Straight.com - 27/Jul/2009

[Source]
Iron Road dramatizes chapter in Chinese Canadian history

Luke Macfarlane and Sun Li star in the dramatic feature Iron Road, about Chinese workers who helped build the Canadian Pacific Railway.

By Craig Takeuchi, July 27, 2009

Vancouver-based producer Raymond Massey can’t wait to work another project in China. Massey spent about six months in the country working on Iron Road—a dramatic portrayal of the Chinese workers who toiled on the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1880s—and he says emphatically that he “loved it”.

Massey became involved with the production when he received a phone call “out of the blue” from producer Anne Tait in Toronto, who had optioned the film rights to a contemporary opera written by Mark Brownell and Chan Ka Nin and was searching for a West Coast producer. “The full version of the film,” he explains in a phone interview, “is a greatly expanded version of that initial story idea that was in the opera.”

Watch the trailer for Iron Road

According to the Web site for the Iron Road opera, the original story was inspired by Chan’s discovery that there was one woman who travelled among 265 migrants to British Columbia in the 1860s, a time when Chinese women were not allowed in Canada.

The film version, helmed by Chinese Canadian director David Wu, follows Little Tiger (played by Fearless’s Sun Li), a spunky, female streetkid disguised as a boy who seeks to find out what happened to her father who died working on the Canadian railroad. When she meets James Nichol (Brothers and Sisters’ Luke Macfarlane), who is sent to China to recruit cheap labour to finish off his father’s railroad project, she seizes her chance to go to Canada. The supporting cast includes Peter O’Toole (Lawrence of Arabia), as a recruiting agent who teaches Little Tiger how to speak English, and Tony Leung Ka Fai (The Lover), as the bilingual manager of the Chinese work camp.

A special presentation of the film will be shown in Vancouver at Fifth Avenue Cinemas on July 29 (7 p.m.) with director Wu in attendance. An extended version will later be shown as a two-part miniseries on CBC TV (August 9 and 16, 8 p.m.).

Massey says he jumped at the opportunity to work on the film for its social importance. “None of the key team that initially optioned the property are Chinese, or married to Chinese, or we don’t have any direct ethnic reason or cultural reason to do that,” he says. “As Canadians, we felt it was an important story waiting to be told.”

Although the characters and story were based or inspired on real life, and while many elements are historically accurate, Massey emphasizes that this is a dramatic feature. “The Asian community has really gotten behind the film, but they’ve openly said we wish it was more accurate, you know there’s so many details missing, but that’s not what we set out to do. That’s the documentary that you need to go and find somewhere else. This is entertainment.”

Nonetheless, the film does help to draw attention to a long-omitted chapter in Canadian history. Also noteworthy is the fact that the film is the first Canada-China coproduction in over 20 years.

Massey did face some challenges in securing financial backing for the project as both he and his team lacked Chinese business experience. “I had little allowances for translators, and some of the key team and advisors were bilingual, but I totally blew my estimate of how many translators I would need, and how much I needed to spend on translating key documents, legal documents, the script drafts, that sort of thing…At one point, I had 15 translators on payroll.”

What did work in Massey’s favour was a Canadian political event in 2006. “As soon as the script was finished and we were really setting out to finalize the financing, it happened to coincide with Harper’s apology [for the Chinese Head Tax] in the House of Commons, and I happened to be in Beijing at the time, and there was an article on the front page of the China Daily newspaper that I ended up basically, later the same day, flopping the paper down in front of investors in China, and it was an incredible response in China to that gesture.”

Yet while there were challenges were overcome in China, unexpected cultural difficulties arose back here in B.C., where shooting took place in Kelowna, Kamloops, and Lynn Canyon. “Because there’s a fairly significant Asian population throughout the Interior…we just assumed we’d put out a call and we’d have lots of Asians respondents to play extras in the background in the film. We only found maybe a dozen people locally up there…So we ended up bringing a lot of people from Vancouver, which is not what we had originally planned to do or budgeted to. It was horribly expensive, complicated, and that was one of the hardest things to manage, just getting people to play the Chinese workers…You have a well-fed, iPod generation, and no takers.”

It was quite a contrast to what happened when the crew was filming on the other side of the world. “In China, it was the opposite. If you put out a call, you’d have hundreds of people show up, and they’d happily leave work in the fields to spend a few days on camera and get paid peanuts for it, happily toiling away in the sunshine….And the attitude of the Chinese workers was astounding. It wouldn’t matter how foul the conditions were: dry, dusty, hot, raining, pouring, muddy. If I showed up out of a van carrying two things in each hand, six people would come sprinting out of the forest and grab the stuff out of my hand and not let me carry anything.

