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Following the Currents: Jia Zhangke and Zhao Tao on Caught by the Tides
Zhao Tao and Li Zhubin in Caught by the Tides With Jia Zhangke’s Caught by the Tides sneak previewing in New York via Sideshow/Janus Films, we are unlocking our Spring, 2025 cover story, an interview with the director as well as lead Zhao Tao covering their collaboration on this film as well as across their filmographies. On May 4, 5 and 6, Jia will be doing Q&As at New York’s IFC Center and Film at Lincoln Center. Caught by the Tides opens May 9. — Editor
Few major auteurs have successfully used footage from their previous films to create an entirely new one on equal footing with their greatest works, but for Jia Zhangke, whose project has in large part been to document changes in China’s landscape and society, such reflexive behavior makes particular sense. In Caught by the Tides, we witness the intertwined changes in his aesthetic sensibility as partly determined by the technology that’s enabled it, from mini DV to the cold, immaculate sheen of today’s professional grade digital cinema equipment. Moreover, we witness the changes in Zhao Tao—Jia’s collaborator since Platform (2000) and, since 2012, partner in marriage as well—whose ability to blend with an environment takes on new meaning when we see the evolution of both her face and those landscapes during the film’s compression of 22 years into under two hours.
Incorporating footage from their collaborations on Unknown Pleasures (2002), Still Life (2006) and Ash Is Purest White (2018) alongside outtakes from those productions, mini-DV footage Jia has been capturing independently since the turn of the millennium and a freshly scripted final act, Caught by the Tides epitomizes Jia’s ability to chart the macro currents driving China’s interpersonal relationships over time. Its creation is an act of love and the expression of a central theme—the emancipation of women from men—present in each of the films it excerpts, which finds its strongest expression in the new footage. Here, Zhao’s masculine foil is a character called Guo Bin, or “Brother Bin,” played by Li Zhubin and suggesting continuities not only with his previous appearances in Unknown Pleasures and Still Life, but also with the character named Bin played by Liao Fan in Ash Is Purest White.
When asked below about the recurring archetype of Zhao Tao’s character as a woman—often named Qiaoqiao, who, after fruitlessly chasing a man, finds solace in her independence—Jia likens her to the Monkey King and his many pop culture iterations, all stemming from Journey to the West, a canonical 16th century novel about a Chinese monk dispatched to India on a knowledge-seeking mission by the Buddha himself, along with three protectors, including Sun Wukong (a.k.a. the Monkey King).
Among the story’s offshoots is an animated film by the Wan brothers from 1961 based on its first chapters. Havoc in Heaven is a delightful tale about Sun Wukong’s birth from a stone, conscription to Heaven as a member of the Celestial Bureaucracy, and eventual rebellion against the gods. In Jia’s Unknown Pleasures, two characters visit an underground video parlor where they view the film while one complains about having been scolded by her mother for watching TV, even though she was watching a World Trade Organization meeting for its potential relevance to her upcoming school exams. The other exclaims, “The WTO, who cares! Just another money thing. The Monkey King is lucky. No parents on his back. He’s free as the wind. He doesn’t give a shit about the WTO.”
In Journey to the West, the Monkey King’s arc begins with a battle against time as he seeks out a cure for mortality after watching another monkey die of old age. The 72 transformations granted him by a wizened bodhisattva, along with an ability to traverse long distances in an instant, provide him a guard against the vagaries and limits of time, as Zhao’s several iterations do to some degree for her own character. She can’t escape aging but nonetheless seems to bounce across 21st-century China’s developmental junctures with a certain alacrity.
Among the most emblematic of the country’s modern developmental projects is the Three Gorges Dam, which began construction in 1994 and was fully completed in 2012. In Caught by the Tides, as in Still Life, its centrality as a backdrop for Zhao’s wanderings suggests a parallel between collective and individual human endeavor and the turmoil of individuals coming up against something much larger than themselves. Spanning the Yangtze River, the dam too opposes the forces of nature.
