24 Frames: The Asian Invasion

I find it interesting that popular Eastern Asian cinema has rolled from country to country over time. I mean this as a saucer eyed American looking at the trends that tend to become popular here.


Growing up I was aware of chop-socky flicks because I’d watch badly dubbed and edited versions on channel five as a kid. I’d also watch recut versions of anime like Starblazers, Spacekateers, Speed Racer and other such stuff. Then 1991 came along and changed everything. That’s when Hong Kong invaded America.

John Woo, Jackie Chan and Jet Li films started traveling around the country in Asian film festivals. One of these happened to hit Tucson Arizona and I ended up going to a bunch of them. I’d be introduced to names like Chow Yun-Fat, Samo Hung and Simon Yam. I’d witness acrobatic feats, bullet ballets and wire-fu fantasy. It was a crazy time to be a film student and have this entire world of cinema open your eyes. I would gobble down these films like Marlon Brando with a case of Big Macs. It soon caught on in the popular culture and Hong Kong movies were the flavor of the week. America would start importing these filmmakers and actors to try and boost our now boring action films. But that couldn’t last forever.

Anime was the next thing, so we moved from China to Japan, where it would go through two different transformations. First, anime would hit hard and all the middle school kids would start munching on Evangelion and Trigun. The youngsters got their Poke-Mon and the hipsters (I say that only to qualify myself as hip, which I’m not) would grab onto Cowboy Be-Bop and proclaim we saw Ghost in the Shell and Akira in the theaters (which I did) years before any of this caught on.


Then came the J-Horror movement. Films like The Grudge, Ringu, Audition, and Cure would frighten us all because it played by very different rules than American horror and we just thought it was great. I include the works of Takashi Miike and Kiyoshi Kurosawa among these, even though they do not fit nicely into the J-Horror category. Kurosawa (no relation to Akira) has made several films that delve deeply into the psychology of human behavior, while Miike puts out disturbing (grotesque) metaphysical/metaphorical flicks on a regular basis. The popularity of J-horror would lead to several American remakes that, as far as I can tell, have pretty much burned itself out even though they keep trying

During all of this, companies like Manga, Toyko Shock and (now deceased)Tartan released not only the most popular of these on DVD, but anything that might catch on. Amongst the Direct to video onslaught it became clearer and clearer that the latest and greatest seems to be coming out of Korea.

It started with Shiri (1999), which starred Lost’s Yunjin Kim as a hit woman. Then came the glory that is Chan-wook Park. His Vengeance Trilogy would knock the socks off of geeks everywhere. He was recognized at the Cannes Film Festival for his film Oldboy (2003). Tarantino was the jury president that year, so it only makes sense that ultra-violent art would be duly recognized. Plans had gone into an American remake starring Nicholas Cage that thankfully fell through. And now we have a new film from Korea called The Chaser (2007). It deals with lazy cops, a serial killer and some macabre humor. It is the latest offering to blow away box office records in its homeland and is already in line for a remake in the United States.

Now, none of the other movements have gone away. Anime is still strong. Takashi Miike puts out a new movie every other month and Johnny To is showing that Hong Kong still knows where the action is. It just happens to be Korea’s moment in the cinematic spotlight. Things will shift again. I have a feeling that with the return of John Woo to China and Johnny To’s amazing films of late that we’ll be hearing something from behind the great wall. Then again we are seeing more and more from Taiwan and who knows what is going on in Laos, Micronesia or Vietnam’s movie world. They could be quietly taking position for the next cinematic invasion.