"She’s Got No Name", a powerful drama starring Zhang Ziyi, made a stunning comeback this weekend as the Shanghai International Film Festival’s opening title. Defying convention, the film also rewrites mainland China’s release rules; Instead of being a world premiere, which custom dictates for an A-list festival, the film is a recut of the version that debuted at Cannes in May 2024. Moreover, the new feature is now the first episode of a two-part story.

"She’s Got No Name" is a retelling of a 1945 cause celebre in which a Shanghai woman was accused of murdering her husband. The woman never quite owns up, but gleefully admits to having disposed of the dead man’s head so that she won’t be troubled by her abusive husband in the afterlife. 

The film is the brainchild of writer-director-producer, Peter Chan Ho-Sun, whose early films marked him as a Hong Kong auteur, but who has also long sought success in the PRC market.

Chan finished production of his new work in early 2024 and accepted an invitation to play the film in competition in Cannes. However, the invitation meant post-production was rushed and movie suffered a chilly reception. “I let my ego get in the way and with hindsight should not have gone to Cannes,” Chan told ContentAsia. “My original intention was for it to be a longer story, a two-part film or a premium mini-series.”

Chan credits Shanghai’s city authorities and festival organisers as being instrumental in enabling the work – an archly modern and feminist tale set in their city – to be resuscitated. “They basically asked ‘what do you need to make this happen’,” Chan reports.

In addition to having film editing ace William Chang Suk-ping handle the mass of previously unused footage, the two-part movie needed to shed its image as damaged goods. That involved the unprecedented recertification of She’s Got No Name (Part 1) by Chinese authorities as a new film and giving it a fresh promotional push in the mainland market.

In addition to the festival red carpet treatment, the new film began its commercial rollout with a relatively rare “platform release” in 120 Shanghai cinemas ahead of a full nationwide rollout on Saturday (21 June). (Part two is not yet completed, but it is expected to release later this year.)

Early box office estimates are promising. Ent Group reports that She’s Got No Name has already earned US$630,000 and had a US$2,800 per screen average on Sunday. That was by far the highest of any title on commercial release this weekend. – By Patrick Frater