Tiger In the House of Flying Hero: CNN.com article

[Brian Thibodeau]

Interesting article on the growth of Chinese cinema and it's impact ni the west through films like Kung-Fu Hustle, Hero, House of Flying Dagger and Crouching Tiger. Not much new for those in the know (and those who post here), and they tend to namecheck the same old same-olds, but an interesting read nonetheless. Sounds like there's fantastic international potential if they could ever reign in the piracy.

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/04/21/eyeonchina.cinema/index.html

[bkasten]

Interesting that our favorite subject is making the mainstream media (although they make it seem like this is something "new". Of course it's not.).

This weeks U.S. version of Newsweek has Zhang Ziyi on the cover, and has an article on Chinese cinema:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7693588/site/newsweek/

In typical vacuous Newsweek fashion, it's aimed at about the grade school reading and mentality level, and has very little substance. Quite apart from some cultural awakening in "America" it all strikes me more as marketing for the media companies that are trying to sell some products (DVD copies of Flying Daggers, Hero, etc., as well as getting people to see and eventually buy Kung Fu Hustle). In fact that is indeed Newsweek's raison d'etre...but I digress.

[Brian Thibodeau]

it all strikes me more as marketing for the media companies that are trying to sell some products (DVD copies of Flying Daggers, Hero, etc., as well as getting people to see and eventually buy Kung Fu Hustle).

Couldn't agree more! In fact, that's the thought that crossed my mind when I read the cnn.com article!

I can't help but think of CNN being a division of Time Warner, which owns the public relations blowjob magazine Entertainment Weekly, as well as an assortment of movie studios and DVD companies that need forums to promote their latest offerings, including the latest "trends" from Asia. I used to subscribe to EW years ago when they weren't quite the shameless trend-whores they are now (all things being relative, I suppose) and found that they treated cinematic "discoveries" like Hong Kong cinema as though such things were, at that time, now ready to make the big jump to mainstream acceptance now that EW had discovered this cult-like underground base and promoted its tastes to the world at large with a thin veneer of "NOW it's cool." I remember a big spread they did on Hong Kong cinema that came out, I'm sure entirely coincidentally, around the same time as Time-Warner division New Line cinema had RUMBLE IN THE BRONX making it's U.S. debut. Kismet, perhaps? Of course, by that rationale, this new "interest" in Asian cinema quoted by CNN and Newsweek (another Time Warner acquisition??) shouldn't be "new" at all since this "trend" was already discovered ten years ago! And of course, five or six years before THAT by the majority of us!