 At a birthday party recently I was chatting to some friends about whether they had seen any good films lately. One said they’d seen this brilliant movie on DVD called Oldboy. There was a murmur of agreement among everyone, which surprised me.
At last movies from Asia (Japan, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Korea) are not only proving to be hugely influential in Western cinema technique and sensibility but are also reaching a mainstream audience. The people at that party weren’t cinephiles though they do enjoy films.
Since the 1990s the Western industry and cinema-goers have opened their eyes to their Asian brothers and sisters, who are making films of such quality that the directors and actors have been urged to come to Hollywood. John
Woo, the first major import, who made two-handed gun-play so fashionable again (since the western) that it has become de rigeur, was persuaded to invigorate the action genre. Face/Off was the best action movie since Terminator 2. Along with Woo came Ang
Lee from Taiwan. After Eat Drink Man Woman he was hired to inject something into the staid period drama for Sense and Sensibility, and ever since has been shaking up every genre he touches. The man has a sensitivity and intelligence that is barely equaled in the world of directors at the moment.
Along with the directors came the actors. There was high praise for the non-damsel in distress Michelle
Yeoh as the best Bond babe for ages in Tomorrow Never Dies. Jet
Li ate up the screen in Lethal Weapon 4, and was probably the best baddie in the whole franchise. (Watch the Region 1 version which is uncut for violence for the absolutely ferocious show-down.) Jackie
Chan and Zhang Ziyi were the only good things about the dire Rush Hour movies. Chow
Yun-Fat proved to have the charisma and smolder equal to any leading man in The Corruptor. Ken
Watanabe stole The Last Samurai right from under the nose of the Cruiser.
 Talking of that film there have been some set backs in Hollywood-Asian relations. The Last Samurai lazily re-wrote history. Then there was Lost in Translation, a very good film on one level but on another it was ambiguous how the writer-director felt about the culture clash. It was unclear whether there was affection/respect but certainly there was bemusement at the expense of the Japanese: the shower-head being too low, the slippers too small, the old man in the hospital waiting room, etc. However, the worst culprit has to be Memoirs of a Geisha, a completely cynical casting of Chinese and Malaysian women as Japanese, as if anyone wouldn’t know or care. The whole movie was limp and patronizing, it should have been called ‘McGeisha with Fries’. A travesty of cinema and taste.
At least the powers that be recognize quality. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. We can not seem to move now for remakes planned and released of Asian films – The Ring, Dark Water, Infernal Affairs, The Grudge, Oldboy, Kaosu, etc. Are the remakes any good? A matter of opinion, but so devoid of ideas and chutzpah to make something original that the remake has become the comic-book, a safe bet. Like all movie crutches (e.g. sequels) the bubble will eventually burst. It’s only a matter of time before a few of them flop and the plug is pulled on the rest. Studio eyes and wallets will be on the Grudge 2 and The Departed, Scorsese’s remake of Infernal Affairs.
Not all is rotten in the state of Denmark though, to mangle some Shakespeare. We, in the UK, have been receiving some of the best from the Far East, increasingly so over the last few years. UK distributors have been emboldened to pick up a burgeoning crop of Asian films every year. Arguably the leading importer, Tartan, has now got a regular season under the banner ‘Tartan Asia Extreme’, showcasing movies from the more brutal end of the spectrum. Also, the annual Fright Fest festival in London usually has a crop of Far East horror and fantasy, e.g. Casshern and R-Point.
 From Thailand we have had the elbow/knee-crunching Ong Bak, the thoughtful Last Life in the Universe and the mental western Tears of the Black Tiger. From Japan, the sublime Dolls and the elegant Zatoichi, the stomach churning Ichi the Killer, the jaw-dropping Battle Royale and the luminescent Spirited Away and Steamboy. China and Hong Kong have given us the visually remarkable Hero, Infernal Affairs, Kung Fu Hustle and 2046.
However, in this reviewer’s humble opinion, the country which is causing the most excitement is Korea. The sheer unpredictability of the films, what mass entertainment seems to have forgotten, makes every time the lights dim in a cinema an exciting joy. Check out: Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance; Oldboy; Spring,
Summer, Autumn, Winter… and Spring; Untold Scandal; A Bittersweet Life and Sky Blue for examples.
 Not only that, directors’ names are being bandied about the film press in such high regard. Every new filmmaker on the block seems to quote Wong
Kar Wai as an influence. This May he is to be the first Chinese jury president at Cannes. Korea’s Kim
Ki-duk and Chan-wook Park are causing waves. Some have alleged that it was a close run thing between Oldboy and Fahrenheit 9/11 for the Palme d’Or under Tarantino’s presidency of the 2004 Cannes jury. The ubiquitous ‘Beat’ Takeshi
Kitano and Miike Takashi are making the sublime and the horrific respectively. Zhang
Yimou is now appreciated by both the art-house and mainstream. Hayo
Miyazaki, along with Pixar, is a force of nature in the animation world.
Will success blunt the impact of future films? Who knows, but there’s plenty to look forward to: In February Lady Vengeance and Seven Swords,
Wong Kar Wai’s The Lady from Shanghai with Nicole
Kidman, Beat Takeshi’s exploration of his personas in Takeshis’, the Ong Bak follow up from director and star Tom Yum Goong,
Zhang Yimou’s $45 million epic Autumn Remembrance with Chow
Yun-Fat and Gong Li, and Pan-Ek
Ratanaruang’s new one, Invisible Waves.
Hemanth Kissoon
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