listening with different ears. Another main character, the desert bandit/lover, also had all of his dialogue replaced for different reasons: the Chinese government would not allow his Tibetan accent in the film, and so his voice was completely replaced by that of another actor. Similarly, solo cellist, YoYo Ma, was banned from entering China due to his musical involvement with the feature Seven Years In Tibet and was forced to record his parts in New York. From his recordings a MID! tempo map was derived to provide a click track against which the rest of the orchestra could record in China. Not ideal.

Though clearly a team effort, responsibility for sound post production fell to supervising Sound Editor, Eugene Gearty. Eugene told me how the budget for the film and its audio post had originally been quite modest and so he went ahead and laid up and premixed the effects and Foley for the entire film in just four days. He figured he’d done a pretty good job for an action/fight movie within the time allowed, with all the punches and whooshes in the right places as you’d expect. Lee, however, was not impressed. In a move that set the tone for the rest of the sound post, Ang then spent the next two days with Eugene carefully going through his premixes, generating a new list of requirements and agreeing a new budget for a further six days effects work. The results were then similarly discussed and refined, with the process carrying on into the final mix as a 32-track premix on Akai DD8s, with all the individual components available on demand in the theatre from an AudioVision (the original editing format). Still looking for perfection, Ang continued to add new effects at this stage and even at the viewing of the print master, he was still asking Eugene to find extra sounds to spot in!

Except for occasional dialogue, all fight scenes started mute. The creation and choice of each effect was not taken lightly, with Eugene and Foley editor Jen Ralston initially dedicating a weekend to wild recordings of every kind of impact he could think of, from body parts to different woods and metals. This formed a starting point for his on-going sound design. He then went through the film with Foley engineer, George Lara, and c5’s in-house Foley artist, Marko Castanzo (himself coincidentally a martial artist), firstly putting on footsteps, then body movements and on and on as Ang refined his layers with his exacting ear for detail: the birds in the background had to be from the correct area of China for any given scene; a strike from a dry bamboo was not to be substituted for that of a green bamboo (recorded specially in the forests of China and Fed Ex’d over as a Pro Tools file); the sound of an arm being grabbed was different from that of a leg, the whoosh of silk unlike cotton and a fist to the throat unlike a kick to the solar plexus or a knee in the charlies. You’d want to think twice before volunteering for the post of assistant Foley artist on that session, eh? For budgetary reasons most of the impacts for the fights were all Eugene’s own work and the sounds of general destruction for the big fight scenes (such as the epic brawl in the tea house) were taken from his existing database created on other projects. All vocal sound for the fights was also looped using the original actors.

Clearly, a huge amount of work has gone into every aspect of this very successful film and, all things considered, the final sound mix is excellent. My thanks to Eugene for taking the time to talk to me and congratulations to him on being awarded Taiwan’s equivalent of the Academy Award, the Golden Horse, for best sound. He has also been nominated for a BAFTA. So if you do make it over to Blighty for the ceremony, Eugene, and fancy a warm English beer, do get in touch.

JIM BETTERDIGE

Production Sound: Andrew Paul Kunin
Supervising Sound Editor: Eugene Gearly
Re-Recording Mixers: Reilly Steele, Robert Fernandez
DoP: Peter Pau
Mixed at Sound One Corporation, New York.

Post script: The film was recognised at the recent awards ceremonies, collecting 12 BAFTA nominations and winning for Direction, Music, Costume Design and Film Not In English Language: while at the Oscars, it received 10 nominations and won for Cinematography, Art Direction, Music Score and Best Foreign Language Film.