In his statement at the opening ceremony of the Busan International Film Festival, where he chaired this year’s competition jury, the Chinese director said that he was still reworking the script for the film adaptation of Zhang Yimou’s “Three-Body Problem” years later.
When questioned by festival director Jung Hanseok, Zhang said that he was currently preparing a new movie and was discussing with several directors backstage how difficult it was to make a good movie these days.
“‘The Three-Body Problem’ is a great science fiction novel and I love it very much. But it is very difficult to adapt it into a movie, so we spent several years developing the script,” said Zhang. “We are currently continuing to polish it. I hope this film does not disappoint everyone’s expectations, satisfies the audience and I hope we can do it well.”
Liu Cixin’s novel, the first book in the “Remembrance of the World’s Past” trilogy, won the Hugo Award for best novel in 2015 for its English translation by Ken Liu and has been adapted into Bilibili’s animated series “The Three-Body Problem” (2022), Tencent’s live-action series “Three Bodies” (2023) and Netflix’s “The 3-Body Problem” (2024).
Jung increased the reaction of the audience after the announcement of the project and said that it aroused anxiety as well as expectation. Zhang said that when news broke that he would direct the film, he asked his company to collect online audience comments, which came in with nearly 400,000 comments within a week.
“I felt like people had a lot of concerns. Today, audiences have high expectations from us,” Zhang said. “In the age of artificial intelligence, where visual media is democratized, the viewer’s judgment has increased significantly compared to the past. So we all feel a lot of pressure and hope not to disappoint their expectations.”
He added that he will be looking closely at what audiences want from the film in hopes of getting it right.
Zhang expanded on the topic to filmmakers at the festival, saying they all wanted to make a film that satisfied them. “Many people spend their whole lives trying to make a really great movie, but no one knows where that great movie came from. From China’s perspective, it may be luck; your effort meets luck,” he said. “But no matter what the chances are, the love and passion for cinema will always continue to burn in our hearts.”
Jung introduced the project as an adaptation of a science fiction novel with an enormous worldwide readership, noting that Zhang was still putting out new work almost every year for more than 40 years of his career.
Zhang leads a seven-member jury for Busan’s competition. The 31st edition of the festival will continue until October 15.