WESTERN SUCCESS
H
ong Kong has been most prolific in seeing its filmmakers try their hand in Tinseltown. John Woo, Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam all headed West in the mid-nineties, lauded as visionaries of the action genre. All debuted with Jean Claude Van Damme vehicles, none of which managed to replicate the unique energy or operatics of their earlier Chinese hits, and all three have since returned to Hong Kong. Woo stuck it out the longest, with 1997’s Face/Off proving the high-point in a decade-long parade of frustratingly sub-par genre films, after which he promptly delivered the epic two-part Red Cliff with Tony Leung. Even arthouse darling Wong Kar Wai lost his nerve after the lacklustre reception to his English language effort, My Blueberry Nights. Japanese directors like Takeshi Kitano and Takashi Shimizu haven’t managed any better, with Brother and The Grudge proving rarely-mentioned blips in otherwise strong Japan-based filmographies. In fact, the only Asian filmmaker to have achieved any kind of lasting success in Hollywood is Taiwan’s Ang Lee, who just last month collected a second Best Director Oscar, for the surprise blockbuster Life of Pi. Lee headed West in the mid-nineties, around the same time as John Woo and Tsui Hark were trying their luck Stateside. But while Hong Kong’s action auteurs struggled to translate their signature styles to meet broader American tastes, Lee scored a series of critical successes on the arthouse circuit, both in English (Sense and Sensibility, Brokeback Mountain), and Mandarin (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Lust, Caution). Not all Lee’s films have ignited the box office; epic western Ride With The Devil and flower power comedy Taking Woodstock both bombed spectacularly, and even the $300 million he banked for Universal with cerebral superhero flick Hulk was deemed a disappointment. But Lee’s chameleonic ability to embrace different genres, together with an acute understanding of historical settings and cultures, was enough to convince Fox to spend $120 million on Life of Pi, which has to-date raked in close to $600 million. Ironically this adaptability might suggest Lee is more craftsman than auteur, and yet it is he who has been embraced by the industry, while Woo and Tsui were only ever given action films to direct, and sent packing when their artistic visions proved alienating rather than inclusive. So, where do we go from here? In the short-term, Park’s star will continue to rise. While Stoker is unlikely to prove much of a financial success, the film has been warmly received by Western critics on both sides of the pond – the film was released in the UK and the US on 1st March – and should see him book a second English language gig (there has been talk of a Western). This year also sees Spike Lee’s American remake of Oldboy, which at the very least, will revive conversation and
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MARCH 2013 VERITE
praise for Park’s original, bringing its existence to the attention of a much wider audience. Lest we forget, the demand for Korean Cinema outside its homeland is still very much a niche market. While certain corners of the critical sphere no doubt regard Park’s back catalogue as required viewing (along with those of Kim Ji-woon and Bong Joon-ho), for most multiplex audiences they remain one of the many impenetrable mysteries of the Far East. Successful English-language projects for these directors should only help shed light on the work of more Asian filmmakers, and if Hollywood continues to look to Korea, directors like Na Hong-jin (The Chaser, The Yellow Sea), Ryu Seung-wan (Crying Fist, The Unjust) and Kim Ki-duk (3-Iron, Pieta) shouldn’t be too far behind them. Until that happens, however, their existing bodies of work are well worth savouring.
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