Comments on: Chen Kaige wins the Kurosawa Award/Mei Lanfang MV released http://chinafilmjournal.com/2008/10/26/chen-kaige-wins-the-kurosawa-awardmei-lanfang-mv-released/ 華語電影刊 Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:23:23 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: philip http://chinafilmjournal.com/2008/10/26/chen-kaige-wins-the-kurosawa-awardmei-lanfang-mv-released/comment-page-1/#comment-39 philip Mon, 17 Nov 2008 02:49:22 +0000 http://chinafilmjournal.com/?p=119#comment-39 Interesting how his career has paralleled that of Mikhailov's. Early and unprecedented international success in the late 1980s / early 1990s, capped off with <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111579/" rel="nofollow">Burnt by the Sun</a>, which in 1995 won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes - the year after Farewell My Concubine won the Golden Palm. Then came Barber of Siberia, which cost $35 million - an ungodly sum in 1990s Russia, and then silence. Now he's making a sequel to Burnt by the Sun. I think both are considered directors emeriti now, and these are lifetime achievement awards that more often than not, will be what puts them in the news. This is not to denigrate those achievements - very few filmmakers have that three or four decade peak we associate with, well, Kurosawa. "We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep." Interesting how his career has paralleled that of Mikhailov’s. Early and unprecedented international success in the late 1980s / early 1990s, capped off with Burnt by the Sun, which in 1995 won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes – the year after Farewell My Concubine won the Golden Palm. Then came Barber of Siberia, which cost $35 million – an ungodly sum in 1990s Russia, and then silence. Now he’s making a sequel to Burnt by the Sun.

I think both are considered directors emeriti now, and these are lifetime achievement awards that more often than not, will be what puts them in the news. This is not to denigrate those achievements – very few filmmakers have that three or four decade peak we associate with, well, Kurosawa. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”

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