriguing oddities, too. Tomorrow, Keanu Reeves flies in to promote his new martial arts film Man of Tai Chi