ON SET at the white countess

The scene is an upstairs ballroom in the grand old Peace Hotel on Shanghai’s Bund – we are on location at the filming of The White Countess, the latest Merchant Ivory period drama, produced in China as a joint venture with Shanghai Film Studio, and the ballroom is clearly partitioned into two.

On one side around fifty extras lounge on sofas, sweating in their tweed suits, flapper frocks and old-style cheongsam. Runners dodge in and out with clip boards, a professional Russian cabaret dancer sulks, pouts and moans about her dress in animated Russian. An instruction is passed down the line, translated from English to Chinese and then back again. “Everyone quiet! Anjing yi xia! Quiet please!”

On the other side of the partition they are filming a waltz scene. More Russians – professionals again, modern day taxi dancers from the Paramount Night Club – on a rotating dais. The Australian-born chief cinematographer Chris Doyle – an acclaimed old China hand whose resume boasts movies like 2046 and Hero– kneels in the centre of the ring; this is a vertical shot from beneath, focusing on the great chandelier overhead, as the carouseling dancers bob in and out of view. The stage is moving (eight men, out of shot, pushing by hand), and, as fake snow swirls around them, the dancers have to dodge camera leads, Doyle himself and each other. All this without hearing the music itself, which will be added to the soundtrack later. Somehow it all works, and Doyle is satisfied.

The White Countess stars Ralph Fiennes (of English Patient fame) and Natasha Richardson. The plot tells the story of a blind American diplomat, living in Shanghai in the 1930s, a city where he finds all the usual outlets for his grim world weariness. He falls in love with a White Russian refugee (Richardson), a former countess now working as a singer at a club of which he has become owner, but his fleeting chance of happiness is challenged by the Japanese attack on the city of 1937. It is scripted by Booker Prize winning British/Japanese author Kazuo Ishiguro, for whom this is familiar territory; his book Once We Were Orphans was also set in 1930s Shanghai and dealt with the Japanese invasion.

It is all happening on Shanghai Film Studio’s turf, and they can claim a fine pedigree with projects of this kind – they were involved in high profile international productions like Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun and The Red Violin. On this occasion, on the basis of a 16 million US dollar investment, they have acquired co-producer status. As James Ivory has acknowledged, the participation of Shanghai Film Studio might just make all the difference – they bring vast experience of the Shanghai period drama, and access to a huge variety of locations and custom-built sets around the city.

Talk is that The White Countess could just be the next Last Emperor - certainly, on paper, the team assembled looks hard to beat. The White Countess is scheduled for international release late next year.