Asian Film Making

The 21st century Hollywood should be seeing more of Asian-themed films. This is not to clearly mention an understatement that Asian films has went on unnoticed for several years in the United States but slowly at present Asian film making has finally attracted the credit it deserves in mainstream media.

Kudos should go to the predecessors of Asian film making and for their incessant hard work in getting Western film outfits to look at the East for some film making lessons. Thanks to them, the new generation of Asian film makers and actors has found the industry to be more open to Asian stories and roles.

The works of Ang Lee, Ken Watanabe, Jackie Chan and John Woo should be recognized for paving the way for the Western market to adapt some very Asian aspect in film making—its loyalty to art and storytelling.

Asian films are not just about promoting the actors who lent their faces to the characters, which in most cases are what Hollywood films are all about. In Asia, first comes the story and how it weaves many other facets of art—dance, poetry, songs and martial arts.

Asian movies are usually elaborate in detail because every piece of it is important to bring to life a beautiful story. Remember the production design for Memoirs of a Geisha? Nothing was compromised in the case of the set design, costumes and acting. Because of this, it became one of those films that outdone the book version.

While most Asian movies are known to be intricate, there are many who also rely on the effortlessness of how the stories are being told. One of the world’s scariest movies to date, The Ring, held a pretty simple plot—the ghosts of a past that continues to hound the future. The original Sassy Girl movie may seem like a light comedy at the first look but deep into the movie, you see a simple love story made poignant by the easy way the actors portrayed their parts.

Both of these movies have Hollywood adaptations and the adaptations clearly did not do justice to the original stories. One of the underlying reasons behind this is because both movies, when made in its original sense, have relied heavily on some cultural oddities that made the film sensible.

Worthy of mention are also some Hollywood films that refused to take on true Asian actors to portray the roles of Asian characters for fear that the market will refuse to see them. What tops the list would be the movie 21. But the backlash that 21 received has become an eye opener to American production houses.

So if there is so much that Hollywood can learn from Asian moviemakers, it would have to be the fact that nothing else breaks the movie for its unfaithfulness to a culture Asian or not. If the story will call for it—character, location, culture, costumes or traditions—better deliver whatever comes close to authenticity. Besides, it is never a good idea to shortchange the moviegoer.