Zhang Yimou, the great Chinese film director, was intrigued by a story set during the Cultural Revolution that was getting buzz on the Internet in China. But he sees the turbulence of that era as only the backdrop to his love story, "Under the Hawthorn Tree," which had its U.S. premiere Thursday at the Hawaii International Film Festival.

"My film is not about the Cultural Revolution," said Zhang at an opening-day news conference at the Sheraton Waikiki. "The 10 years of the Cultural Revolution was tragic. Everyone knows this, and to go into details would be too complicated. So I wanted to make this film a simple story that’s about love and plain emotion. Politics is just in the background."

At Thursday’s screening, Zhang, who was a teenager during the Cultural Revolution, suggested it’s still a sensitive subject in China. "By not emphasizing it in this film, more stories about this period will come out," he said, noting that his 1994 film "To Live," which refers to the Cultural Revolution, had still not screened in China.

Zhang, who has a history of discovering new talent, cast two young attractive unknowns as leads, and with the film a huge hit in China, actors Zhou Dongyu and Dou Xiao are being declared the stars of tomorrow.

The director came to Hawaii after screening his new movie at the Pusan International Film Festival in South Korea. No other screenings are scheduled for the Hawaii festival, but "Under the Hawthorn Tree" is scheduled to hit U.S. theaters in summer.

Zhang, 58, is best known to Western audiences for his martial arts epics "House of Flying Daggers" (2004) and "Hero" (2002), and stories of intrigue within the ruling class such as "Curse of the Golden Flower" (2006) and "Raise the Red Lantern" (1991), which earned him his second Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.

In his newest film, a young girl named Jing (Zhou) is sent to the countryside because her family is declared "rightist." During the Cultural Revolution of the ’60s and ’70s, this was the worst sentence that could be rendered, with millions being stripped of their belongings and shipped off for "re-education."

Jing falls in love with Sun (Dou), who has also been sent to the countryside, though he comes from a well-connected family. To pursue romance in this situation is as taboo as anything in "Romeo and Juliet," but the young lovers try find a path to happiness. Zhang was given a screenplay by his assistant, based on a novel by Ai Mi, and found the love story had been widely circulating online among young Chinese.

"That’s when I realized how powerful this story was and how resonant it was with Chinese people," the director said through an interpreter. "They were very surprised about how such a pure love story could happen during such a difficult times."

Zhang stared as a cinematographer and his films are visually spectacular. For "Under the Hawthorn Tree," however, he had to tone down the color palette, outfitting his characters mostly in the drab blue and green Mao suits that were the norm.

"This story tells a very simple love story, and so it required a very simple method of storytelling," he said.

Zhang’s two young stars said they had little personal experience to draw on in creating the drama of romance.

The 18-year-old Zhou was selected after Zhang’s assistant picked her out of a lineup and photographed her from all angles, then asked her to smile. She said she’s never had a boyfriend.

"My schooling has been very traditional, and so is my attitude," Zhou said, her co-star acting as translator. "But I think any 18-year-old girl knows what it’s like to have these feelings come out."

The English-speaking Dou, 22, who emigrated to Canada as a boy but now studies acting in China, said he has had girlfriends but never experienced anything as intense as what is portrayed in the film.

"(For) our first ‘date’ in the film, we had to walk through a field of flowers," he said. "Even for that I was pretty nervous, and the director had to help us through."

There were other times when Zhang let the cameras roll for extended periods, allowing his actors to explore the scene on their own. This resulted in a "fresh" depiction of the awkwardness of first romance, the director said.