Jia shares his own parallels with the Monkey King’s flux between rebellion and cooperation with the gods. Having once worked underground, he now believes that it’s necessary to engage state censors in dialogue so that Chinese filmmakers can be received by their own people, in their own country. Together with Zhao Tao, he has defiantly maintained a practice that on every level continues to push the boundaries of the visible and make legible China’s rapid transformation. My interviews with both were translated by Vincent (Tzu-Wen) Cheng. The film enters release from Sideshow/Janus Films on May 9.
Filmmaker: You’ve talked about how your films are observing change over time in the landscape, politics, society, but to see the change in somebody’s face is such a compelling mirror to that—and this feels almost like a tribute to how enduring that collaboration has been, perhaps even to the love between you. Can you talk about how you first met Zhao Tao and began working together?
Jia: [Zhao] first appeared in my second feature film, Platform. At the time, I was looking for someone who fit the character in this film spanning 1979 to 1989. It was important to find someone that could not only speak the Shanxi dialect but who could blend into that particular era in terms of how people dress, look and feel. Also, I needed a dancer because this is a film about a dancing troupe. So, I took a long time trying to cast the right person, then went to Shanxi’s Normal Dance Academy, [where] she happened to be the instructor.
Filmmaker: How did you two begin to fall in love? How did that intersect with the work? Do you keep a very firm boundary between the work and your personal life, or are they inseparable?
Jia: We started this collaboration around the same time I started to gather [non-feature-film] footage in a very aimless and spontaneous way, [which is] two-thirds of Caught by the Tides. When we started doing this type of spontaneous, aimless capturing of images wherever we went, she was part of a very small crew of people. Starting from there, she’s developed a unique performance style of her own, [which] has brought a lot of surprise and unexpected moments in my collaboration with her. I think she’s really ingenious. Since we’ve been working for so long and have so many films together, [and because of] the process of not only going to different festivals but also being involved in the distribution, releasing and promoting of the films, we of course spend a lot of time together. I think because of that long collaboration, we transitioned from colleagues in a professional environment into building a family together.
Filmmaker: Can you talk a little bit about this woman who’s searching for a man that Zhao Tao has embodied over the course of several films that come together in Caught by the Tides? Ultimately, does this film resolve that search in her eventual decision that she doesn’t need a man and she’s happy living her own life?
Jia: In the beginning, I didn’t have any preconceived notion of how this character and narrative would develop. The process was so long, going from this slice-of-life way of depicting a character [to] this more macro way of thinking about how society has evolved. This character [started by] being tormented by the trauma of love, then realizing that this particular love is unattainable, then realizing there is this female and individualistic way of consciousness, an individualist way of thinking. Because of this long span of time, I also get to observe that sense of loss when she realizes that, [with] Brother Bin, there’s no love between them anymore. That’s a very stark realization for her [because] in Chinese society the way people deal with love and romance tends to be conditioned by traditions and social pressures; a lot of people will stay in a loveless relationship just because it’s what’s expected [of them]. When she announces the breakup, that this is not working, it’s her saying, “This is a decision I made for myself.”
That’s a very stark contrast with Brother Bin’s character. He’s moved on to other relationships, but at the same time he was still very ambiguous about his relationship with Qiaoqiao. That’s by design, to have this sharp contrast between the male and female perspective and to break away from the conventional way female partners [are expected to] behave in a relationship. Even though we might have this romantic idea of having a close relationship with someone, that comes with a lot of burdens and pressure as well—whether or not to control each other, whether or not to be limited by the “we” identity rather than asserting individual identity.
Filmmaker: What changed between what you wanted to say about this dynamic in Still Life and Caught by the Tides? In other words, why retell that story of a woman who decides to break off a romantic relationship on her own terms?
