Innovation of Asian films Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Innovation of Asian films - Essay Example This paper illustrates Asia as a continent rich with history and culture. The countries here have basically experienced many things that has enriched their culture and filled their history with interesting anecdotes and stories worthy of retelling. China is probably one of the richest and oldest civilizations predating even that of the affluent west. It has been a dilemma then as to why there has been a slow progress in the Asian films and even on their actors whereby they have usually fallen prey to the stereotyping of Hollywood. It seems to point out that despite the rich culture and history of the countries in the continent as well as the world class artistry characteristic of the continent; people including actors have been relegated into sub roles, littered with stereotyping and basically with little or no speaking roles. There were even films wherein the roles that are supposedly portraying an oriental are played by Caucasians. However, it is from these humble roots that the As ian films have slowly gathered strength and over the past decade have shown increasing prominence in the global arena. True there have been Asians that have made big names during the past century in Hollywood but so far there has been an overwhelming preference towards western films and western actors during that time. But, through the years, the growing prominence of the countries in the region in terms of their economic prosperity seem to have helped in boosting the quality of the films that they are able to produce. Rampal (2005) recognizes the reinvention of the Asian film outfits in order to shed the past imagery of stereotyped Asians and take in new and brighter colors characteristic of taking their respective leads on the big screen. Moreover, the improvements in the economies of these Asian nations have also brought in a more educated audience. These intellectual audiences have also been influenced greatly, quite ironically, by the west such as the democracy as well as the a llure and the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. The Abyss The world of films and cinemas has been filled with the myriad of manipulative directors attempting to delineate from reality in their attempts to depict the things that they want. The early development of the world of films seems to have taken a strong parallelism to the real world events. This can be seen with the problem of racism which has been a strong theme back in the early 90’s for the western films. Also, there has been the stereotyping of the Asians as mere second-class citizens. As mentioned, there were even oriental roles ironically being played by western actors. This shows how strongly most Asians are being sidelined as mere supporting actors or even extras with no speaking lines (Associated Content.com 2011). To exacerbate the situation, the stereotyping has even gone beyond the second-class status to an almost three hundred sixty degree turn to make them the utmost bad guys. Many films truly made money on depicting the Japanese as brutal soldiers after the Second World War. This stereotyping has been a strong characteristic of the films preceding the war (Associated Content.com 2011). This has been the characteristic of Asian films which have been like an abyss that has seem to have swallowed the industry of the continent. This seems to have been a very dark chapter of the Asian films which has also coincided to the times when almost all of the countries in the continent are trying to rebuild after the devastation of the war. Most nations have been experiencing hardships and are generally poor. Hence, it seems easy to see as to why there the stereotyping has happened. However, at the turn of the century, Asian countries showed more economic strength and there has been a significant rise initially led by the newly industrialized Asian economies such as Singapore and Korea. At the turn of the century, communist China opened her doors which fuelled the rapid growth of the Chinese econo my. Thus, after sorting through the rubble of the Great