“And I loved the attitude,” he adds. “The film crew itself was double-size of what we would have here, it was much less mechanized, lots more pairs of hands, but a great, happy attitude that goes along with it…Not that I have miserable crews here, but I have to say there’s a marked difference in the approach to getting through a day’s work.”

With such a positive experience in China, it’s no wonder that Massey is eager to head back to the East Asian powerhouse to make more films. “China’s in the public consciousness worldwide. You can’t escape the impact that it is having economically, that it’s having politically…it’s a remarkable time.”

CBC News - 21/Jul/2009

[Source]
Iron Road's love story forged on Canada's railway
Last Updated: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 | 4:05 PM ET
CBC News

Luke MacFarlane and Sun Li form an unlikely bond in Iron Road. (Anne Tait/CCI/Massey Productions)

The first Canada-China co-production film in 22 years tells the story of the Chinese workers who came to Canada in the 1880s to build the transcontinental railway.

Iron Road is a love story with an A-list cast, including Sam Neill, Peter O'Toole, Sun Li and Canadian actor Luke MacFarlane.

A 95-minute feature film version of the movie opens Tuesday in Toronto for limited release across the country. A two-part mini-series of the story will air on CBC beginning Aug. 9.

Director David Wu said Iron Road is a "touching story of East meets West," but also presents a little-known slice of Canadian history.

Chinese-Canadian director David Wu on the set of Iron Road.
 (Anne Tait/CCI/Massey Productions)

"When you walk on the railway or travel on the train … you can really feel that there is blood sweat and tears in every single mile from every railroad worker – if they're red or white or yellow," Wu said in an interview Tuesday with CBC News.

Based on the 2001 opera Iron Road, the film portrays the hard and dangerous lives of Chinese workers who came to Canada.

"The plot is about a Chinese girl called Little Tiger. Little Tiger sounds like a boy's name because she dresses as a boy to survive in an alpha male society and then she decides to travel and work on building the railroad for $1 a day. But mostly, she just wants to find her lost father who everybody believes to be dead," said Wu, a Chinese Canadian who directed Merlin's Apprentice and Son of the Dragon.

Little Tiger, played by Li, a Shanghai actress who also starred in Fearless, falls for the son of the railroad contractor, played by MacFarlane.

"It's an international language," Wu says of love stories. "For me, I always loved a love story. When I grew up favourites [were] Love Story and Dr. Zhivago. I loved [stories] in war-torn and difficult times, that's my favourite way to tell a love story."

Wu said he is a veteran of Chinese co-productions — and is familiar with difficulties of translating multiple times for cast and crew who speak English, Cantonese and Mandarin.

That was one of the big challenges of shooting Iron Road, which featured 30 days of production in mainland China, followed by 10 days in British Columbia.

Sun Li stars as Little Tiger, who dresses as a boy so she can
work and support herself. (Anne Tait/CCI/Massey Productions)

Wu said he played up his own cross-cultural ties in his first meeting with producers Anne Tait and Barry Pearson.

"When I read the script, I was desperate to do this movie," Wu said. "I told them 'In Canada there is only one guy could make this movie because I speak Chinese — both Mandarin and Cantonese — and English. I said if you hire me, I will save you a lot of time, I will come in right on the budget.'"

The $10-million budget makes the film a big one by Canadian standards.

The film premiered in June at a fundraiser in support of The Foundation to Commemorate the Chinese Railroad Workers in Canada at York University, Toronto.

It opens Tuesday at Toronto's Royal Cinema. The film has independent distribution in Canada, and will show at cinemas such as the Fifth Avenue in Vancouver, the Plaza in Calgary and the Princess Twin Cinema in Waterloo, Ont., over the next two weeks.

It will screen on CBC as a two-part miniseries on Aug. 9 and 16.

Cosmopolitan - July, 2009

[Source]

Beam Me Up, Scotty

What do Luke Macfarlane (Scotty from Brothers & Sisters), the 'running man' and a bottle of tequila have in common? Absolutely nothing, really. But if you imagine all three of them together, you'll have a fairly good idea of how my evening turned out last night.

Luke and his equally adorable co-star Dave Annable (Justin) were in Cape Town this week promoting the show, and COSMO couldn't miss the opportunity of showing them the city – our way.

