Stills from Wolf Totem, starring Feng Shaofeng  Photos: Courtesy of the China Film Group Corporation

As the show business adage goes "Never work with animals or children." 

Shooting with animals is an already difficult job for most filmmakers, but people probably thought they were crazy when director Jean-Jacques Annaud and producers Wang Weimin and Xavier Castano decided to use real wolves for their film Wolf Totem back when they started production seven years ago, as these wild animals are practically un-trainable.

Just raising and training the wolves took up four of the seven years that were used to make the film.

"Nobody in Hollywood makes movies the way we are making movies here," said Andrew Simpson. The film's wolf trainer, he began training three generations of 20 Mongolian wolves for the film in 2010.

Wolves are the main characters of Chinese writer Jiang Rong's 2004 semi-autobiographical novel Wolf Totem. Set in China from 1960 to 70, partly during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), the novel follows two students who go to Inner Mongolia and live with the region's nomadic people and co-exist with the prairie's wild creatures. The novel's depiction about the culture of ethnic Mongolian nomads and man-made ecological disasters on the prairie earned the novel critical acclaim.

As of April 2014, the book has been reprinted more than 150 times, with circulation reaching over 5 million copies. The book's impact expanded internationally after it was translated into 30 languages and published in over 100 countries.

It was probably inevitable that such an influential novel would be turned into a film, but it raised the difficult question as to how the film makers would bring all the scenes involving wolves to life while filming in the harsh environment of Inner Mongolia.

The right director



"It was a nightmare when we started," said Wang, describing how difficult it was to select the wolves and get along with them. Annaud refused to use dogs instead of wolves like many other film or TV dramas tended to do, because he believed, "They are very different animals." In his opinion, "dogs are domesticated animals" that are "friendly and happy," whereas "wolves are worried and live in packs."

This desire to depict the natural state of wolves even extended to the wolves themselves. After Wang found some of wolves at the training base in Beijing began to get friendly with humans after feeding, Annaud refused to use them since this didn't match the natural social behavior that Jiang so accurately described in his novel.

An Academy Award winning director, Annaud is experienced when it comes to dealing with animals, as he shot with bears in his film The Bear (1988) and with tigers when shooting Two Brothers (2004).

"If it wasn't for Annaud, we couldn't have successfully made this film," said La Peikang, the president of the China Film Group Corporation, at the film's premiere in Beijing on Wednesday while recalling how difficult it was to find the right director to take on the task. La had reached out to other famous foreign directors as well, but after taking them to Inner Mongolia and showing the hardships that would come from filming no one was willing to take the job.

However, Annaud decided to take on the project after only making his way through the first one-third of the book. "When I read it, I felt fully connected with the book's fabulous, epic emotions, it was fascinating, entertaining and touching," Annaud said during the conference.

Three-year wait



Once wolves were selected for training, the next step was to choose the right trainer. Wang recalled that when they reached out to Canadian animal trainer Andrew Simpson through the phone, unlike many other people who would probably show excitement, Simpson was quiet and calm on the other side of the phone before saying, "I've been waiting for this call for three years."

Wang explained that Simpson had read the novel years ago and was confident that someone would adapt it to film one day and that he would be approached for the job.

An experienced animal trainer, Simpson has worked on over 100 films and TV shows, including Brave Heart, I, Robot and Eight Below.

 "Annaud was the only one that could direct this film, Simpson was the only one who could train those wolves," Wang said.

Real conditions



Annaud confessed that this film was more difficult to shoot than any of the other animal films he has made.

"Wolves are the most difficult animal to train. In addition, the novel has massive and epic action scenes featuring wolves hunting Mongolian gazelle and attacking horses. It was much more complicated than The Bear and Two Brothers," the director said.

Sometimes, it would take an entire day just to get the right look or action from a wolf.

The entire shoot lasted for eight months, covering all four seasons so they could depict actual conditions such as heavy snows and how wolves grow up. 

"The biggest thing about wolves are, they rely on their instinct all the time, it's not a very trusting animal, not a very understanding animal or accepting of new situations. You have to show it confidence, have it trust in you that you are protective," said Simpson in a featurette for the film.