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"It wasn't enough for this troupe to arouse people's mercies," Liu said. "We wanted their respect."Teir frst performances were sellouts, and they never looked back.
Performers are the stars
Recognition was not coming fast enough. So in 2002, Liu decided have a flm made of his troupe. Several well-known flm companies their expressed interest in making feature flms about the troupe. But Liu didn't want a feature flm with actors playing his performers. He wanted them to play themselves.
So they worked with the Beijing Film Academy, one of China's top flm schools, and director Wang Honghai to produce a documentary. Te project took 1 1/2 years.
The opening sequence includes lead troupe and dancer Tai Lihua with hearing impairments in the studio, struggling to express herself in words.
"To all of us, some things are given, some things are withheld over which sometimes we have no choice," she says in Mandarin, her voice hoarse and trembling. "But one can always choose one's outlook on life, and look more on the positive side, and face life's disappointments with a cheerful and grateful heart."
With a copy of their new documentary, the troupe also produced several color catalogs of the movie's production and cast biographies. Tey sold DVDs on tour.
Then, this fall, came their biggest performance yet -- the American Film Market. And the troupe left nothing to chance. Te troupe bought four-page advertising spreads in industry magazines such as Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. Advertising placards for the flm adorned shuttle buses at the meeting. Trailers played in the lobby and on elevator screens.
"We had no superstar. If we had Richard Gere, we would not have had to have been so aggressive," Liu said. "We were featuring a second-class people most everyone believes cannot make art."
The campaign worked. Teir marketers were fooded with ofers from distributors from several countries. As Matt Kennedy, marketing director for Liberation Entertainment, put it: "Te movie just blew me away. It's the type of product I want to be associated with. It makes people feel good."
At the convention, one producer told 14-year-old deaf dancer Cheng Cheng that in her native costume she was the most beautiful girl in the world. "I felt so happy," she said. "I'm just a poor girl from China. Andthis troupe has changed my life."
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