Jin
Bo, 09/18/2002
Ashort scenic film about China that has been dazzling
visitors to Walt Disney World in Florida, the United States, since 1982 is
to be updated to showcase many new changes in the nation.
"Wonders of China" has been on show at the Epcot
Centre in a 360 degree cinema that makes viewers feel they are seeing
sights first-hand, as if they are in the country itself.
"There has been a lot of changes in China over the
past 20 years," said David Katzman, a director of production of Walt
Disney Imagineering.
"We are looking forward to working with the Chinese
Government to give Walt Disney World guests a glimpse of modern
China."
In early September, a crew of American filmmakers and
their Chinese counterparts from the China Research Institute of Film
Science Technology began filming in Beijing, the first leg of
their two-month trip, to capture new footage in seven Chinese cities.
Fresh spots
To add "modern elements," the crew have been
quite sensitive in choosing locations to shoot.
In Beijing, the footage of Beihai Park, the Great Wall and Tian'anmen Square will be renewed.
There is one scene of Nine-Dragon Wall (Jiulongbi), which
is located inside Beihai Park.
"The reason we are filming the Nine-Dragon Wall again
is because 20 years ago most people were walking past it in blue and
grey. Now people are dressed more colourfully," said director
Jeff Blyth, who also directed the film 20 years ago.
The film will include some major additions such as footage
of Hong Kong and Macao, which returned to China in 1997 and 1999 respectively.
In a bid to provide fresh views of city life of modern
China, the crew will capture new footage of Shanghai, which has been
transformed as a city.
The footage of Shanghai will include scenes on the Bund
and the Nanjing Road.
"We are also doing small images of places such as the
People's Park, some areas in Pudong, all those banks and the Stock
Market. Many Westerners do not know Shanghai has a stock market like
New York, and the film will give them a surprise," said Steve
Spiegel, show writer at Disney who wrote the play of the new version.
Over the following two months, the crew will also go to
Urumqi, the capital city of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur
Autonomous Region.
There they will screen a wonderful night market featuring
a distinctive style of minority people in the autonomous region, to give
the audience a better understanding of the diversity of China. But it is a tough mission to include in seven minutes all
the changes China has gone through over the past 20 years, because the
changes have been so unimaginably great.
Blyth, the director, was deeply impressed with what he saw
20 years ago - and what he can now see 20 years later.
"I noticed that young people are taller, they are
healthier, they are happier. I just see a general enthusiasm in people.
"In the early 1980s, there were not many tourists
from the United States in China, so people who come to see the film will
say 'Oh, it is China'."
But in the past 10 years, more and more American and
European tourists have been to the Far East. Those who had their
own experience of China felt unsatisfied with what they saw in
the film.
According to Blyth, people would ask questions such as:
"Have you seen Shanghai lately? It has been changing, not like
what's in your film."
In the old film, actors were employed to act as casual tourists: two sisters, a nuclear family, a group of primary students guided by a teacher, an old couple and two lovers whispering to each other on a bench.
Li Bai, a renowned poet in the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) who "narrated" the original "Wonders of China" film, will remain the narrator of the new version to remind people of the country's splendid ancient culture.
The new version is scheduled to premiere in the cinema at the Epcot Centre next July.