Jia: The Three Gorges part of Caught by the Tides happened around 2005 and 2006, four or five years after the beginning of [shooting] the film. This is the stage of her life [where she] really start[s] thinking about marriage, because [she’s thinking that] “I’m not getting any younger.” I think that it’s also fitting for this particular juncture, right before the 2008 Olympics. China was going through dramatic economic development and transformation. That’s the political, social and economic context of what, where and when the character positions herself—this modernization, materialistically speaking, [alongside] a major transformation in how people think about this idea of mental or spiritual modernization.
Filmmaker: Unknown Pleasures and Ash Is Purest White fit together very obviously on a surface level because they’re the same characters, literally the same names, you’ve matched the costumes—but even in Still Life, as in Ash Is Purest White, you have Zhao Tao wearing the same yellow shirt. What is the significance of that? Have you always known that you wanted to cut footage from these films together?
Jia: Each film has a very clear identity for the character. In Still Life, Zhao Tao played a nurse; in Ash Is Purest White, Zhao Tao’s character is someone in the underworld. I’m almost thinking about Zhao Tao as an embodiment of the entire female population in China, like deities in the Taoist traditions. These deities can [take] many different forms or appearances, occupations and iterations. In Chinese legends, especially the legends of Journey to the West, you’ll see that the Monkey King can turn into 72 different iterations—different appearances, forms and shapes. So, this is not foreign to Chinese audiences; this is something we are very used to.
Filmmaker: Digital technology has developed alongside rapid changes in the Chinese landscape, and the present looks so crisp and clean and almost a little alienating. The last shot of the film, in the quiet, still, snowy landscape, particularly emphasizes this. What were your thoughts as you developed the look of the film?
Jia: Beginning in 2001 with the introduction of the DV camera, we started trying to explore the unique visual aesthetics of DV technology. Even though it was immature at the time, we saw it as an opportunity, and it actually worked very well and supported what we were doing. We were endlessly trying to capture images that would move us, and [because of] the agility of the camera, in terms of being so compact, so lightweight, we could take it with us in real spaces to capture images without being intrusive. The other thing was proximity to the subject: for the fictional sequences we would be very, very close to the characters. And because it’s so compact, we could bring it along with us to really experience the chaos and excitement at the turn of the century.
After we analyzed what we had from before, we wanted to create this sharp contrast, going from the turn of the century’s energy to something that is just the opposite. We shot during COVID and were pretty much stationary; we were restricted with our movement and also the distance between people—we were not as close as before. To me, that really decreased the energy that you feel in cities. Also, the characters have aged, so they tend to be quieter and more composed. I used high-definition wide angle shots in a very quiet, orderly way to tease out the stark contrast that I want to capture. There’s also a unique sense of contemporary loneliness that’s different from before, and I do think that people feel even more alienated by their environment, by their society. That’s why the last shot has a very shallow depth of field.
Filmmaker: You’ve spoken a lot elsewhere about the music in the film, but I wanted to ask specifically about the butterfly song [“Butterfly” by Swedish bubblegum dance group Smile.dk], which I can’t get out of my head now. Why do you come back to that song repeatedly?
Jia: This is actually [drawn from] my personal memories of public spaces for that particular era. You have the introduction of the internet and internet cafes, then mobile phones, and at the same time people started to dance to this particular music. They would dance to this song in disco clubs, then later on, you [would hear it whenever you were around] this dancing mat, like Dance Dance Revolution. For me, it’s a trigger to be transported back to that particular time and space. We were talking about the chaotic excitement that I was trying to capture during the turn of the century—this song embodied that.
Filmmaker: There was a time when you were very critical of government-approved films. You spoke of some of the Fifth Generation directors, the fact that they weren’t censored, as evidence of their artistic compromise. More recently, you’ve spoken of the young directors you’ve produced and worked with and called it absurd that they might consider working underground to avoid trying to get government approval. Can you talk about your evolution of thought on this matter?
