Asian film directors hope to build on global gains at Cannes (Feature)

By Andrew McCathie May 3, 2010, 4:06 GMT

Cannes - The Asian movie business heads to the Cannes Film Festival this month hoping to build on the big strides it has made over the years on the world cinema stage.

With an impressive line-up of movies from Asian directors included in the movie showcase's top categories, the stars of the continent's burgeoning cinema world are set to once again join the glamour offensive on the festival's famous red carpet.

They includes A-List celebrities such as Korea's Lee Jung-jae and Jeon Do-yeon. Dubbed the Queen of Cannes by the Asian media, the 38-year-old Jeon won the best actress award for her performance in Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine three years ago.

But despite the growing global recognition of the Asian film business, the real risk for the industry is the emergence of a dividing line between movies that receive critical acclaim at festivals like Cannes, and those that are able to make their mark on the domestic box office.

'It's a split industry,' said Jacob Wong from the Hong Film Festival. 'Internationally, it now comes down to handful of big name Asian directors who have emerged on the film festival circuit.'

Filipino Brillante Mendoza last year won the festival's best director award for Kinatay, while Korea's Park Chan-wook was awarded the jury prize for Thirst, and China's Mei Feng took home the best screenplay award for Spring Fever.

In her return to the Croisette - the palm-lined boulevard that cuts through Cannes - Jeon plays the role of a sinister femme fatale in Im Sang-soo's remake of the 1960s thriller The Housemaid, by Kim Ki-young.

Korea's Lee Chang-dong will also be returning to Cannes with a weighty drama - Poetry - which features 1960s movie icon Yun Joeng-hie as a woman seeking the meaning of life as she battle Alzheimer's disease.

Coming as Korea's motion picture industry slowly emerges from a crisis sparked by overproduction and ballooning budgets, the two Korean directors' movies head up a strong Asian contingent at what is the world's leading film festival.

China has gained a last-minute slot in Cannes' prestigious top category with Wang Xiaoshuai's Rizhao Chongqing (Chongqing Blues) selected to join the race for the festival's coveted Palme d'Or (Golden Palm).

With his movies often focusing on the sense of upheaval in modern Chinese urban life, Wang's new film tells the tale of a father investigating the murder of his estranged son.

Wang's inclusion in the race for the Palme d'Or comes five years after the 43-year-old filmmaker won Cannes' jury prize for his movie Shanghai Dreams, about a family's attempts to return to its Shanghai home town.

Since then, Chinese cinema has undergone considerable change as the industry in the nation expands and as filmmakers test out a range of genres along with drawing on influences from western filmmaking traditions.

'There's a lot of diversity now, a lot of genres,' said veteran Chinese director Zhang Yimou. 'It's not like 10 or 20 years ago when Chinese cinema was very, very restricted. Now there are lots of directors with different styles.'

Yimou also believes that signs of change have also emerged at Beijing's heavy-handed censorship board. 'China is opening up,' he said.

'It certainly was much more restricted 20 years ago,' said the 58-year-old filmmaker. 'As a director you couldn't do what you wanted. You had to think about what kind of story you could tell.'

Moreover, with a new screen opening every day across China, many of the nation's filmmakers believe commercial pressures are growing.

'The changing environment poses a real problem for Chinese cinema,' said leading Chinese director Wang Quan'an.

'It is not so much censorship,' he said. 'The big issue is that distributors and markets are becoming more commercial,' the director said.

This year's Cannes festival also marks cult-Japanese director Takeshi Kitano's return to his gangster movie genre roots with the festival to premiere his violent thriller Outrage.

Famous for his deadpan acting style, the veteran filmmaker also stars in the movie, which is the 63-year-old director's first Yakuza gangster movie in more than a decade.

Quirky Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul also returns to Cannes with Loong Boonmee Raluek Chaat (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives), which was inspired by a Buddhist monk's sermons.

The 39-year-old Weerasethakul has gained strong recognition at film festivals around the world over the years, winning the 2004 jury prize in Cannes for Tropical Malady, about gay lovers and a trek to find a metamorphosed tiger.

Two years earlier, the Bangkok-born director gained the festival Un Certain Regard section's top prize for Blissfully Yours.