ASIA 365: Japanese & Asian Film

The Hong Kong film industry once produced stars like Bruce Lee, Chow Yun-fat and Wong Kar-wai: how did it get so big, and why did it fall?

From Jackie Chan's action comedies to Stephen Chow's mo lei tau classics, from Wong Kar-wai's swooning romances to Donnie Yen's martial arts epics, and from the time where hundreds of movies were being churned out every year to the current market completely dominated by Louis Koo, this is the place to go for features, interviews and reviews about movies both classic and new from Hong Kong.

Contemporary Hong Kong cinema covers a spectrum of genres; from film arthouse dramas to martial arts comedies to action blockbusters. Collected here are some of the greatest modern talents to emerge from Hong Kong’s film industry. Some names on this list, such as Wong Kar-wai, have received international acclaim, while others are household names in Asia but lesser known in the West – either way, these six directors deserve the credit.

This is a video essay for the course Doing Media Studies 2 created by My Nguyen. I chose the theme of History of Hong Kong Cinema for the Film Assignment.

An analysis of Hong Kong Cinema and In The Mood for Love (Wang Kai-War 2000)

Speaker Cindy Wong introduces Hong Kong Cinema.

In the late 1980s, new Korean films and directors suddenly emerged.

Several of the most acclaimed international films of the 21st century – Park Chan-wook's OLDBOY, Yeon Sang-ho's TRAIN TO BUSAN, and this year's sensation from Bong Joon-ho, PARASITE – have their roots in the Korean New Wave. This is a brief tour through the fiercely imaginative filmmakers and performers that guided the movement.

After Boog Joon Ho's Snowpiecer (2014) got international recognition, IndieWire introduced Korean New Wave with a few representative examples.

The best art typically reflects the anxieties of the society that bore it. In other countries, the only thing reflecting those worries is in art, and it can be argued that no class on modern Korean history is complete without understanding the films of the Korean New Wave. They offer some of the best rebukes to a government that has sometimes sued cold war-style politics despite being a striving democratic country. Turns out South Korean Cinema is often a battleground between the government and filmmakers - and how to best represent society to their citizens and the world.

Here is a brief history of the Korean New Wave, as illustrated by 11 must-watch movies that all led to the crowning of Parasite. If you're less "#BongHive" and more "Bong Joon-who?" let this be your starting point.

Americans are attuned to Korean film like never before. The awakening came with the dominance of this past year’s Academy Awards by Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite,” whose four Oscars included not just Best International Feature Film but Best Picture, an unprecedented victory for a non-English-language film. In the past twenty years, critics and film-festival habitués have consistently ranked South Korea’s film industry among the most exciting in the world, but many more casual moviegoers, it seems, still required the imprimatur of the Hollywood establishment before sampling its fruit.

Introducing a promotional video of the Korean Film Archive to you.
Where you and cinema meet: the Korean Film Archive.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Taiwanese directors like Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, Tsai Ming-liang, and Ang Lee made films that repeatedly won awards, acclaim, and recognition at international festivals. (As Oscar nerds know, Lee also went on to win the Academy Award for Best Director – twice!) In surveys, moreover, critics continue to rank the works of these directors as some of the finest ever made.

The Taiwanese Cinema industry underwent a transformation in the 1980s in response to the burgeoning popularity of Hong Kong cinema. As Anya Kordecki relates, a New Wave of directors emerged who made socially conscious art house films which placed an unflinching eye on Taiwanese society and culture, and successfully put Taiwanese cinema on the map.

A round up of 5 of our favorite films from the Taiwanese New Cinema (First Wave) that are perfect choices for beginners.

Here is the list of 100 Best Indian Films till date

Even if you’ve never actually seen a film from India, the word Bollywood immediately conjures up images of brightly colored productions featuring elaborately choreographed song and dance numbers, often with 100 or so dancers, and a boy-meets-girl story with a happy ending. But what is the history of India’s national cinema? How did it grow to become one of India's most financially lucrative industries and the world leader in both the number of films produced each year as well as audience attendance?

Although Indian cinema is one of the oldest world cinemas, and the largest in terms of output, its evolution in parallel to the West with little crossover until very recently leaves a lot of Western moviegoers with the impression that it’s daunting and inscrutable. But with a few simple guidelines, any American movie buff should be able to explore Indian cinema, particularly when it comes to the massive Hindi-language industry based in Mumbai commonly known as “Bollywood.”

In recent years China has been a consistent source of delight for cinephiles from around the world (Wong Kar-Wai’s ‘In the Mood for Love’ is at No.7 on our best movies of all time list) Filmmakers in China have been experimenting with various forms and have produced new works that stand out from most other forms of filmmaking. Here is the list of top Chinese movies ever. You can watch some of these best Chinese movies on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime.

Time Out presents the greatest Chinese Mainland films of all time. Working with our sister magazines in Beijing, we polled an auspicious 88 film experts from across the world to determine the 100 best films of all time from 1930s silent classics, blockbuster wuxia epics and independent documentaries.

From Oscar-winners to local heroes, we profile ten of the greatest directors from China.

New ways of storytelling and rich political allegories were the innovations that this new breed of maverick directors introduced.

From the 1930s golden age via kung-fu and swordplay epics to new waves and the modern era, we introduce the five sections that make up our huge, four-month celebration of 100 years of filmmaking in China.

This paper seeks to map out the key stages in the astounding rise and rise of Thai cinema from the late 1990s to the present day.

Before I go into the Thai movie month I will begin with an overview of Thai movie history. It dates back all the way to birth of cinema, when brothers Lumière toured Southeast Asia and screened their films. After seeing this, king’s brother Prince Thongthaem Sambassatra went to Europe, brought back the film technology and started making movies. He is considered “the father of Thai cinema”.

Iran has long been a flourishing garden of cinema, known for the blunt minimalism and piercing emotional directness of its filmmaking. These films provide a good introduction.

Four Iranian films made it into the top 100 in BBC Culture’s recent poll to find the greatest foreign-language films. Hamid Dabashi celebrates the country’s outstanding cinematic moments.

Since the inception of Lollywood, Pakistan’s film industry, its fortunes have shifted along with the region’s political landscape. This brief history of its ups and downs includes mini-profiles of some of the key movers and shakers.

A diverse group of industry experts, such as filmmaker Farjad Nabi, actors Nimra Bucha and Sania Saeed, discuss the challenges that face Pakistani cinema as it learns to carve a unique identity for itself.