Jia: Censorship is ongoing; it is still there. The only thing we can do is to try to advocate for censorship to evolve through time. I think the best way to be the advocate for that is to protect your own film and to be shown in the land that you shoot and that you were born in. Maintaining the independent spirit without compromising, and at the same time trying to advocate for room for these films to be seen in China—those are the two things that need to be done to be a champion for meaningful changes in censorship. You need to struggle, you need to communicate, you need to have a lot of dialogue.
Filmmaker: At some point, you had a title as a teacher of experimental film. How do you define that? What does it mean to you to make an experimental film?
Jia: For me, experimental filmmaking means that you need to innovate new ways to observe something, [to] create a new perspective on something or to expand possibilities in terms of audiovisual filmmaking. Because of these attempts, the audience will appreciate and understand film in a completely different way. That’s why I always want to continue to [make] short films as I’m making feature films, because that’s the best way to really develop new concepts for filmmaking. Right now, I’m involved in a five-minute-long short film with the subject of artificial intelligence.
Filmmaker: Are you able to talk about your feature film that’s beginning production soon?
Jia: It will be a road film about a female character going from an extremely cold place to a very warm place. I will probably collaborate with artificial intelligence scientists to try to make something that’s innovative. It’ll be a product of the labor of love between an artist and scientists. During this trip for the New York Film Festival, I actually visited two Chinese American artificial intelligence experts.
Filmmaker: Why does AI interest you?
Jia: It makes me rethink film and what changes might be coming as a result of AI technology. I think whatever technology we introduce to humanity will change the way we see the world, experience and view the world, give us new perspectives. I’m very curious.
Filmmaker: What is the general nature of your collaboration with Jia? For example, do you discuss the films together before or as the script is being written, the characters and themes?
Zhao: We often discuss character development for a script together. In the case of Caught by the Tides, the director told me out of the blue during the pandemic that he wanted to make a new narrative feature by editing and building on images that he captured and archived over the past 20 years. After director Jia had edited the first two-thirds of the film using previously shot images and footage, we watched it together to develop the character of Qiaoqiao. During the first phase of her character, Qiaoqiao was driven by emotions and emotionally dependent on her partner. During the second phase of her character, we saw the gradual awakening of her selfhood and agency, allowing her to be in control of her own emotions and feelings. Based on these two phases, we brainstormed the kind of person Qiaoqiao might become in the last third and agreed that this female character should grow stronger in her resilience and power.
Filmmaker: Once on set, what is the relationship like?
Zhao: We communicate and share our thoughts with each other. For example, whenever I finish a scene, I will go to the monitor to check the take and review my own performance, including my emotions, movements, blocking, expressions, etc., before discussing what adjustments need to be made. During the production of Caught by the Tides, there was one particularly memorable on-set discussion when we were filming in the Three Gorges. On the spur of the moment, the director wanted to shoot a scene where Qiaoqiao buys a box lunch in the cabin of a ferry. Originally, there was dialogue in the scene, but since the cabin was much nosier than expected, I had to perform my dialogue with the box lunch seller [at] a much louder volume. Nevertheless, the ambient sound was still way too loud, and our sound engineer was very concerned about the quality of the recording. After a few rehearsals and takes, I told the director that there is no need for the actors involved in this scene to speak at all; all I’m doing is buying a box lunch, which can be done without saying a word. The director accepted my suggestion. That was the first time I consciously acted in the silent film style, deliberately not speaking while using only movements and expressions to serve the plot points.
