New chinese movies and my 2 cents about these epic...

There are so many big budget films coming from China these days. I just saw two recently. The Assembly is an epic war film based on the China civil war between the KMT and PLA. Plot summary here. Most reviewers compare this film's visual to Saving Private Ryan, but today, which war film doesn't? The production quality is top notch, and the violence is pretty gory. Fyi, the director of this film is Feng Xiaogang, who has a really good eye for visual art in his films. His other film, The Banquet(known as Legend of the Black Scorpion here in US) was a great feast for the eye. The sets are usually very elaborate and over the top.

The Warlords, is the new Jet Li epic film. This is not a martial art film like Hero(which is still the best Jet Li film, imo), but tells a pretty intense story of a general's ambition to conquer the divided China during the Qing Dynasty. More info here.

I want to also express my opinion here regarding the Asian cinema. Although we are seeing a big surge of epic films coming from China, not many is trying to push the art of film making. Most of them are very similar, only repackaged with a different story. Don't get me wrong, these are all solid films that are well told, produced to their finest quality.

I just hope that we won't get flooded with too many war epic tales or gangster stories over and over again. I want to see more attempt at breakthrough films that define new genre and standard of film. Korean cinema however, has been very creative and aggressive at diverging their film industry. Old Boy, The Host, Tae Guk Gi are all very different. I think as soon as China films start to explore new frontier, we will see some very refreshing ideas that could challenge the best in Hollywood. Meanwhile they are working really hard to shape the film industry of the new China!