By Lubna Abdel-Aziz The very remote and mysterious East is no longer so remote or so mysterious. Asia offers a number of hot spot destinations for adventurous tourists; the locations are dreamy and exotic, the shopping is plentiful and reasonable, and the designer knock-offs are to die for. The Orient is more glamorous and more alluring than ever, and the eyes of the world are dazzled by its rising sun. The progress and speed of its technology and commercial boom is nothing less than staggering. Its film industry is rising to catch up. Watch out Hollywood, the Asians are coming! India has always been in the forefront in film production. Ranking second or third a few decades ago, it has now reached No. 1, producing over 1,000 films annually with the US a distant second, at 650. While Hollywood films enjoy massive distribution around the world, and are by far the more popular and more profitable, Bollywood is gaining a wider audience appeal, with Indian audiences scattered everywhere around the globe, from the UK, US, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and the Middle East. Other film industries of Asia are also flourishing in China, Japan, Korea, Iran and Turkey. Hailed at festivals regularly, their films are slowly finding acceptance among mainstream audiences, well beyond their borders. Chinese actors in general and Chinese directors in particular, are regularly featured in American productions besides their own indigenous features, gracefully erasing all ethnic traits. One of Taiwan's directors, much sought after in Hollywood is Ang Lee. His trilogy of Taiwanese culture films, Pushing Hands (1992), Wedding Banquet (1993), Eat, Drink, Man, Woman (1994), received acclaim and awards at festivals and at the Oscars. Thus Ang Lee, managed to build a bridge between the cultural gap of East and West. His martial arts masterpiece Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, became the highest grossing foreign film ever released in the US, making him a household name. Hong Kong director John Woo is also kept busy in Hollywood ( Mission Impossible, Paycheck), as well as Chinese actors Chow Yun Phat ( Anna and the King ), Lucy Liu ( Charlie's Angels ), John Lone ( Last Emperor ), Michelle Yeoh ( Tomorrow Never Dies ), and Jackie Chan ( Rush Hour ). They have become part and parcel of the glamorous Hollywood panorama, regularly assuming major roles and complex characters. Gone are the days when a stereotypical Oriental in American films was a mumbling sly detective, or a temperamental angry cook. It is no wonder that festivals around the world regularly pay tribute to the films of China, and next week the Cairo International Film Festival will do just that (29 November-9 December). If you have not seen a film from China, Cairo is the place. A selection of the best China has to offer, including Flying Daggers, masterwork of Zhang Yimou, one of the top world directors, will be projected in theatres around the city. While the stars of China shine in the US, it is the ideas of Japan that have mesmerised Hollywood: "If it's Japanese, its worth remaking". Tired of their own sequels and remakes, Hollywood turns to Japan for fresh and intriguing story lines. Partly responsible for this Japanese/American trend is the very daring director Quentin Tarantino. Many of his successes like Pulp Fiction are cleverly and subtly borrowed from Japanese films and Westernised to blend into America's cinematic consciousness. A recent example is the story of the revenge of a woman scorned -- Japanese style. Uma Thurman sets off to Kill Bill twice, to the delight of viewers everywhere. Tom Cruise fought side by side with The Last Samurai (2004) and Bill Murray was endearingly perplexed, lonely, and Lost in Translation (2003)in Tokyo. While it has become customary to cast Chinese stars and to remake Japanese films, it is most unusual for Hollywood to tackle a film that is totally Asian, with an all-Asian cast, exploring the art of living and loving in ways unique to the Japanese. This is an American production of a Japanese story Memoirs of a Geisha without adaptation, transformation or Americanisation. Every director in Hollywood read it, every director wanted to make it, but every director shied away from it. Even the likes of Stephen Spielberg and Brett Rattner found it too risky. Producers Douglas Wick and wife Lucy Fisher had bought the rights to the best-selling novel only one month after its publication in 1977, but finding the right director took them several years. Topping The New York Times best-seller list for over one year, Memoirs sold four million copies, was translated into 32 languages, and will finally come alive at the hands of Oscar-winning director Rob Marshall ( Chicago ). The film will be released on 9 December and the secret memoirs of Sayuri will be revealed. A harmonious marriage of two familiar themes, Memoirs is the Cinderella rags to riches story carefully blended with the romantic tale of unrequited love. In other words a classic fairy tale of a strikingly beautiful child, Sayuri who was sold into slavery to become a geisha. The tragic account of a child being forced away from her family, who ultimately survives and succeeds, beating all odds, has great appeal for all. Sayuri, is played by the beautiful Zhang Ziyi, a protégé of Chinese dean of directors Zhang Yimou. She is joined by Michelle Yeoh as her kindly mentor Mameha, and Gong Li as her rival. Ken Watanabe, of the Last Samurai, is the rich and handsome chairman for whom Sayuri carries a torch across the years. The original best-seller is written by Harvard graduate Arthur Golden, in a highly polished and appealing style. The story begins with an aged soft spoken Sayuri, sipping her tea and gently, in the softest voice accustomed to entertaining men all her life, she begins her tale, in her elegant apartment at the opulent Waldorf Towers in NY, where she has resided for 40 years. She dictates her memoirs to her young admirer Jacob Haarhuis, a scholar of Japan. Her only condition is that it should be published only after her death, and the death of several others in her life. This is unusual for geishas, who never talk about their experiences -- "these butterflies of the night regard their roles as a kind of public trust." So authentic was the accounting of the geisha lifestyle, so fascinating was Sayuri's story, you are drawn, heart and soul, in her exotic world. Brilliantly conceived and eloquently executed, it is astounding to finally discover that this was not written by a geisha at all, but effortlessly penned by Harvard-educated Arthur Golden, and more astonishing, that this is his debut novel. It is nothing less than beguilingly and bewitchingly fulfilling. Side by side with this sensational fable, is a historical lesson filled with a wealth of information, gracefully woven into the elegant narrative that unleashes the hidden world of stunning beauty and breathtaking romance. This strange and mysterious world of the last century may have vanished, but Rob Marshall recreates it compellingly and powerfully, on the screen. You leave the theatre convinced that you have just returned from a journey far, far away, and long, long ago, from a teahouse in Gion, the ancient secretive geisha district in the heart of Kyoto, having just been served the most delicious cup of tea, and learned a valuable lesson in the unique art of living. Director Marshall is delighted with his Asian cast: "finally we are recognising that international stars are the greatest actors in the world and few people know that. Why not take advantage of the wealth around the world instead of the five or six who are in Star Magazine !" With films breaking barriers and crossing borders, travelling easily from West to East, as well as from East to West, our globe is swiftly shrinking and audiences are growing increasingly accepting of all types, colours, customs and traditions. The wall that separates cultures is gradually crumbling, and the art of film will be a major tool in closing the cultural divide. We are no more than candles, burning in the wind Japanese proverb