We started at Wakame, a popular beach-front restaurant in Mouille Point. The boys had been out the night before and had had a day packed with media interviews, but their stamina showed no signs of fading. They were full of energy as they arrived.

Both guys are the friendliest, warmest, most sincere celebs I've had the privilege of meeting. And cute. The 'it's-hard-to-breathe-around-them' kind of cute. We instantly tumbled into conversations about their trip to Cape Town, my recent trip to the US, their new president, our new president, and more. They're both enthusiastic travellers. Grass-roots travellers at that. They told us they would choose a tent over a plush hotel any day. They asked me which animals are in the Big Five. I couldn't remember (I am such a city girl!). I rambled off a few animal names, trying to sound knowledgeable about all things bush-related. They didn't look convinced.

Our meal was fantastic and the champagne was even better. Not ready to call it a night, we suggested they join us at Jade, a drinking spot in Green Point.

Jade was heaving when we arrived. In true Cape Town form, few people made a fuss about the boys (we are too cool for that down here!). But there were a couple of mandatory squeals from enamoured fans catching sight of their favourite TV hotties for the first time. And the guys were gracious and obliging, chatting to the fans who encircled them.

Beers were ordered. Tequila was ordered. Pictures were taken. More beers were ordered. Assurances were made that we would get them to the airport in time to catch a flight to Jo'burg in the morning. Champagne was ordered. More tequila was ordered. I started to regret the assurance I gave them that we would get them to the airport in time to catch a flight to Jo'burg in the morning…

Luke and I informally challenged each other to a dance-off. He came with a shimmer shoulder. I came with the 'running man'. In heels. No contest – I won. Hours of dancing and singing and high-fiving and partying followed. And then their eagle-eyed publicist suggested it was time to go home. (I'm sort of grateful that at least one of us had the good sense to call it a night…)

The boys did make it to the airport on time. I, however, was a little late for work.

Author: Cathy Lund

AfterElton - 02/Jul/2009

[Source]

Ten things we love about Canada!
Posted by snicks  on July 2, 2009

Yesterday was Canada Day, and we feel terrible that we didn't acknowledge our neighbors to the north. After all, Canada is far ahead of the U.S. when it comes to things like marriage-equality, realistic teen shows, and actors willing to do the full monty on camera (it's true, look it up!)

A list of Canadian things we love would be endless, so we put together this partial sampling. Journey below and take off, to the Great White North. Take off ... it's a beauty way to go!

Luke MacFarlane

*Sigh* It certainly is a beauty way to go. Canada gave us out actor Luke, so that automatically earns them my undying love.

SCTV

I can't be the only one who far preferred this Canadian sketch comedy series to Saturday Night Live. Such classic characters and scenes; Edith Prickley, Lola Heatherton, Count Floyd, Bob & Doug McKenzie, Alex Tree-Beck, Chariots of Eggs, The Days Of The Week, Slinky: The Toy From Hell. They just don't make 'em like this anymore.

Degrassi

Since its earliest incarnation back in the 80's, Degrassi has always seemed so much more, well ... grown-up than American shows about teens, especially concerning sexuality.

Celine!

Mock her if you must, but one of the biggest regrets of my life is that I never got the chance to experience "Cirque De Celine" in Las Vegas.

Ryan Reynolds

Just because.

80's pop hunks

Whether it was Corey Hart, Bryan Adams, Loverboy, or the guys from Glass Tiger and Honeymoon Suite, there was no shortage of northern hunks to choose from in the 80's. And I have to give props to the legendary Rush, which was one of the first rock concerts I ever attended.

kd lang

One of the most daring and creative performers of her generation. Constant Craving is one of the essential recordings of the 90's.

rocking ladies

Of course, kd lang isn't the only Canadian woman who's had an impact on music and pop culture. The list is long and varied, from the earthy Sarah McLachlan to the jagged Alanis Morissette and R&B Queen Deborah Cox. One of my personal favorites is the criminally underrated Lisa Dalbello, and of course we can't forget the country-pop of Shania Twain and the gay indie rock sisters Tegan and Sara.

Rufus Wainwright

Though born in the U.S.A., Rufus grew up in Canada, and retains dual citizenship. The out singer/songwriter definitely has that unique introspection that only Canadian artists have.

Mounties!

They always get their man.

