Fan Bingbing plays the Tang Dynasty concubine Yang Yuhuan in Lady of the Dynasty, a new movie. [Photo/China Daily]

Yang Yuhuan, a Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) concubine, famed for her good looks and the attention she received from Emperor Xuanzong, is now the subject of a big-screen project.

Earlier in the year, Chinese social media was abuzz with comments on the depiction of Tang-era clothes on the small screen and the amount of cleavage shown by actresses in a Hunan TV serial titled The Empress of China, in which Wu Zetian, the empress and grandmother of Xuanzong, was played by actress Fan Bingbing.

Fan also plays the role of Yang in the upcoming full-length feature.

Late last year, authorities had asked Hunan TV to regulate the visuals of Fan and other actresses in corsets in the show by using closeups of their faces and heads in shots that required them.

The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, the country's top media regulator, wanted the "unhealthy content" to be cut.

Now, with Lady of the Dynasty, based on Yang and the Tang era, the cleavage is back in focus, and seemingly without much ado.

In a trailer of the upcoming movie, released at the ongoing annual Shanghai International Film Festival, Fan is shown in typical Tang attire and without the restrictions previously placed on the TV show.

"Movies and TV series are different productions and they have different social influences. I don't think the movie needs such cuts," Shi Qing, a director of the movie, tells China Daily on the sidelines of the festival.

Other than Shi, the directors' team includes Zhang Yimou and Tian Zhuangzhuang, both top-notch moviemakers, who have earned international acclaim since the 1980s.

Shi says Lady of the Dynasty has been adapted from historical accounts of the Tang period and describes it as a "serious take" on the romance between Yang and the emperor at a time of great prosperity in ancient China, which he hopes will make the movie safe from censorship.

In the movie, the voice of a foreign ambassador at a Tang court is the main narrator. The movie chronicles the legendary romance of Yang, who was once married to the 18th son of Emperor Xuanzong, but fell in love with the father of her husband.

Their romance ended with Yang's execution ordered by her lover, the emperor, at the behest of his military. Xuanzong's advisors were suspicious of her and thought she ruined the country.

In one of his poems, the well-known Tang Dynasty politician Bai Juyi wrote, Yang was so enchanting that she was the only woman among some 3,000 in the palace with whom the emperor chose to have an intense relationship.

"I really admire her and I am even a bit jealous of the character, who could compete with so many women to win the love of then the country's most powerful man," says Fan, who herself made a red carpet splash at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Fan is one of China's most popular actresses. Her fashionista image has also grown in the past few years with nearly 2.8 million viewers searching for "similar costumes as Bingbing's" on Taobao, China's largest e-commerce service, according to Liu Chunning, CEO of Alibaba Digital Entertainment Group.

Fan says that every woman could dream of becoming Yang if she had a man spoiling her rotten.

The movie, which will be released on July 30, has an all-star cast, including Hong Kong veteran actor-singer Leon Lai Ming and Bruneian actor-singer Chun Wu.

Zbigniew Preisner, famous Polish composer, led the soundtrack development for the movie.

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)