Five movies from East Asia won awards in the 57th Berlin Film Festival held from February 8 to February 17 this year. Most notable being Tuya's Marraige or Tuya's Wedding (图雅的婚事) by director Wang Quan-an and starring Chinese actress Yu Nan in the title role which won the most prestigious Golden Bear For Best Film Award. This movie looks really good and I hope that I will have a chance to watch it soon... You can find screen shots from the movie and Yu Nan and director Wang Quan-an at the Berlinale here.
Other East Asian films that won awards included:
South Korean film I'm A Cyborg But That's OK by director Park Chan-Wook and starring superstar Rain won the Alfred Bauer Prize (awarded to the most innovative film). Here's the trailer (unfortunately no subtitles) from Youtube (definitely looks like a quirky movie...):
Taiwanese film Spider Lilies (刺青) by director Zero Zhou Mei-ling and starring teen idols Rainie Yang & Isabella Leung won the Teddy Award for Feature Film. You can find a rather interesting short 3-minute clip of the movie with English subtitles here.
Hong Kong /China film Getting Home (落叶归根) by director Zhang Yang won the Ecumenical Jury Panorama Prize. Screen shots of the movie can be found here.
Japanese film Faces of A Fig Tree (Ichijiku no kao 無花果の顔) by director Momoi Kaori won the NETPAC Prize. You can find the official website of the movie here (in Japanese).
One thing that I noticed was that many of the expensive big-budgeted movies from China like Curse Of The Golden Flower and The Banquet were conspicuously absent from many prestigious award ceremonies (including the upcoming Oscars). Hmmm maybe this should signal something to the directors and producers there that its still the story that counts in a film and not the bombastic effects and lavish costumes ...
Tags: Berlin Film Festival, Berlin Film Awards, Berlinale, Golden Bear, Tuya's Marraige, Tuya's Wedding, East Asian Films, I'm A Cyborg But That's OK, Rain, Spider Lilies, Rainie Yang, Isabella Leung, Getting Home, Faces Of A Fig Tree.
Asian Films In 57th Berlin Film Festival
From Manga To Idol Drama
Japanese anime and manga have always been extremely popular in East Asia, especially Taiwan and Hong Kong. Popular manga titles in Japanese have been known to fly off the shelves of bookstores faster than books published by local authors in the local language. Many people flock to language schools to learn Japanese for the sole purpose of reading untranslated manga and watching Japanese anime and drama. In fact, I personally feel that anime and manga have a greater cultural impact in East Asia than cartoons from Disney or Warner Bros.
Especially in Taiwan, the Japanese love of all things "kawaii" (cute) have so successfully taken root that many of the pop stars or actresses that have became famous in the last 4 to 5 years look very much like shojo manga (young girl's manga) characters themselves - big round eyes, long hair, peachy complexions, super sweet smiles and slim girlish figures... Classic examples include Jolin Tsai, Cyndi Wang and Rainie Yang...
Adaptations of popular Japanese manga into Taiwanese "idol" dramas are also extremely common. The only "localization" done is usually that the setting of the story is changed to Taipei instead of Tokyo. The names of the characters are more often than not the same... even if the Japanese names sound strange in Chinese. A good example is Meteor Garden's "Dao Ming Si", in the Taiwanese adaptation, the character's surname becomes "Dao Ming" and his given name becomes "Ah Si" which is a direct translation of the character's surname Domyoji in the manga.
Examples of manga that have been made into Taiwanese idol dramas include:
Meteor Garden 流星花園 (2001)
Based on manga Hana Yori Dango
Starring Barbie Hsu and pop group F4 (Jerry Yen, Vic Zhou, Ken Zhu and Vanness Wu)
Peach Girl 蜜桃女孩 (2002)
Based on manga Peach Girl
Starring Annie Wu and Vanness Wu
Marmalade Boy 橘子醬男孩 (2002)
Based on manga Marmalade Boy
Starring Stella Huang Xiangyi and Ken Zhu
The Rose 薔薇之戀 (2003)
Based on manga Bara No Tame Ni (薔薇のために) by Yoshimura Akemi
Starring Ella (from pop group S.H.E), Zheng Yuan Chang and Jerry Huang
Mars 戰神 (2004)
Based on manga Mars
Starring Vic Zhou and Barbie Hsu
It Started With A Kiss 惡作劇之吻 (2005)
Based on manga Itazura Na Kiss (イタズラなKiss) by Kaoru Tada
Starring Ariel Lin Yichen and Joe Cheng
Devil Beside You 惡魔在身邊 (2005)
Based on manga Akuma de Soro
Starring Rainie Yang and Mike He
Tokyo Juliet 東方茱麗葉 (2006)
Based on manga Tokyo Juliet
Hanazakarino Kimitachihe 花樣少年少女 (2006/07) (picture)
Based on manga Hanazakari no Kimitachi e
Starring Ella (S.H.E), Wu Zun and Jiro Wang
As you can see, creating idol dramas based on manga is really common. One reason could be that the ratings for such dramas are usually pretty good as there exists a ready audience from fans of the popular manga and also because the boy-girl relationship issues in manga suit the Taiwanese idol drama genre to a tee.
So... expect more such manga/anime based drama serials in the years to come...
Tags: idol drama, Taiwanese drama, Chinese drama series, drama serial, manga, anime, shojo manga