Tonight - 15/Jun/2009

[Source]

Brother, what nice guys 
June 15, 2009
By Terence Pillay

I’ve come to realise that my friends are either quite dim or they have other things to occupy themselves with than sitting in front of the television for inordinately long hours. The realisation dawned on me when I excitedly told them about my interviews with Dave Annable and Luke McFarlane, and all they could say was: “Who?”
And if you’re reading this and reacting the same way, then you have obviously not watched Brothers and Sisters, one of the finest American drama series to have emerged in recent years.
Annable (who plays Justin Walker, a drug-addicted war veteran) and McFarlane (who plays Scotty Wandell, a gay chef) were on a small tour of South Africa to promote the award-winning show, season three of which airs here in August.
So I headed off to Cape Town to hospitality king Sol Kerzner’s plush new palace, The One and Only, to hang with the actors. Incidentally, there’s a reason it’s called The One and Only, because there’s really nothing like it, but I digress.
Both Annable and McFarlane have got to be two of the nicest people I’ve ever interviewed. And their cheery dispositions were definitely heightened by the fact that they’ve never been to South Africa before and were more than a little enthusiastic about the country, even though they had only just seen Cape Town. Why wouldn’t you think this is the most amazing place on Earth – you can lie in a bath tub and look out on to Table Mountain through your floor-to-ceiling windows, I think, silently. But again, I digress.
Annable, as I found out, used to be a jock growing up in New York and played hockey, baseball and rugby. But he discovered he wasn’t very good at any of the sports and went off to university to study media and communications. He later dropped out to study acting with Richard Pinter at New York’s famous The Neighbourhood Playhouse, whose alumni include The Practice’s Dylan McDermott, Sex and the City’s Chris Noth, The West Wing’s Alison Janney and star of the big screen Dianne Keaton.
Annable was handsome enough to land a number of commercials, but it wasn’t until he was cast in the movie Little Black Book, then a short-lived series called Reunion, that he was brought to the attention of both television producers and directors, and the American public.
He describes Brothers and Sisters as his real big break.
An interesting titbit about Annable is that he only just completed his degree in communication, which he did online after promising his mother at his sister’s graduation that he’d do it.
McFarlane also considers Brothers and Sisters to be his big break, even though he studied at Julliard and was quite an accomplished musician, singer and stage actor before making the transition to television.
And being an openly gay actor he also made international headlines when cosy pictures of him and Prison Break’s Wentworth Miller appeared in tabloids, sparking speculation that they were romantically involved. But he’s very private about his personal life, and understandably so. I mean, why should we care with whom he shares his bed?
Just because someone lives his life in the public eye doesn’t mean the public has a right to invade that life.
Anyway, McFarlane says although Brothers and Sisters has raised his public profile, he still likes his relative anonymity and relishes going mountain biking or doing some other extreme sport without the glare of hundreds of cameras.
His role on Brothers and Sisters, though, is a benchmark one, in that it’s the first gay marriage for a recurring role ever to be screened on American TV. His kiss with Matthew Rhys, who plays Kevin Walker, was also the first gay kiss in a prime-time slot in the US.
Both Annable and McFarlane wax lyrically about their fellow cast members, especially Hollywood legend Sally Field, who apparently is something of a matriarch both on and off screen.
In the finale in season two, Kevin and Scotty get married and there are a number of other plot-turns concerning the rest of the characters. Both actors don’t want to reveal anything about the new series and, frankly, I’m glad for it.
I can’t wait for August.

The Herald Online - 13/Jun/2009

[Source]

Q & A with Luke McFarlane
2009/06/13

IF YOU‘RE a fan of the M-Net drama series Brothers & Sisters, you‘ll certainly know who Scotty Wandell is. Canadian actor Luke Macfarlane, who plays Scotty, joined the series in 2006 after bagging a recurring role as the on-and-off boyfriend of Kevin Walker (Matthew Rhys). Macfarlane and co-star Dave Annable (Justin Walker) recently paid a visit to South Africa.
Playing the role of Scotty is . . . So much fun. It‘s great that after two seasons he‘ll now have a more important role to play during season three. I love working on the show and the cast is amazing – we‘re one big happy family.
Working with Dave Annable is . . . great. We get along so well and I am glad to have shared this SA experience with him. He‘s a great actor as well.
Season three . . . is going to be quite a busy one for Scotty. He and Kevin are married now and must adjust to making that work. They‘ll face some obstacles. It‘s going to test just how deep their love is.
What brought you to South Africa? We‘re here to meet the media (thanks to M-Net) and also do a bit of sight-seeing. I‘ve always wanted to visit South Africa.
What‘s been a highlight? We got to go to Stellenbosch and taste some lovely wines. The wine farm areas are beautiful and I had a great time. Cape Town is awesome – I‘d have liked to see more of the city.
Did you go on safari? We did and it was awesome. We also spent time in Johannesburg.
Do you get recognised from being on the show? Only now! While I was working on seasons one and two, not that many people recognised me.
And your South African fans? Quite a few people have come up to me to chat and tell me they‘re big fans of the show. What‘s great in South Africa is there aren‘t too many people invading your space; when people notice who you are, they‘re very warm.
Will you visit again? We spent four days in Cape Town and I promise to come back soon. I just have to! There‘s a great beauty about the city and cool things to see and do!

