 The film was co-produced by the American companies Focus Features and River Road Productions, and Chinese companies Shanghai Film Group Corporation and Haishang Films and the Taiwanese Hai Sheng Film Production Company.The director is Ang Lee, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, and the actors/actresses are from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan as well as the United States.It was shot in Shanghai, the neighboring province of Zhejiang, Hong Kong (at Hong Kong University), and some locations in Penang and Ipoh in Malaysia used as 1930s/1940s Hong Kong.