Less like an invasion, more like a foray…
Jonathan Ross’ Asian Invasion was a neat introduction for the uninitiated, but did it go far enough for the rest of us?
Back in the late eighties an affable TV host with a complete inability to pronounce the letter ‘R’ presented a season of Hong Kong movies on Channel 4. It was back in the days when Channel 4 really was still edgy and intelligent - before it got taken over by ‘top 100′ lists and Big Brother - and was also the only place you could find anything remotely offbeat in those days.
The host had gained himself a reputation as a champion of cult, exploitation and ‘mondo’ films thanks to a series he headed called the Incredibly Strange Film Show. During which he spoke to horror directors like George A. Romero and Sam Raimi, and covered real odd balls like John Walters and Ed Wood. (Who could have guessed years later he would be the next Barry Norman?) He also spoke to Tsui Hark and Jackie Chan - devoting an entire hour-long episode to the latter.
I still remember some of the films quite clearly, Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain, Mr. Vampire, Rouge. All ‘Golden age’ Hong Kong stuff. Growing up in the seventies, I fondly remembered the Monkey and Water Margin series that were dubbed and shown on BBC 2 (at about 6pm if I remember rightly!) In those early days of video, it was tricky to get hold of anything remotely Asian. Rarer still for it to be subtitled with its original soundtrack, rather than just terribly dubbed. (To think, this was my first introduction to those ‘proper’ Bruce Lee movies like the Big Boss!)
Suddenly here was a whole new world I hadn’t experienced before. A renewable source of films with everything I liked most! And at the time, it seemed to be something of a commitment by Channel 4 to show those films in a late but not stupid timeslot. (In those days - blimey, whose granddad am I? - TV didn’t run all through the night, so you didn’t get films on at three or four in the morning!) Slowly, video caught on, like the self-explanatory ‘Made in Hong Kong’ label. Later it was LaserDiscs and DVDs - now you can’t move in your local HMV for the amount of films available. No more crawling around Chinatown for new stock!
Why do I mention all this? Perhaps to remind myself of how important a role Jonathan Ross played in the development of my ‘interest’, or more honestly obsession, with Asian cinema. No, not just me but the public and media at large. I really do wonder whether this might have happened at all if not for Ross’ (fairly) high profile support. Maybe… possibly… eventually…
Now Ross is the host of the UK’s most popular film show, and one of its most highly rated chat shows. It should be a far greater pull for him to host a programme about Asian films now, even if it was hidden away on Digital ‘art channel’ BBC4.
Over three episodes Ross looked at Japanese, Hong Kong and Korean cinema in turn, speaking to directors and looking at recent classics. Of course, being something of a self-made expert on the subject it hardly enlightened me to anything new (apart from The Calamari Wrestler).
It can’t help but feel rather like a lost opportunity - even allowing for the hour-long and rigid one country per episode format. Some of the omissions seemed rather conspicuous by their absence. For instance, during the Korean episode, Kim Ji-woon, director of A Tale of Two Sisters, Foul King and A Bittersweet Life was not mentioned once. Nor was any note made of Hideo Nakata during the Japan episode, let alone his Ringu films or Dark Water, one of the best horrors ever made. In fact, considering the current climate, it was strange that horror hardly seemed to get a look in beyond Takashi Miike’s Audition and several zombie inspired flicks. (Well, I did mention Ross’ like of Romero…)
Ross is always best when chatting one on one with the directors, even if that’s through translators. His line of enquiry might be trivial, occasionally veering rather close to ‘culturally insensitive’, yet always affable. Highlights would be attempting Bruce Lee impressions with Stephen Chow, or in a restaurant with Versus, and Azumi director Ryuhei Kitamura. The use of vox pops, detached from any interviewer, really did little for the episodes. The Korean directors came off like an earnest bunch indeed, and Derek Yee really seemed to take himself to seriously. Moreover, for the Hong Kong episode only Yee and Chow were interviewed properly, surely other directors could have been approached?
The rigid format also left gapping holes in Asian cinema. For instance, the absence of the Pang Brothers - who didn’t fit any box as they are from Thailand (though many of their pictures have been produced in Hong Kong).
I hope that the series might guide some other mad fool towards the light of Asian Cinema. It was definitely insightful, but it doesn’t half make you think… I mean, how about a more regular series which covered more ground and spoke more directors?
Ah well, if only…
