It seems that at the end of a production, time compresses. It gets dense. There is some kind of warp that happens where a day feels like a week and a week passes in a moment. I was shocked to read our "Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" family comments and realize that there has been a considerable gap between posts. I regret that, family, but I invoke the above sense of time as my defense.
A great deal has happened on the movie: we have successfully moved to Shanghai, we have finished Jet Li's time with us in the movie and today, I finish sweet, sweet Michelle Yeoh. I have two weeks of a crazy chase and a few days of the O'Connell Family drama in Jonathan's Egyptian-themed nightclub in Shanghai named appropriately "IMHOTEP'S," complete with scantily clad dancers, live orchestra and deco motifs.
Jet was great to the last shot, his suffering under the curse of Zi Yuan (Michelle), which involved considerable discomfort for him in real life, but he took it like the pro he is and turned it into something unforgettable.
We shot all the scenes in the Emperor's Throne Room with a team of Chinese culture advisors constantly helping me with Qin dynasty language, ceremonies, and behavior. Every film is a journey in which you learn new things about life at every level. This film has been packed with new knowledge, that "art" and "intellect" people would stand at the Emperor's left, "military" at his right; that musicians were not allowed swords, that no one was ever allowed to turn his back to the Emperor, on and on. But the film gods dwell in the details. Even if it's a world with which you're not familiar, it feels true. Generalize them at your own peril.
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