A Week Of Recent East Asian Cinema.

With the recent interest in remaking Asian films (The Ring/The Grudge/The Eye), noticing Asian films with awards (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), and (finally) bringing together two Asian action superstars into the same movie (The Forbidden Kingdom, coming out next week), I thought of dedicating an entire week’s worth of articles to East Asian Cinema. East Asian Cinema (Japan, China/Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Korea) has been rather influential throughout the years for American cinema (and vice/versa).

From animation to action to horror and monsters, the movies of the Far East have made it big all around the world, and with good reason. They have some of the coolest action, some of the weirdest stories, and some of the scariest movies ever made. For the next 7 days, for each day, I will chronicle one movie of a different genre of recent Asian cinema. Each posting will include a short history lesson on the genre before leading up to the movie review of the film in question.

These types of movies have been huge in the past, with classics of anything from Seven Samurai to Godzilla. But what these articles will focus on are more recent movies. I won’t be discussing any old classics, but rather newer, more modern movies. The reason being is because the American film industry has just recently begun to really focus a lot on their films… so what is it about recent Asian cinema that is so enthralling? Does it stem from things from the past? Or is it just a new approach being taken? Or is America finally just getting onto the bandwagon and seeing that they aren’t the only people who can make a good movie? These 7 articles will try and figure that out.

I hope you enjoy what’s to come. It all starts tomorrow (because I don’t feel like waiting until Sunday, and I want this to end before The Forbidden Kingdom comes out). Stay tuned!

UPDATE: Now that all of them have been posted, I'll just link to all of them here.

#1 - The Monster Movie: The Host (South Korea).
#2 - Anime: Spirited Away (Japan).
#3 - J-Horror: Audition (Japan).
#4 - Mystery/Thriller/Revenge Tale: Oldboy (South Korea).
#5 - Hong Kong Action Cinema/Wuxia: Hero (Hong Kong/China).
#6 - Hong Kong Action Cinema/Comedy: Shaolin Soccer (Hong Kong/China).
#7 - Drama: Nobody Knows (Japan).