Asian Cinema

originally posted elsewhere.

I recently watched a great little documentary about Asian-American men's roles in American cinema. It's a 2006 production called The Slanted Screen and it delves into the silent era of Hollywood, as well as aims to debunk the stereotypes of Asian-American men on film. It's quite comprehensive but curiously leaves out the international success stories of George Takei, John Woo, and Jackie Chan.

Another series in the same vein is the BBC's Asian Invasion (2005). This three part series chronicles the history, development, and influence of Asian cinema. If you are looking for a primer for Asian cinema, each episode highlights the most influential and notable players. Of particular note is the episode on Korean film, for obvious reasons. All in all, it's entertaining and the host does a good job of keeping the pace of the interviews interesting. Take a look:

• Episode 1 - Japan
• Episode 2 - Hong Kong
• Episode 3 - South Korea

For those that know me personally, you would know that I only pretend to be mean because I like to see my friends smile. Otherwise, I'm all talk. But, I must pause for a moment and do something culturally insensitive - "mean" if you will. If you would like to hear the absolute worst attempt at the standard greeting in Korean, then I would ask you to watch the third episode as linked above and wait just seven short seconds. You will be shocked and dismayed. Okay, mean rant over.

For more into South Korean cinema, look no further than Koreanfilm.org who continues to provide the most comprehensive English language resource for all things Korean film related. I especially like how films are broken into reviews by their year of production.

And of course, who can argue with wikipedia's article entry on Korean film? Take note of the all-time box office records chart. That's a lot of dough.

For my own personal reviews of Korean movies, here are parts one and two as well as Korean drama reviews here. All three of which are screaming for an update.

For present day listings of Korean movies shown with English subtitles, the Hub of Sparkle has weekly listings. Thanks Paul Ajosshi.