{"id":11840,"date":"2012-01-02T04:01:25","date_gmt":"2012-01-02T04:01:25","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-10-15T11:01:49","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T11:01:49","slug":"the-year-in-asian-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=11840","title":{"rendered":"The Year in Asian Film"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bigger is better. That\u2019s been this year\u2019s theme for Asian movies as budgets soared to new levels. Leading the pack was \u201cThe Flowers of War,\u201d which, at nearly $100 million, can claim the crown as the most expensive movie ever produced in China. Director Zhang Yimou\u2019s drama about Japan\u2019s war-time occupation of Nanjing starring Christian Bale sets a new high mark for mainland Chinese films, but it remains to be seen whether the movie\u2019s box office will match the price tag. \u201cFlowers\u201d opened around the same time as \u201cFlying Swords of Dragon Gate,\u201d China\u2019s most expensive 3-D movie. Earlier this year, the tribal epic \u201cWarriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale\u201d claimed the title as Taiwan\u2019s costliest movie ever with a budget of $25 million, while South Korea\u2019s \u201cMy Way,\u201d a World War II drama about a Korean man forced to serve in the Japanese military, set a record at 28 billion won ($24 million).<\/strong><\/p>\n

But the movies that made the deepest impression were marked by more than just outsize budgets \u2014 some, like \u201cA Simple Life,\u201d were small in scale but big in impact, while others, like \u201cYou Are the Apple of My Eye,\u201d touched a nerve with moviegoers and became too massive to be ignored. <\/p>\n

A Simple Life – (2011) Trailer<\/p>\n