Cinema Asia (2007)

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General		Extras
Category	Documentary	None
Rating
Year Of Production	2007
Running Time	254:23
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Steven Seidenberg Jamie Robertson Charith Pelpola
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	None Given
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Dual
RPI	?	Music	Big Bang & Fuzz

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Cinema Asia was originally made for Singapore Television and shown in Australia on SBS. The series, in 5 separate episodes, examines the film industries of China, Taiwan, Korea, India and Iran through film clips, behind the scenes footage, archive and contemporary footage and short interviews with a diverse range including film makers, film financers, film critics and government spokespersons. Cinema Asia is a 2 disc set with China and Taiwan on disc 1 and Korea, India and Iran on disc 2. The following is a summary of each episode.

China (51:02)

     China has the third largest film industry in the world, but of approximately 300 films produced (in 2007), only 40 were released theatrically, and of these only 10 made a profit. The problem is that China has only around 3000 screens throughout the country (a fifth of those in the USA) so even if a film is popular it struggles to make a profit. The other limiting factors are government censorship and piracy – pirated copies of new films are immediately available and are a fraction of the cost of a cinema ticket.

     This episode looks at the emergence of the “fifth wave” of Chinese directors after the end of the Cultural Revolution, such as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige and Feng Xiaogang. While all started with smaller films for the domestic market, Zhang Yimou especially gained domestic and international recognition (and profit) with such films as Hero. As a consequence, even Feng Xiaogang, who originally stuck to smaller contemporary films such as Cell Phone (2003), moved to more internationally friendly epic films such as The Banquet (2006), but without the same level of success.

     The episode also looks at the “sixth wave” of filmmakers, such as Wang Chao, Wang Xiaoshuai, Zhang Ming and Liu Hao and the difficulties they face with censorship and getting their films shown in China. For example director Tian Zhuanghuang was banned from directing for 10 years because of the subject matter of his The Blue Kite (1993). Censorship was relaxed, however, in the wake of Beijing winning the 2008 Summer Olympics, when films such as Lu Chuan’s Kekexili (2004), with its less than flattering look at aspects of Chinese society, was passed by the censors.

Taiwan (51:04)

     Taiwanese cinema has always struggled to establish its own identity. It may win film awards overseas, but in Taiwan home grown cinema has, except for a heyday in the 1960’s-1970’s, been less popular with the film going public than Hong Kong, Chinese or, more recently, Hollywood films. Indeed, the survival of the industry is seriously in question as it lacks both a home and an international audience.

     From the 1980’s a handful of directors including Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao-hsien covered themes to do with the Taiwanese urban experience. Some films were successful in Taiwan; other films, less so such as Yang’s A One and a Two (2000) which was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and in fact won Yang won the Best Director award, but the film failed to get a distributor in Taiwan!

     These directors did influence the next wave of Taiwanese directors such as Ang Lee who also made Taiwanese contemporary comedy / dramas such as Eat Drink Man Woman before his breakout international success with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; although as that film was not made in Taiwan, had international actors and was not about Taiwan, was it a Taiwanese film? In any case, it seems Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon had little impact on the struggling Taiwanese film industry.

     The Taiwanese film industry went in diverse directions to try to gain a domestic market. There were some isolated successes, such as Tsai Ming-liang’s The Wayward Cloud (2005) but directors either went for western type films, with little Taiwanese identity, went back to urban dramas like Chang Tso-chi, or like Chen Yin-jung made low budget genre films. Either way, the future is not rosy, as Taiwan’s small population cannot sustain their film industry.

Korea (51:03)

     South Korean cinema is in the envious position of out-performing Hollywood at the domestic box office, one of the few places this happens. It is also perhaps the most diverse and vibrant in East Asia, its tensions arising out of the Korean War, the division of the country and its rapid modernisation.

