Torn exquisiteness

Xiaomei (playd by Yao Di) shocks people with her violent death

Character: Xiaomei

Background: Mrs. Tang´s younger sister who is captured and forced to serve as a comfort woman

Implication: Pureness

Actress: Yao Di

Character´s story: Xiaomei had received a good education and was pure and beautiful. She was dragged into this disaster without warning, and although she had her hair cut short, she continued to happily sing her favorite Shaoxing opera. After being ruthlessly humiliated and raped, she suffers a mental breakdown and sings the same lyric over and over. Finally, even the Japanese military officer can no longer bear it, and fatally shoots her, adding that "It would be better for her to die than to live like this."

Actress’ account: After shooting the rape scene, I did not laugh for several days

At the very beginning, my part was too small— I could not even find my lines in the script! After I spoke with the director, my role was finally increased and both of the singing scenes were subsequently added. In the first scene, I sing opera for the refugees. At that time, Xiaomei thought that she was safe and that misfortune would never befall her. In the second scene, she suffers a mental breakdown. She sings opera because she thinks it is the only good thing in her life. It was a big challenge for me to play the rape scene. Afterwards, I did not laugh for several days. As that scene happened to be my last, I left the cast without saying a word. The Japanese actors are lovely in real life, but I intentionally did not speak to them on the day we acted that scene— I did not want to confuse my senses. Xiaomei represents a broken beauty. She had been a bystander of the war, but it did not permit her a narrow escape. I was filming “City of Life and Death” at the same time as playing a part in the film “A Dream of Red Mansions.” All of the girls in “A Dream of Red Mansions” were envious of me, because they knew that my acting ability would improve after playing my role in “City of Life and Death.”

Lu Chuan’s remarks: Although Yao Di is young, she performed very well. Her beauty and pureness played a big role in enhancing the film’s personal expression. After watching “City of Life and Death,” the audience will not forget her.

★ The excellent performances of the four actresses in particular help to distinguish “City of Life and Death.” In an interview, reporters highlighted their film performance amongst all the other actors and concluded that their abilities are true and not simply a product of the film’s publicity. On this subject Lu said, “They competed with each other by giving an excellent performance in the film studio, and I was behind the scenes. I always showed the good performances of one of them to another, just to motivate them. I think this was a good method, which made all of them give their greatest effort. Seeing this, I was privately joyous and knew that I had at last produced a good film.”

Editor:Ying Yu