The only martial arts movie to keep company with Indiana Jones at Cannes Film Festival this year is Kung Fu Panda. The Dreamworks animation does however count a couple of Asian superstars amongst its cast fronted by Jack Black, Angelina Jolie and Dustin Hoffman. Jackie Chan and Lucy Lui provide the voices for Masters Monkey and Viper respectively.

 Good, Bad & the Wierd

Also showing out of competition is Ji-woon Kim’s Korean Western The Good, The Bad and The Wierd which I talked about last week.

Competing for the Palme D’Or is Chinese documentary maker Zhangke Jia with Er Shi Si Cheng Ji, a drama set in Chengdu , currently in the news as one of the areas affected by China’s tragic earthquake. It tells the stories of eight people affected by the closure of a state owned factory to make way for luxury apartments and stars Joan Chen, Lu Liping and Zhao Tao. Sounds a bit like a Chinese Clocking Off.

Unsurprising the category that best represents Asian cinema is Un Certain Regard, a showcase of 20 films from different cultures selected for their originality.

Tokyo!

The most intriguing prospect is Tokyo!, a film composed of 3 chapters showing the city as viewed by 3 foreign directors. Shaking Tokyo is directed by Joon-ho Bong who scripted and directed the most successful Korean movie of all time, The Host. He tells the story of a hikkomori, someone who has withdrawn from contact with the outside world for the security of his apartment, who falls in love with a pizza delivery girl during an earthquake. Merde directed by Leos Carax concerns a mysterious sewer dwelling man who spreads panic in the streets of the city through a series of provocative acts. Interior Design from director Michel Gondry tells the surreal tale of a lonely woman who discovers something strange after she moves to Tokyo with her partner.

Chen Chang who played Dark Cloud in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and will shortly appear in John Woo’s Chinese historical epic Red Cliff, stars in Ting Che, a film from Taiwanese director Mong-Hong Chung. Part detective story, part comedy and part melodrama, it tells the adventures of Chen Mo and the eccentric characters he meets on his quest to free his double parked car and save his marriage.

Soi Cowboy is a co-Thai/UK production directed by Thomas Clay. A large European man and a small pregnant Thai woman live together in near silence. He is her escape from Soi Cowboy, Bangkok’s red light district where the couple met. She has a growing collection of cuddly toy animals and he takes Viagra. Meanwhile a teenage mafia enforcer is ordered to kill his older brother.

Ocean Flame

Ocean Flame is a Hong Kong film based on a novel by iconic Chinese writer Shuo Wang about a blackmailer, Wong Yiu, who is driven to kill his controlling waitress girlfriend in a bid for freedom. Eight years later, freed from jail, he gets a gun who goes looking for her mother.

Japanese horror director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (no relation to Akira) is showing Tokyo Sonata, a film he directed and co-wrote. It is a portrait of an ordinary Japanese family in disintegration. The father conceals the truth when he loses his job. The eldest son hardly ever returns from college. The youngest son is secretly taking piano lessons. The mother whose role is to try keep the family together, cannot find the will to do so.

With works from China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Thailand, Asian cinema is well represented this year but one has to wonder, where is John Woo’s Red Cliff?

Offical Cannes Film Festival site

The Good, The Bad and The Wierd

Olympic race for John Woo's Red Cliff

Host sequel is a prequel