Vicki Zhao On Directorial Film Debut, “Our Eventually Lost Youth”

Last week, Vicki Zhao (赵薇) appeared at the Beijing premiere of her new romantic comedy film, Love. In the movie, Vicki portrayed a real estate agent who was a single mother still longing for love. One of the scenes which left a deep impression with the audience featured Vicki wearing high heels to climb a wall and dancing ballet with a plaster cast. Directed by Niu Cheng Ze (钮承泽), Love also stars Shu Qi (舒淇), Ethan Ruan (阮经天), Mark Chao (赵又廷), and Eddie Peng (彭于晏).

As Love was shown at the Berlin International Film Festival, another drama may be taking place in Vicki’s personal life. Perhaps there was too much recent work pressure for Vicki. On February 16th, she posted on her blog, “I am very sad today. Other people told me about the broad, selfless heart. Why do I toil for so long and with difficulty? It is ultimately to pursue my dream. Perhaps life is to wake people up. However, I just want to tell everyone that without any dreams, there is no life!” Her husband, Huang Youlong (黄有龙) rarely had Weibo interactions with Vicki in the past, but this time offered numerous messages of comfort.

Vicki Zhao On Directorial Debut

After making a comeback since giving birth to her daughter, Vicki possessed a flourishing career. Aside from promoting Love, Vicki was busy with voice dubbing for Painted Skin 2 <画皮2>. Vicki  was also preparing to film her directorial debut, Our Eventually Lost Youth <致我们终将逝去的青春> in March 2012. Indicating that she put a lot of hard effort into the project, Vicki aspired to meet the challenges while pursuing her dreams as a director.

Our Eventually Lost Youth will explore a teenage girl’s youthful dreams. Vicki noted that the script and the storyboard has been completed, while discussions with the actors were near completion.  Vicki denied the media’s earlier reporting on the cast list for Our Eventually Lost Youth, stating, “We will definitely feature newcomers in the movie.” Unless she was able to find a young artist that resembled her closely, Vicki will not star in her own film.

The story of Our Eventually Lost Youth will be set from 1994 until the new century, which would touch upon a historical event occurrence. Vicki said, “Originally, we wanted to set the story in 1996, however to adhere to the historical event, we shifted the time line early to 1994. We researched a lot of newspapers and the historical event will surface at the exact point in time. We had to also find props from that era as well.”  Vicki stressed that the characters were fictitious and will only incorporate some of her own feelings from her teenage years in Our Eventually Lost Youth.

Due to the theme of a teenager’s rites of passage, Our Eventually Lost Youth has been compared to You Are The Apple Of My Eye <那些年，我们一起追的女孩>.  Vicki indicated that the two films were completely different, as Our Eventually Lost Youth will focus on the main character’s growth during her college years and life after graduation.

Last year, Vicki’s university classmate, Chen Kun (陈坤) made ​​a project on the power of walking, which attracted her attention as well. Vicki noted that Chen Kun and her own directorial debut reflected their personal growth and was a form of expression. “He wrote about the details of his hiking trip, while I shot my own movie. We have reached the moment to express ourselves, only in a different way.”

Excerpt from Sohu.com and 21CN.com

Jayne: Eager to find out more about Vicki’s new film, Our Eventually Lost Youth. The transition from school and early career, in which the carefree days are gone and replaced with increasingly more responsibilities and exposure to society at large, should serve as a platform for some introspective reflection and character growth.

In your own eventually lost youth, have you adhered to your initial dreams?