Giong Lim at the press conference on Wednesday, June 23 in Beijing.[Photo: CRIENGLISH.com/ zhucheng]
Taiwan musician Giong Lim held a press conference last week in Beijing to promote the background music for "I Wish I Knew", a dedicated film for the Shanghai World Expo 2010.
A music video made to accompany the background music "Liu Zhu Fang Hua" for "I Wish I Knew" was shown to the media at the press conference.
Giong Lim is the winner of this year's Best Music Award at the Golden Goblet Awards of the 13th Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF). He was invited by director Jia Zhangke to make background music for his film "I Wish I Knew".
Lim told the media about how he started cooperating with Jia: "before the first time I worked with director Jia, we had never met. He just sent me an email and asked me to write music for his movie. We only met each other in Beijing when he finished shooting the film."
The film by Chinese director Jia Zhangke shows how Shanghai has changed over the past 100 years, starting at the beginning of the 20th century, through interviews with 18 special Shanghai residents of different ages, including a modern artist, a writer, the son of a Chinese film star from the 1920s, and a daughter of a Shanghai gang boss also from the earlier part of the 20th century.
When commenting on his music for "I Wish I Knew", Lim said he used evocative music to bring audiences back into the interviewees' memory and it chimes in with director Jia's view of expressing the film.
"I think of the background music as a service for the film; I want it to help the director deliver his ideas to the audience" said Lim.
Lim has won many awards in the past including three Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan for Best Music in 1996, 2001, and 2006.
He was recognized by music fans for his album "Xiang Qian Zou" in 1990, which sold 400 thousand copies in Taiwan.
Then Lim started his film music production by cooperating with renowned Taiwan director Hou Hsiao-hsien for his film "The Puppet Master" (1993) where Lim also played a role in the film. After that, he worked with director Hou for a few other films.
"I Wish I Knew" opens across China on July 2nd.
