Asian Cinema has taken the art world by storm in the later half of the twentieth century and has contributed a fair bit to the medium!
Asian Cinema is a broad category one has to understand and decipher. From the very beginning of the medium Japanse works have been a great explorer of the art form. Many storied artists who are considered masters of the medium come from Japan, and even Indian Cinema and Bollywood has had a tremendous impact on the medium but not abroad particularly in its home nation, making it the country that produces the most number of features per year on the entire planet. However the artistic impact of many other nations on the Asian continent has seen a rise in the international film festival circuit since the 1980s and the process was marked by many changes even the huge surge in popularity of the South Korean cinema across the globe can be traced back to the fact that the global audience was receptive to Asian Cinema in general. The depth of Asian works are really too much to cover in one piece but there can be a considered attempt to make a curation. Many popular artists of the medium working today who are making drastic and important changes to the medium belong to the Asian Continent, and are making the global population aware of Asian Culture and their practices.
This list contains a range of works from the 80s to modern day which have created the most impact on a universal audience and have also made crucial advancements in the medium. The curation includes blockbusters and also Festival top prize winners from many diverse nations across the largest continent on planet earth.
A work by one the most unique artists working in the medium, Uncle Boonmee is a seminal work by Thailand's Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The work is mystical,mythical and surreal all at the same time. It is quintessentially Thai where in the narrative of the story it is the exact representation of the nation's culture. It also has homages to old Thai Costumes dramas, and it’s the only Thai film to have won the top prize in the Cannes international film festival.
One of the most important works of the New Taiwanese Cinema movement it is made by one it’s foremost proponents Hou Hsiao Hsein, and was one first works in which was internationally acclaimed in the Taiwanese New Wave and won one the biggest award in cinema the Golden Lion at the Venice film Festival.