     Emerging in the 1980s after the assassination of dictator Park Chung-hee resulted in democratic reforms, Korean filmmakers used the relaxation of censorship to re-examine their recent past in such films as Kang Woo-suk’s Silmido, that looked at a secret that had been hidden for 20 years under the old regime. Korean filmmakers also examined the rapid changes in Korean society, such as the role of women, complex family issues and the handicapped, such as Marathon (Lee Chang-dong). These local films were able to get an audience partly because of the Korean Government law that required cinemas to show local films for 146 days of each year.

     The divided Korea was a topic that interested filmmakers such as director Park Chan-wook whose JSA: Joint Security Area was a massive domestic hit in 2000. But Korean films were also getting noticed overseas, and Park’s Old Boy, a brutal revenge drama, won him the Grand Jury Prize for best director at Cannes in 2004. Another genre of films that was getting international recognition was period action cinema, taking on the Chinese at their own game with films like Duelist by Lee Myung-se.

     Despite predictions that the South Korean bubble will burst, it is showing no signs of doing so and Korean films still out-perform Hollywood in the domestic market as well as selling well throughout East Asia.

India (51:02)

     The Indian film industry makes in excess of 800 films a year, mostly in Mumbai, far outstripping any other country. Domestically, Indian films account for 95% of the box office, limiting foreign films to 5%. Mainstream “Bollywood” films, as the industry is termed (a term disliked by Indian filmmakers), work to a formula that has not changed in decades, and obviously appeals to the audience. They are “marsala” films, a mixture of mega-stars, music and dance, romance, love and a happy ending. Bollywood cinema is glitz; it is not a reflection of Indian reality, but people’s fantasy, who go to the movies in droves to escape everyday reality.

     In this cinema, a big star such as Shahrukh Khan, with already over 70 films to his credit, can guarantee success. The other important ingredient is song and dance, and the episode looks at playback singers such as Lata Mangeshkar, who at over 70 years of age still sings for actresses a third of her age and has over 4,000 song credits. Also considered are choreographers like Vaibhavi Merchant who design the elaborate dance routines that no popular Indian film can be without. Strangely, the episode makes no mention at all of those who compose the music the actors sing and dance to, such as the famous and popular composer A.R. Rahman, a surprising omission.

     The episode does state that the filmmakers are now starting to bring more reality into their films and cites as examples Mr & Mrs Iyer (Aparna Sen), with its themes of mixed marriage, Salaam Bombay (Mira Nair) which centres on the street kids of Mumbai, or Lagaan (Ashutosh Gowariker) on India’s colonial past. However, the mainstream family romance with song and dance is still incredibly popular and likely to secure the future of the Indian film industry for years to come.

Iran (50:12)

     The Islamic revolution in Iran in the 1970s destroyed the old Iranian film industry. It has since gradually re-emerged with a uniquely Iranian identity, challenged by competition from abroad and strict regulation from the Iranian government that in compliance with Islamic values has no sex, limited violence and strict roles for women. This has resulted in beautiful looking realistic films, without special effects; perhaps surprisingly Iranian films have won more awards at international film festivals that any other country!

     Iranian filmmakers often use children to tell their stories, for children can say and do things prohibited for adults. One of the earliest directors to do this was Abbas Kiarostami and his work influenced others such as Jafar Panahi (The White Balloon). These are deceptively simple stories, but like Iranian carpets (another influence on filmmaking) hide more intricate designs, the episode citing the works of Majid Majidi such as Children of Heaven (nominated for an Academy Award in 1999 but lost out to Life is Beautiful) and The Colour of Paradise.

     The Islamic code also has restrictions on how women and family life are portrayed on screen. It was noted that, in scenes of men and women walking together, often males dressed in the chador were used for women or married couples cast to enable the characters to hold hands! Feminist directors such as Tahmineh Milani have challenged the depiction of women in her films such as Two Woman and The Hidden Half for which she was banned from filmmaking, arrested, goaled and originally sentenced to death, before foreign pressure and a more sympathetic Iranian government commuted the sentence.

     In more recent years, Iranian filmmakers have started to look beyond their own country to conflicts on their borders, often still using children as their focus; films such as A Time for Drunken Horses (Bahman Ghobadi), Djomeh (Hassan Yektapanah) or Kandahar (Mohsen Makhmalbaf) are getting recognition internationally and show that the Iranian film industry, despite restrictions, has not only survived the revolution, but flourished.

