Best of 2005: Filmmakers

By APA Staff

Ang Lee

The greatest filmmaker working in Hollywood today? That honor currently belongs to Ang Lee, who speaks the universal language of cinema with more eloquence in a single frame than most could muster in a lifetime. Some, however, might wonder why Taiwan's most precious export chose to make a living out of making the inaccessible not only accessible, but transparently so, with successive forays into British aristocracy (Sense and Sensibility), American disillusionment (The Ice Storm, Ride with the Devil, Hulk) and feel-good, fortune-cookie-themed wuxia films (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) revealing that it's a small world after all. The answer, of course, is that's he's damned good at it. And because he's that rare moviemaker who doesn't confuse mettle with overripe machismo. It's finally paid dividends -- his exquisite Brokeback Mountain was ‘05's undisputed critical darling, racking up a heap of awards and generating the kind of Oscar buzz that usually translates into a whole lot of hardware. Who else coulda made gallivanting gay cowboys this refreshingly ordinary?  -- Chi Tung

Asia Pacific Arts: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Fortress: Ang Lee bends, but doesn't break under Tinseltown's iron fist

Xu JingLei

As director, co-producer, star, and screenwriter of the sublime Letters from an Unknown Woman, Xu Jinglei could be called an auteur in its original sense: the unquestioned author of the film. About the only brilliance she can't claim as her own is Mark Lee Ping-bing's showstopping cinematography. In less than eight years, the 31-year-old Xu has grown from mainland pop idol slash soap opera star to filmmaker with indie credentials. As one of the few visible and internationally acclaimed female directors in China, Xu saddles the above and underground of the Chinese film world, directing films with box office appeal (superstar Jiang Wen starred in the period drama Letters from an Unknown Woman) while making her kinds of films with a superior ability for expressing female Chinese desire. Xu's next project continues that dual capability for making personal genre films: she's currently directing and starring in a biopic of Wu Zetian, the Tang Dynasty concubine who ultimately became empress. Ziyi Zhang may have once flirted with the role, but the film develops an extra dimension now that Xu Jinglei has signed on as both director and star, in many ways mirroring the concubine who decides to take her fate in her own hands.  -- Brian Hu

Asia Pacific Arts: He Said, Chi Said: Kekexili, Letters from an Unknown Woman

Jia Zhang-ke

Since Jia Zhang-ke exploded onto the international film scene in 1997 with Xiao Wu and made a modern classic in 2000 with Platform, the young director from Fenyang has become the mentor and guiding light for a new generation of mainland Chinese filmmakers. Taking stylistic and thematic inspiration from filmmakers as diverse as Robert Bresson and Hou Hsiao-hsien, Jia has created an aesthetic all of his own, capturing the alienated youth of mainland China through long takes and heartbreaking compositions. What's so amazing then about his latest masterpiece The World, which toured the festival and art house circuits in 2005, is how he is able to transform his personal style to fit the guidelines of above-ground or “official” filmmaking in the mainland. As a result of loosening of censorship guidelines and a new acceptance for Chinese art cinema, The World was made by going through the official channels for film production in China. But upon the film's release, Jia deflected any suspicions of selling out by delivering a brutal condemnation of China's hypocrisy regarding culture and the economy, and by making the year's most prescient description of the troubled ways many around the world are simultaneously local and global subjects of power. Independent cinema often requires a negotiation of official and personal interests; in every way, Jia exemplifies the spirit, magic, and power of independent cinema.  -- Brian Hu

Asia Pacific Arts: Presenting The World

Hou Hsiao-hsien

For years now, Hou Hsiao-hsien has been known as one of the world's best filmmakers that Americans have yet to discover. In article after article criticizing the sorry state of distribution, Hou is held up as a prime example of precisely what our art houses desperately lack. Yet in 2005, not one but two new Hou films (Millennium Mambo and Café Lumiere) appeared on Region 1 new release video shelves -- much props to Palm Pictures and Wellspring --while Hou's latest Three Times won him new fans, including the quintessential mainstream American critic, Roger Ebert. The reason is less that such critical cries for distribution are being heard, but that the new cinephilia based on film festivals, DVDs, and web-based criticism and discussion, coupled with the undying impact of “the great auteur” as a discursive concept, is drawing attention to acclaimed, experimental directors from around the world that risk-averse American distributors traditionally fear. Of course, Hou has always been a subject of great critical admiration and mainstream debate in Taiwan. This year, he famously stormed out of a press conference when it seemed that the gossip-hungry local media were about to reduce Three Times into the question of whether stars Shu Qi and Chang Chen were Taiwan's Angelina and Brad. The same year, Hou was presented Taiwan's highest award for artistic excellence, the National Award for the Arts, a Lincoln Center Honors-type event which simultaneously recognizes his great contributions to Taiwanese highbrow culture while mummifying him as the old fogey of local cinema. While second-wavers Ang Lee and Tsai Ming-liang stole the spotlight this year, Hou remains perched at the top of the Taiwanese film world, as culturally relevant and aesthetically exciting as ever.  -- Brian Hu

