From there, the production moved to Shanghai, China. From the very beginning, Abrams envisioned a sequence taking place in the Far East; after scouting Japan, the filmmakers took a trip to China and found a location unlike any other in the world. The China locations were produced with the assistance of China Film Co-Production Corporation and The Fourth Production Company China Film Group Corporation.
“Shanghai is a futuristic, science-fiction city,” says Abrams. “It’s also a city that reveals a real cost to its expansion: old neighborhoods are being razed in order to build these monolith office buildings. That was fascinating – the ancient as counterpoint to the brand new and what’s next.”
“Shanghai was just astonishing,” adds Chambliss. “Even though so many people are being displaced, there’s this incredible spirit of optimism and energy. I think they consider themselves the city and country of the future.”
The production also found that a short distance from Shanghai, many fishing villages still live in much the same way that they have for centuries. With this in mind, the writers decided to showcase this part of the country. “Our locations managers and props designer identified a handful of cities outside of Shanghai; Xitang was the most unusual in terms of its look for an American film – I hadn’t seen this before,” says Abrams.
Xitang is an ancient fishing village about a two-hour drive outside Shanghai. It is estimated to be around 1,000 years old and boasts a 700-year-old restaurant. “Xitang is the setting that bookends the film,” explains Abrams. “We wanted to use the ancient town as a backdrop for an emotional endpiece.” One location in the United States was a homecoming of sorts for Abrams. When preparing to film Ethan Hunt’s home, Abrams asked Chambliss to style the set after Abrams’s own house. “It made things simple for me,” says Chambliss. “I just called J.J.’s wife, Katie, and asked if I could come over to take some pictures.”
According to Michelle Monaghan, the director was unprepared for how much like his own home the set would look. “J.J. kind of freaked out,” she says. “He was checking it out and was like, ‘This is my bathroom.’ It was pretty funny.”
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