     The various episodes of Cinema Asia are fascinating enough and give viewers an opportunity to hear about films, and filmmakers, whose work has not received recognition to any degree in the West. The episodes are, however, a mixed bag; the Chinese and Indian film industries are so large it is not easy to provide any coherent examination of influences and trends in 50 minutes, so those episodes tend to be quite fragmented. I also don’t see how the episode on India suggests that the films are only recently looking at ‘real’ life while ignoring the work of such influential directors as Satyajit Ray who fails to even get a mention (although a poster of one of his films is on the wall when one director is being interviewed).

     Taiwanese and Iranian cinema by comparison is small enough for one program, and these episodes are far more detailed and exhaustive, following the careers of a smaller number of directors. However, neither film industry is an Asian powerhouse, or influenced filmmaking to any extent in other regions despite winning awards. It is interesting that a couple of the major Asian film industries that have influenced filmmaking far beyond its shores, Japan and Hong Kong, are not included in the series. One might also argue that emerging, vibrant film industries, such as Thailand, was worthy of some examination.

     However, no-one would quibble with the inclusion of Korea, whose film industry at the moment is probably the most diverse, innovative, powerful and exciting in Asia. Sadly, this is one of the weakest episodes, concentrating upon contemporary and political dramas that have not received much recognition elsewhere. The types of films that have made a splash internationally receive little time, and seminal films such as Kim Jee-woon’s brilliant A Bittersweet Life (2005) is ignored, although some clips from the film are shown (without credit). The choice to concentrate on Duelist as the only example of a period action film is also puzzling, for this was not as successful domestically as earlier films like Bichunmoo (2000) (Kim Young-jun) or Musa the Warrior (2001) (Kim Sung-su), both to my mind better and more influential films in a genre that continues to interest Korean filmmakers if recent epics Blades of Blood (2010) (Lee Joon-ik) or War of the Arrows (2011) (Kim Tae-sung) are anything to go by.

     While there is some interesting stuff in these documentaries, it is probably best to view Cinema Asia as a primer, providing an overview of five Asian film industries rather than a definitive guide. Some cinema is just too big for 50 minutes.

Video

     Cinema Asia is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 which I believe is the original ratio. The DVD cover states it is 4x3 only, but PowerDVD on my computer does read it as 16x9 enhanced.

     Over 5 episodes the video quality fluctuates. Original footage is sharp and clean, but film excerpts vary considerably. Many, even quite recent films, are quite soft and lacking in detail, with faded colours. Others seem to have been sourced from a video and exhibit obvious interlacing errors and aliasing, and some have minor dirt marks and scratches. As the excerpts are short, none of this is too distracting. The excerpts are presented in their original ratios with a red/ orange border appearing above and below.

     The layer change at China 3:35 on the first disc and India 26:45 on the second resulted in a noticeable pause.

     The narrator was not on camera, so lip synchronisation was not an issue.

     Burnt in English subtitles in an easy to read yellow font translate non-English interviewees. The non-English language in the film excerpts is not translated.

Video Ratings Summary

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Audio

     Audio is English Dolby Digital 2.0 at 224 Kbps. The episodes are mostly voice-over narration, which is easy to hear, and occasional film sound. This is no surround or subwoofer use, but none is needed.

     The original music is by Big Bang & Fuzz. Other than the opening and closing, it is limited.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
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Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

     No extras.

     I cannot find a release of Cinema Asia in any other region.

     Cinema Asia in five episodes covers the history, influences and filmmaking of China, Taiwan, Korea, India and Iran. The various episodes give viewers an opportunity to hear about films, and filmmakers, whose work has not received recognition in the West, plus a few who have! It is probably best to view Cinema Asia as a primer, providing a brief overview of five Asian film industries.

     The video and audio are acceptable for a TV series. There are no extras.

Video
Audio
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Overall