I had wondered if Jiang Wen ("Jasmine") was really speaking Japanese. In watching the "Making of" film, they discussed how just about every actor except Ken Takakura and Shinobu Terajima were amateurs. So Jiang Wen really was speaking Japanese. Zhang Yimou did a good job with them.
And I think that Jiang Wen is cute, especially in that golf hat with her hair streaming down.
Indeed! I was really impressed when I realized that both tourist guides (Jiang Wen and Lin Qiu) were in fact "Tourist guides" in the real life, and not professional actors!
That shows you what a great casting and a good director can do with amateur actors!
BTW I don't understand why on earth their chinese names were changed in the US DVD for the weird names of "Jasmine" and "Lingo"??? Why?
The subtitles probably weren't American produced. Chinese movies have the weird habit of using similar sounding names of literal translations for names. If the subtitles were done by a native speaker then they could've been done out of context.
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