Asia Pacific Arts: Darkness and Light

Takashi Miike

Takashi Miike has some connection to old Hollywood. He's extremely prolific (over 60 films in a decade and a half; five films in the last two years), his indulgent violent and sexual controversy has some semblance of commentary (see Audition, the D.O.A. series), but most important, like a Wyler or Hawks, he attempts to be a true director. Not content to churn out the cult gore that ignited his career in the early '90s, Miike made the underseen and amusing Zebraman and languid Izo in 2004. This last year, he made a stateside debut of sorts with a Showtime horror special, and the spookily atmospheric "The Box," which was part of the horror omnibus Three Extremes. But his real achievement was the terrifically fun The Great Yokai War which, like any good children's film, is completely appreciable by adults. The man's films can finally be seen by those who've used his canon as an emetic! -- Bryan Hartzheim

Asia Pacific Arts: Wild to Mild

Im Sang-soo

Some directors merely court controversy, but Im Sang-soo positively thrives on it. Already a critical darling for his audacious take on the dysfunction of Korean family life in A Good Lawyer's Wife, Im kicked it up several notches with The President's Last Bang. When political forces aligned against him in an attempt to block the release of the black political comedy, Im fought back and finally brought Last Bang to theaters. Intact except for a few scant minutes of documentary footage, Im's choice of subject brought the dark years of dictatorship into the blazing light of satire in one of the most daring films to hit South Korea in years.  -- Jennifer Flinn

Asia Pacific Arts: February 3, 2005: News From Abroad

Tsai Ming-liang

To be a great filmmaker in Taiwan today, one needs to be more than a film artist. One needs to be a liason between the world of cinematic creativity and a public suspicious about so-called artists who eat up national grants and who make boring, intellectual exercises for Westerners. This year, Tsai Ming-liang -- usually tag-teaming with his lead actor Lee Kang-sheng -- juggled both responsibilities to impressive results. His new feature The Wayward Cloud (which picked up several honors at the Berlin Film Festival) sparked all kinds of controversy over whether it was a pornographic or an erotic film, whether it was artistic or exploitative, whether it was misogynistic or critical, and whether such a film could be shown in theaters uncut. The controversies exposed many of the paradoxes and hypocrisies of the Taiwanese film community (for example, the fact that this wouldn't even be an issue if it weren't a local film). Tsai's accomplishment was to get people talking about what could be the most controversial Taiwanese film since Hou Hsiao-hsien's A City of Sadness in 1989. Everyone had something to say about the film, even those who refused to see it, and as a result, Taiwanese audiences and policymakers were able to clear their minds of many of their positive and negative opinions about the industry. A happy offshoot: The Wayward Cloud did great business at the box office, Tsai's first three films were released in a DVD box set, and his fourth, The Hole, finally received a home video release.  -- Brian Hu

Asia Pacific Arts: Column: The Taipei Beat (#1)

Asia Pacific Arts: Rebels of a Familiar God

Asia Pacific Arts: The Unprofessional: An Interview with Lee Kang-sheng

Park Chan-wook

What ever will we do now that Park Chan-wook's Revenge trilogy is finally complete?  Even though Sympathy for Lady Vengeance has finally concluded in theaters in Korea, the controversy stirred up by his work won't die down. Some people were revolted, some thrilled, but everyone was fascinated by his dark and gruesome examinations of revenge and violence. Despite the brutality of his Revenge trilogy and the gore of his entry in the omnibus film Three Extremes, Park remains a versatile writer and director as capable of tenderness (such as his contribution to the human rights-highlighting collection If You Were Me) and heart-wrenching human drama (his breakout film JSA is the gold standard for Korean filmmaking) as he is of shocking and stunning his audience. Whatever comes next from this director -- outrageous or poignant -- it's sure to be a sensation.  -- Jennifer Flinn

Asia Pacific Arts: Sympathy for Mr. Park

Asia Pacific Arts: The Lady or the Tiger: Park's three-ring circus

Asia Pacific Arts: A Wracking Oldboy

Asia Pacific Arts: Wild to Mild

Gregg Araki

Filmmaker Gregg Araki has been described as “one of the angriest, most unconventional, and relentlessly intriguing voices in independent cinema”. This multitalented director, writer, and producer made his name at the Sundance Film Festival with films such as Nowhere and The Doom Generation. But it was Araki's latest installment, the tender Mysterious Skin, which really brought him into the Indie spotlight. Based on the novel by Scott Heim, the film delves into the lives of two young men who had been sexually molested at the hands of the same man and how the trauma affected their lives. While Araki's other films have mostly had cult followings, Mysterious Skin has drawn a wider crowd because of its ability to stun audiences in a profound and emotional way.  -- Victoria Chin

Jang Jin

Most people would be content if they were regarded as one of the finest screenwriters out there. Many folks would be positively delighted to garner accolades as a director. Being a prestigious and respected producer is something the average person can merely dream of, but Jang Jin had achieved all of these before the age of 35. He wrote and produced the summer blockbuster Welcome to Dongmakgol (based on his own stageplay), and wrote and directed The Big Scene (Murder, Take One) this past year. Obviously not content to rest on his already fine set of laurels (including the marvelous Someone Special, the goofy comedy Guns and Talks, and the tricky, entertaining omnibus film No Comment), Jang Jin continues to produce some of the most creative work in Korean cinema and stage.  -- Jennifer Flinn

Asia Pacific Arts: Korea's answer to M*A*S*H?

Honorable mention: Hayao Miyazaki, Lu Chuan, Ashutosh Gowariker, Anand Tucker, Stephen Chow, "Beat" Takeshi, Seijun Suzuki, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Gu Changwei, Ichikawa Jun, Peter Chan, Wang Shiaoxuai, Zhang Yang, Fruit Chan