A third Chinese-language film culture emerged in Hong Kong. During the 1960s Hong Kong filmmakers became famous throughout Asia for martial-arts action films. One of the leading directors in the genre was King Hu (Hu Jinquan), who became renowned for films such as Da zui xia (1966; Come Drink with Me), which featured a female warrior. In the 1980s the martial-arts style was extended to crime and gangster films in works such as Diexue shuang xiong (1989; The Killer), directed by John Woo (Wu Yusen). On the strength of his kinetic style, Woo moved to Hollywood and became a major director of action blockbusters in the 1990s. Hong Kong’s “new wave” during the 1980s also produced sumptuous historical melodramas such as Yanzhi hou (1987; Rouge) by Stanley Kwan (Guan Jinpang) and social problem films such as Touben nuhai (1982; Boat People), concerning refugees from Vietnam, and the autobiographical Haktou tsauhan (1990; Song of the Exile), both by Ann Hui (Xu Anhua).
In the 1990s filmmaker Wong Kar-wai drew international acclaim for the Hong Kong style with a series of films made with the Australian cinematographer Christopher Doyle. Their bright palette and swift cutting and camera movement were on display in such works as A-Fei zhengzhuan (1990; Days of Being Wild), Dongxie xidu (1994; Ashes of Time), Chongquing senlin (1994; Chungking Express), and Duoluo tianshi (1995; Fallen Angels). Later, more intimate films, set outside Hong Kong or in the past, were Chungguang zhaxie (1997; Happy Together), in which a gay couple from Hong Kong travel to Argentina, and Huayang nianhua (2000; In the Mood for Love), set in the 1960s. Iran
The most surprising rise to prominence of a little-known national cinema during the late 20th century, at least from an outside perspective, occurred in the case of Iran. In the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution (1978–79), some 200 film theatres were destroyed in a campaign against secular media and Western cultural influence, but religious authorities eventually decreed that motion pictures could be valuable for educational purposes. With Hollywood films banned, Iranian filmmakers developed a quiet, contemplative style that mixed actuality and fiction and often involved children as performers and centres of the narrative. Abbas Kiarostami, who before the revolution had made short films for the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults in Iran, gained international acclaim as an avatar of this distinctly Iranian style with films such as Khaneh-ye doost kojast? (1987; Where Is My Friend’s House?), Zendegi va digar hich (1992; And Life Goes On), Zir-e darakhtan-e zitun (1994; Through the Olive Trees), Ta’m e guilass (1997; Taste of Cherry), and Bad mara khahad bourd (1999; The Wind Will Carry Us). For Nema-ye Nazdik (1989; Close-Up), people who were involved in an actual public incident restaged the events for Kiarostami’s camera, a further innovation that filmmakers in Iran and elsewhere emulated.
Moshen Makhmalbaf made his name as a director of such films as Salaam Cinema (1995), Nun va goldoon (1996; A Moment of Innocence), and the visually stunning Gabbeh (1996), and he also served as screenwriter and producer for other family members. Samira Makhmalbaf, his daughter, made a striking debut as a director at age 17 with Sib (1998; The Apple), and Marzieh Meshkini, his wife, made the film Roozi keh zan shodam (2000; The Day I Became a Woman), her first. Other Iranian filmmakers whose works have had international success include Jafar Panahi, with Badkonak-e sefid (1995; The White Balloon), Dayereh (2000; The Circle), and Offside (2006), and Majid Majidi, director of Bachela-Ya aseman (1997; Children of Heaven) and Rang-e khoda (1999; The Color of Heaven). Japan
At the end of the 20th century, Japan’s long-established film culture was characterized by individual work rather than by dominant movements, as had been the case in the past. As in France, filmmakers of the Japanese New Wave era of the 1960s continued to be active, with Imamura Shohei making Unagi (1997; The Eel) and Kenzo Sensei (1998; Dr. Akagi) and Oshima Nagisa directing Gohatto (1999; Taboo). An important newcomer to film in the late 1980s was Kitano Takeshi, a popular television figure who began to write, direct, edit, and star as lead performer—often as a gangster or a policeman—in his films, which included Sonatine (1993), Hana-bi (1997; Fireworks), Kikujiro (1999), Brother (2000), and Zatoichi (2003). Koreeda Hirokazu made his directoral debut with Maboroshi no hikari (1995; Maborosi) and followed with Wandafuru raifu (1998; After Life). European cinema
At the end of the 20th century, the notion of national cinemas had become problematic in many of the traditional film cultures of western Europe. This is not to say that national cinemas had ceased to exist—the situation of France would contradict such an assertion—but that the trends toward international coproduction and toward filmmakers and performers working in different countries and languages had reached a stage where coherent film movements identified with a particular national culture, such as Italian Neorealism, the French New Wave, or New German Cinema, had become difficult to identify or sustain. A film such as Heaven (2002), cowritten by the Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski, with Tom Tykwer from Germany as director, set in Italy and spoken in Italian and English by American and Australian lead actors, seemed the rule rather than the exception. Even as many countries produced substantial numbers of films, the idea of nationality was exemplified more by singular individuals than by wider groupings.
Among the outstanding figures of European cinema were Pedro Almodóvar of Spain, Manoel de Oliveira of Portugal, Théo Angelopoulos of Greece, Aki Kaurismäki of Finland, and Nanni Moretti of Italy. Almodóvar, who had broken sexual taboos in his early work, entered a mature period of great human subtlety and complexity in the 1990s and 2000s with such works as La flor de mi secreto (1995; The Flower of My Secret), Carne trémula (1997; Live Flesh), Todo sobre mi madre (1999; All About My Mother), and Habla con ella (2002; Talk to Her). Oliveira—who was born in 1908, made his first films in the 1930s, and was artistically restricted for years by the Portuguese dictatorship—was still directing at age 100. He had perhaps his most productive period after 1990, with such films as Vale Abraão (1993; Abraham’s Valley) and Viagem ao princípio do mundo (1997; Voyage to the Beginning of the World), the latter starring Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni in his last screen role. Angelopoulos, a master of Greek cinema since his first feature film in 1970, made several ambitious works fusing the personal and the historicaclass="underline" To Vlemma tou Odyssea (1995; Ulysses’ Gaze) and Mia aeoniotita ke mia mera (1998; Eternity and a Day). Kaurismäki, one of Europe’s most cosmopolitan filmmakers, returned to Finnish themes in Kauas pilvet karkaavat (1996; Drifting Clouds) and Mies vailla menneisyyttä (2002; The Man Without a Past). Moretti became a popular figure in Italy by writing, directing, and performing in his own films, of which Caro diario (1993; Dear Diary) was exemplary.