East Asian cinema

I've got several films on my 'to watch' list for the coming weekend (goodness knows how much more the undone pile of laundry will grow): Revolutionary Road, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Milk, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (I'm really convinced that Brad Pitt is totally capable of great acting, especially when he's directed by David Fincher). But for those of you who're London-based at least, may I urge you to see something that's opening for (so-called) general release tomorrow in the capital - I think it's actually only on at 3 cinemas, but one of them is Cineworld Shaftesbury Avenue, which is handy enough.

I saw 'The Good, The Bad and the Wierd' (no prize for guessing which older film inspired this one) at the London Film Festival last year. For me this was the official arrival of the Korean blockbuster on the map. A lot of people already fell in love with the Park Chan Woo revenge trilogy, or the stylish horrors such as Two Sisters, or the historical epic-with-a-twist that was The King and the Clown. Nothing would prepare you for this. Its swashbuckling, breathtaking two hours will pass by quickly.

I guess I'm naturally drawn to good films coming out of East Asia, but for someone who does get to see a lot of European arthouse films as well I can confidently say that the best of Chinese, Japanese and Korean auteurs are churning out more good work now than ever. Distributors over here need to be more intelligent about reaching out to the right audience for them (which are sizeable, in my experience) rather than the odd special features at the NFT. I'm very much looking forward to 'Tokyo Sonata' at the ICA on Saturday (see what I meant about the laundry?), and anything by Hirokazu 'Nobody Knows' Kore-Eda is essential viewing for me. Barbican's Korean Film Festival - which looks like an annual event now, thank heavens - is always eye-opening, and all 4 films we saw there last year were first-rate (let me know if you'd like more details). On the Chinese front, I've got a feeling there are more younger directors encouraged by the runaway success of Crazy Stone (a low-budget, Tarantino-comes-to-Sichuan heist movie), and hopefully we'll get to see more works that dig deep into the contemporary national psyche while touching upon some universal humanity.