The last on-set discussion during production happened when we were shooting the last scene, where Qiaoqiao lets out a shout while jogging at night with a crowd of runners. In the script, Qiaoqiao simply jogs along with other joggers at night; there was no indication of any shouts in it. But when we filmed the scene on set as it was written and got the shot after about five takes, the director said that it’s time for a “do as you please” take before calling it a wrap. From our experience working with the director, a “do as you please” take means that the cast may do the scene again based on their own interpretations of the script; as such, I really wanted to deliver a performance that feels completely different from the ones in previous takes. Through the character development process, Qiaoqiao was made into a character who is not allowed to speak. Her silence in the film is not because she has nothing to say, but because she chooses not to speak. I feel that in the last scene she should have her own way to express herself; also at that moment, I especially wanted to give this character a voice. So, when we filmed the last take, I let out a loud shout. When it was done, the director thought it was good, and the shout was thus kept in the final cut of the film.
Filmmaker: What was it like to collaborate on Caught by the Tides specifically?
Zhao: While I have worked with director Jia on many films, Caught by the Tides is a very unique collaboration; from the initial concept to the final film spanned more than 20 years. [The concept] allows an actor to experience another possibility in acting, of using footage improvisationally filmed over the past 20 years as an integral part. In truth, the part of the film that worried me the most in the beginning was the [beginning parts] shot in the past, because it had been so many years since we filmed those images; I didn’t even remember how I acted and treated those scenes back then. My acting over the years has been a process of continuous learning and realization; it thus made me rather anxious to look back. But when I sat in the editing room and saw the edited footage shot in the past for the first time, I was completely relieved. While there might be some traces of immaturity, I am glad to see that there is a unifying thread in the way I act right from the beginning: I always put the character first.
Filmmaker: How did you feel upon seeing the film—among other things, seeing yourself age across the years onscreen?
Zhao: I was quite taken aback at first. For a film a little less than two hours in length, it captured my changes in appearance in the past 20-plus years; it struck me profoundly. I can’t really say which phase of mine is my favorite, since my past self no longer exists; we can’t make time stand still, so we should always embrace new life experiences while loving and being your best self here and now. I have the privilege of being documented by cameras for more than 20 years; for me as an actor, this is arguably the biggest gift of all.
Filmmaker: What was your personal process of creating the internal character for Qiaoqiao? Were you carrying pieces of other characters you’d played in previous films?
Zhao: In Unknown Pleasures, Ash Is Purest White and Caught by the Tides, all three characters are named “Qiaoqiao.” Not only do they share the same name, the clothes they wear and the community where they live, but even the name of their respective boyfriends are the same. Director Jia likes to name female characters in all his films Qiaoqiao, but in his mind, they are all different characters. For me, these three “Qiaoqiao”s are also independent from one another; their time periods, professional identities and specific situations that they have experienced are all different, and so are the ways I developed them.
The first time I played Qiaoqiao was in Unknown Pleasures in 2002. Unknown Pleasures is a standard narrative film with a complete script. I could read the script to get a feel of the character, who is actually not the focal point of the film. The film is mainly about the story of two teenage boys in a local mining area; she is just a secondary character with relatively significant screen time. As a side character, the details of Qiaoqiao’s life are not presented or fleshed out in the narrative. The film does not address questions such as: “What is Qiaoqiao’s family like? What is her occupation? What is her relationship with Brother Bin? What is her future?” With respect to this character, there is no narrative structure, nor is there causal narrative; she just appears without explanation. What we do know is that she is a freelance model in a local mining area, she likes to look pretty, she lives in an era when value systems are shifting and her romantic relationship seems to be going south.
The protagonist in Still Life wore the same clothes as Qiaoqiao in Caught by the Tides. Still Life was my first time playing a leading role. She had a clear occupation, a nurse. She had a clear predicament: after her husband did not return for many years, she decided to go to the Three Gorges to look for him. This character has a fully developed storyline and has to go to an unfamiliar place to solve her marital problems. I was not married when I worked on this film. To play a character who is not only married, but also has been experiencing marital distress, I had to rely on my imagination and observe women who were older than me. My makeup and styling were obviously those of a married woman; her sense of rhythm and the way she walked were also different from the Qiaoqiao characters in previous films.
