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Re: Problem in crediting nationality vs. ethnicity.

208.33.242.2

yes your distinctions are correct and worthy.
However, I was talking about "Asian cinema" as a whole, bringing in mutiple, but unique genres
Action- nobody does HK action like HK, and if anybody does it's cause their copying them or learning from their techniques, or hiring them. Thank god too we are finally brining over HK action stars to d othe moves too, because basically we (non-Asian cinema) can;t handle it. Watch Mel Gibson & DAnny Glover theoretically kick Jet Li;s ass in the end of Lethal Weapon 4. Jet gets kicked in the balls and falls down more gracefully than Gibson or Glover can even throw a clean punch. Funny story- I heard early preview audiences saw a differnt fight sequence (where the Lethal Weapon boys more soundly drub Jet without shooting, stabbing, and tag teaming him as much. They rejected it, it was too ridiculous. Final version slows Jet down by impaling him... even so watch it a coupla times, I still don;t think these guys could kick his ass in real life if he was impaled- and they certainly can;t act it.

Chinese Fairy tale epics - Chinese Ghost sory - remember that movie? what was that 5 years ago it came out, maybe 8?- every bit as good as Crouching Tiger (albeit with a lesser budget OK), very similar idea, would have wowed us here 8 years ago.

Comedies will take longer, because of the cultural language barriers, but will happen hopefully soon. I forget the guy, buy there is some physical comedy from some really popular guy (Steven Chang???) I forget, but it;s killer. However a lot of the puns dont make english sense, and their traditional "funny guy" roles are totally different than ours. WE don;t quite get teh "always hungry guy" for example.

Personally Zhang Yimou is my favotire director, and I believe the most creative intelligent and thorough film maker in the world - so thanks for giving him a shout! Find another film with as creative, emblamatic, powerful, and consistent use of color as his epics (specifically his older ones). Find one that uses color without it being cartoony color (like in Batman, etc.). I can;t think of many. Most I can are foreign themselves (Kieslowski with his color trilogy, Almodovar but thats a bit cartoony).

Raise the Red Lantern comes out and everyone pee's themselves here with good reason- it;s great. However, he was turning out things as good or better for 6 years before most of the US knew he existed, or anything about Asian film other than kung fu & subtitles.

Don;t forget our buddy Chen Kaige, who went to film school with Zhang, and worked on their first picture together. Zhang was his cinematographer on The Blue Kite (I think thats the name, maybe it was Yellow Kite...), then went off to do his own stuff, while Chen struggled a bit and moved to the US and is making more stuff here now.

Anyway- I getcha, but the sad fact is that before peope can be hit with the specific distinctions of the genres, nationalities, and differnt film schools of these unique countries, they first have to at least understand that there is Asian cinema, it has merit, etc.
Then they can get more involved,and more learned and specific hopefully.

I have hoped for more Asian film recognition in general for 6 years. My personal favorite films are Zhang, HK action, you dig?
Boy am I psyched that finally it is here!

But am I a bit annoyed though by awe stuck idiots telling me how amazingly revolutionary this film was. It;s popularity was revolutionary. For many americans it was revolutionary. PErhaps the technology used to eliminate wire traces, etc. are revoluationary.
Thats all Cool.

But I wish a bit more interest would be generated in the great movies that have been made there in the past 15 years. That was revolutionary!
The saving grace is perhaps not that it will bring more of the past 15 years to light for most, but that perhaps we will not miss out on the great works of the next 15 just because we have to read subtitles.

dg


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