Looking for the next Crouching Tiger

Critics at Cannes are looking for the next Crouching Tiger from Asian filmmakers, according to an Agence France-Presse article, but have been disappointed so far by the Thai film, Tropical Malady, and the late arrival of Wong Kar Wai's 2046.

But showing out of competition is Zhang Yimou's House of the Flying Daggers, which stars Zhang Ziyi, Takashi Kaneshiro and Andy Lau. It has picked up some good comments from Hollywood Reporter and Variety.

Both the reviews call attention to the fact that Zhang's Hero, with North American distribution rights held by Miramax, has yet to be shown in the US. House of Flying Daggers won't suffer the same fate, as it has been picked up by Sony Pictures Classics. This is great news, as Sony did a classy job with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Legend of Suriyothai. Miramax, by the way, also has the US distribution rights to Tears of the Black Tiger. It'd be nice if they showed that film as well. I guess they are still trying to figure out how to chop it by 30 minutes.

As an aside to this story, from a BBC article says China is temporarily banning foreign films during the opening month for House of Flying Daggers, so the film won't have any competition from such titles as Shrek 2 and Spider-Man 2. I think that's stupid. It'll just increase business for the movie pirates dealing in those titles. I wonder how it will affect the local theater operators?

Getting back to Tropical Malady, I wanted to highlight some helpful comments left on yesterday's posting about Ong-Bak. "I watched the Tropical Malady press conference on TV and was really ashamed about the lack of interest from the international press," the commentator wrote, adding that the "room was quite empty."

The commentator said the French daily Liberation wrote that "a lot of stupid persons left noisily the screening room" during the movie showing and that "he considers the Apichatpong Weerasethakul's film as a masterpiece". Many other critics share his thoughts, according to Le Film Francais, which compiles several ratings.

I can't read French, but if I understand the system at the latter site, it seems the ratings are about 50:50, with five extremely positive reviews, four extremely negative reviews and two mediums.

When Blissfully Yours was released two years ago, a lot of the press I read about it was negative. Friends who saw it were also negative, saying the movie was slow and didn't make sense. Then I actually saw it, and I liked it. So, I'm anxious to see Tropical Malady. I hope it plays somewhere where I can see it.