In Ash Is Purest White, Qiaoqiao’s character was very clearly defined, a woman in the gangster underworld; her onscreen image was completely different from the freelance model and nurse characters without much experience in the world. Also, the time spans of the previous two characters are relatively short, telling stories that unfolded within one or two months of their lives. On the other hand, Qiaoqiao in Ash Is Purest White spanned from her youth to middle age.
To be frank, I didn’t know what kind of person Qiaoqiao was in Caught by the Tides at first [because] we have improvisationally filmed so many scenes over so many years. Director Jia finished editing the first two-thirds of the film during the pandemic using footage shot in the past before deciding to shoot the film’s contemporary part. I watched the first edited part, read the script for the last third of the film and found out that Qiaoqiao has now become a worker weighing fruits and vegetables in a local supermarket; Qiaoqiao in the film also didn’t speak a word from beginning to end. When we first began improvisationally shooting footage for this film project, Qiaoqiao was obviously a lively woman in the arts. After so many years, her beauty faded, and she found herself in a scene set in the most mundane location imaginable: a supermarket. Director Jia said that in this scene he hoped to show the stark contrast between the character’s dreams and her reality.
Qiaoqiao has tried so hard and struggled so much to find her way out but still ended up living back where she started; I understood then that, just like the film’s English title, Caught by the Tides, this time I would be playing a Qiaoqiao who is trapped by her own fate. I later also discovered the two key points of dramatic conflict in the third part of the film’s narrative: first, the person with whom you were once romantically involved suddenly appears in front of you after vanishing from your life so many years ago. Second, there’s a huge dramatic contrast when the character who has experienced so much in her life and internalized so much chooses to not express anything with words. Isn’t that what dramatic conflict is all about? To me, dramatic conflict is not about characters crying hysterically or fighting furiously; it is about the waves of emotions they experience internally in serious moments. I liked that Qiaoqiao had so much to say in her heart but chose not to speak, a kind of internal conflict.
Filmmaker: Although he has always been attentive to female characters, Caught by the Tides feels like Jia’s most feminist film yet. Do you think this is a result of the way your personal and creative relationships have intertwined and developed over the years? Do you have conversations about the role of men and women in society as well as the dynamics of your own relationship?
Zhao: I don’t consider Caught by the Tides a “feminist film,” nor does it deliberately deal with the subject of feminism. Instead, director Jia focused his attention more on “time.” He wanted to explore how a long span of time shapes and changes people. He also wanted to examine what kind of social changes we have experienced in the past 20-plus years. Having said that, I do think that female consciousness can be found consistently in all of director Jia’s works; therefore, it would be more fitting to call Caught by the Tides a film with female consciousness. Director Jia often says that women can serve as a mirror into men’s problems, and this is probably the reason why in his works he unconsciously expresses his concerns about the predicaments of women and treats all his female characters with love and respect; I find it quite admirable.
Director Jia and I don’t usually discuss topics related to the social roles of men and women, but as we grow older, we seem to gradually embody a more modern spirit in our thoughts and behavior; our female consciousness might have also been raised accordingly. Especially in recent years, more women have made their inspiring voices heard; more women’s issues have entered the public arena, and discussion on feminism has become more and more prevalent in society.
Filmmaker: What’s your favorite karaoke song?
Zhao: I don’t really have a lot of opportunities to sing karaoke in my daily life, but I have sung in my films a few times. For example, many years ago when we were shooting a scene later edited into the film Caught by the Tides, I sang the song “Happy Hometown” on the street; in Ash Is Purest White, I even sang “Shallow Drunk Life” in a karaoke setting. But when it comes to my favorite song, it has to be the song “Take Care” by Sally Yeh; it brings me many precious memories. I still remember the moment when it was played on set during the filming of Mountains May Depart. The feeling that life is unpredictable and full of twists and turns suddenly washed all over me, the feeling that my old friends are all scattered everywhere now. Only songs like this still speak to the angst of my generation.
