Chinese actor Feng Shaofeng works with director Jean-Jacques Annaud in Wolf Totem, a movie adapted from a Chinese best-seller. Photo provided to China Daily

Directing with wolves

It's all about making a spectacle

Feng also had to clean the cages, cut meat and feed the wolves. One of the baby wolves suffered from bad sight and was kept in the cage to avoid being bullied by other wolves. Feng felt sorry for him and often secretly gave him more meat than others. The cub grew stronger than the others and ultimately became the lead wolf actor in the film.

"We developed some friendship," Feng says. "When the director and I gave him meat at the same time, he would only take it from me."

One of the most demanding scenes in the film involved not only Feng and the wolves but also horses. Annaud had detailed storyboards, demonstrating the sequences on a table with miniature props of wolves and horses. But the scene of wolves and horses fighting in snowstorm－only 12 minutes in the film－took two winters to finish.

As Annaud explains, the scene could only be shot from the end of October to November, because after that it would be too cold on the grasslands. Cameras and equipment could not work in extreme ice and snow.

Besides, Simpson made it a rule that the wolves work only for one hour every day. Otherwise, they would get tired of the shooting and ignore further orders.

"No matter how famous the actors are, they have to wait for the wolves to be ready, and Andrew will stop the shooting anyway when time is up," Annaud says.

The director refused to use computer-generated images, so he had to split the shooting over two winters. "You can finish the scene in two weeks with blue screen, but it will look like blue screen."

The wolves are now in Canada, where Simpson is building a camp for them to lead a semi-retired life.

"The wolves never lived in the real wild. They were trained in English, and most importantly, we cannot possibly think of anyone who loves and understands them better," says Wang Weimin, the film's producer. "We think we made the right decision."