Recent years have brought film lovers some truly wonderful cinema from shameless crowd pleasers to serious masterpieces, big budget, high action movies to ground breaking animation.
This handful of movies set a standard that changed the different genres, as well as influencing movies that have followed them.
FemaleFirst takes a look at some of the those films starting with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
For die hard fans of martial arts movies Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a great big fat I told you so to those who thought that this genre of film was an outdated and dying breed.
For those who were not familiar with Asian cinema 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which was directed by Ang Lee, was a beautiful and majestic revelation that put Asian cinema well and truly in the world stage.
Despite Ang Lee not showing any evidence of being able to produce a martial arts classic, most famous at the time for his adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, working with Hong Kong action filmmaker Yuen Wo-Ping Lee delivered beauty and elegance to the ridiculed martial arts movie.
Based on the novel by Wang Du Lu the film follows Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun Fat), a legendary martial arts master, and his sword. And while Lee blended romance and tragedy it was the action sequences that took centre stage.
Wo-Ping choreographed fight scenes across rooftops, rivers and in bamboo tress with the characters soaring weightlessly through the air.
Given the scale of the film it’s hard to believe that it was made on a meager $15 million budget, but it went on to open up the commercial possibilities of foreign cinema.
Grossing over $213 million at the global box office and being nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture, winning three, including Best Foreign language Film, Crouching, Tiger Hidden Dragon brought foreign film out of arthouse cinemas and into the mainstream.
The Asian cinema floodgates opened and western audiences have been treated to more breathtaking cinema including Hero, House of Flying Daggers and The Curse of the Golden Flower.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Courtesy: femalefirst.co.uk