Chinese filmmakers embrace glamour

BEIJING, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- The current crop of Chinese filmmakers has gone back 60 years to create a generation of old Hollywood-style glamour films, the New York Times reports.

The shift became evident in May at the Cannes Film Festival where audiences swooned for Wong Kar-wai's romantic drama "2046" and Zhang Yimou's swordsman epic, "House of Flying Daggers."

With her alabaster skin and dark eyes, bathing alfresco while discreetly veiled by green woodland, Zhang doesn't just look bewitchingly lovely, but bears a striking resemblance to an MGM pinup, the newspaper said.

Like Hollywood filmmakers of days gone by and like many contemporary Chinese directors, Wong Kar-wai tends to express erotica subliminally rather than with outright sex in his films. In several features, including "2046," Wong lingers on the image of a woman in a tight dress leaning away from the camera.

There may be few movies as violent as those made in Hong Kong, but the whiff of glamour still mingles with the smell of gunpowder, the newspaper said.