The Star.com - 12/Jun/2009

[Source]
Iron Road goes to dark past
Published On Fri Jun 12 2009

Sun Li stars as Little Tiger in 'Iron Road,' a romance about Chinese railroad workers in B.C. during the late 1800s. The movie has its premiere Sunday.

SUPPLIED PHOTO

Nicholas Keung 
IMMIGRATION REPORTER

For Chinese railroad workers and early migrants to Canada, the new movie Iron Road rivals in significance to what The Pianist means to Jews living with memories after the persecutions during World War II – both dramas give a face to those nameless and voiceless who perished en masse in history.

Premiering at York University's Price Family Cinema Sunday, Iron Road does that in a Shakespearian fashion – through the romance between a young Chinese woman, Little Tiger, who, disguised as a boy, goes in search of her railroad-worker father in British Columbia a Canadian playboy James Nichol, whose father runs a company that builds railroad.

The movie – with a budget of more than $10 million and an international cast that includes American stars Peter O'Toole and Sam Neil, Canada's own Luke MacFarlane and Charlotte Sullivan, and China's Sun Li and Tony Leung Ka Fai – is the first big based on that dark era of Chinese-Canadian history at the turn of the late 18th century.

The events shamed Canada and forced Ottawa to issue redress and an apology to the effected community in Parliament in 2006.

The movie title, a literal translation of "railroad" from Chinese into English, symbolizes the interface of the underdog lured by the "Gold Mountain" dream who ends up abused and exploited as cheap labour. The antagonist is a growing Canada in need of labourers to do the dangerous job of building a transcontinental railroad.

"It's an amazing story of bravery and courage and a cross-cultural love story set against historical facts that many people do not know about," says producer Anne Tait.

"It touches the audience's heart and helps them go through the experience. And you do that through stories, especially love stories that pinpoints the dilemma of cross-cultural connections. That's the way to show attraction and problems."

The crew spent 31 days filming in "Chinawood," Hengdian World Studios, five hours from Shanghai. They also shot for 10 days across in Kamloops, Kelowna and Lynn Canyon, B.C. The beautiful natural landscapes are juxtaposed with human hardships – constant verbal abuses, inhumane living conditions, life-threatening jobs to set explosions to break ground for the rails and isolation from families and loved ones.

Those human tragedies are painted subtly, with the close-ups of callused hands driving the spikes to secure the rails and the panning across the grave markers dotted along the railroads to signal the Chinese lives lost in the process.

The hostile chants – "Chinamen" and "We don't want you here. Go home!" – that greeted the railroad workers are haunting.

Tait, a Toronto-based producer and casting director, said she was initially inspired to make the movie by the Chan Ka Nin opera of the same title eight years ago. The music and lyrics imprinted in her mind's eyes "an image of a Chinese woman disguised as a guy setting dynamites in the rock cliff." She called her friend, scriptwriter Barry Pearson, to discuss a film story. Writer Raymond Storey was later brought in.

But the filming wasn't possible until May 2007 with the feature's executive producers Arnie Zipursky, Tiger Hu and Han Sanping lined up, as well as funding from the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Canadian Television Fund, Film Initiative British Columbia, Ontario Media Development Corp., Astral Media, Cogeco Cable Fund and Shaw Rocket Fund.

So, is the movie a chick flick?

"Yes, a bit," said Tait with a chuckle. "But an epic, historical chick flick."

Tickets for the June 14 premiere and fundraiser are $88 and $100, available at www.yorku.ca/perform or by calling 416-736-5888. There will be a screening July 21 at Royal Cinema at 608 College St. A two-part miniseries of the TV-adopted version of the movie will be aired on CBC Aug. 9 and 16.