Back in Action

Slumped on the cool tatami mats of a Japanese restaurant in Beijing, Jiang Wen looks spent. China's gruffest actor and boldest director has been slouching and smoking and dishing out melancholy in front of the camera all day, and he can look forward to more of the same through the night. His 1.83-meter, 98-kilo frame crumples against the wall, his eyes beat and basset-hound weary.

Jiang has every reason to be exhausted. He's a notoriously choosy actor who usually appears in just one movie a year, yet his brooding mug will flicker through five films in the next 12 months. Missing Gun—a fast-paced crime flick about a small town cop whose frantic search for his stolen pistol unearths a web of provincial vice—is Jiang's first appearance in a film since Devils on the Doorstep, which he co-wrote, directed and starred in. Two years ago, Devils, a black-and-white masterpiece about the Japanese occupation of a Chinese village in the 1930s, won the Grand Prix (second place) at the Cannes Film Festival. That propelled Jiang into the pantheon of white-hot Chinese directors. The problem was that the director sent the movie to Cannes before it had been approved by China's censors, who are acutely sensitive not only about political dissent and sex but about how the Japanese are portrayed in films shown on the mainland. Beijing got angry. As a result, Devils has never been shown in China, and worries about official displeasure have scared Jiang into staying clear of the director's chair ever since.

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Now he's coming out of seclusion—not directing, but reviving his 20-year career as China's onscreen Everyman. Why is Jiang spending so much time in front of the camera instead of behind it? "I'm just making movies I like and doing favors for friends," he explains, not too convincingly. "I'm in no rush," he continues. "So far, I've directed a film after every major stage in my life." In the Heat of the Sun (1994) capped off the wide-eyed sexual exuberance of his 20s, and Devils followed a passion for modern Chinese history he developed in his early 30s. "I have no plans," he insists.

A judicious tactic considering the toughness of Beijing's cultural czars. (And Jiang, 39, shows no stomach for moving his talents outside of his homeland.) But the logic breaks down if you know the Jiang almost everyone in China knows: one of the toughest, most obstinate characters around, both onscreen and off. Is Director Jiang Wen really retired?

Jiang is not handsome. his broad chest, bold ears and feral demeanor is Ajax rather than Paris, more like Bogie than Grant. "He has a very common face," says Chinese novelist Wang Shuo, "but somehow his face has something that represents power." China's actress-of-the-moment Zhao Wei, who has acted with Jiang twice in the past six months, confides, "I don't like this kind of man. He's too strong." And, she says, he isn't pretty either. "Everybody's face looks like some animal," she jokes. "Jiang's looks like a gorilla's."

"Jiang Wen's a man's man," counters a stout, high school swimming coach craning his neck to see his virile idol ambling down a narrow Beijing alleyway. Onscreen, Jiang's toughness is best when it's paired with vulnerability. In the role that made him famous across China, as a fresh-off-the-boat newlywed in the 1993 TV series A Beijing Man in New York, Jiang played an out-of-work cellist who battles bitchy bosses, sticky-fingered factory managers and an immigrant's ennui. In Zhang Yimou's Red Sorghum, he makes passionate love to Gong Li in a breezy patch of matted sorghum stalks, then gets drunk and boisterously brags about it. When Gong Li slams a door on him, Jiang's face transforms from posturing conquistador to ashamed fool. "He looks tough outside," says Zhao, "but inside, there is something softer, something more like a woman."

Ready for his lunch, Jiang sits up and casually unbuttons his sweaty, gray shirt, unself-conscious after years of on-set wardrobe changes. His assistant hands him a fresh shirt—navy blue printed with a herd of fierce, red, glaring bulls. "Ever had horse meat?" he asks as the waitress delivers a plate of blood red sashimi. He clenches a fist and then grips his tensed forearm, adopting the tone of an older, more experienced brother. "It makes you strong."