It May Be Time for Oscar-Winning Asian Film; Is This Right One?

At a time when foreign films are said to be waning in popularity, there can be no understating the importance of what “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” has achieved.

Just days after it handily surpassed “Life Is Beautiful” as the highest-grossing foreign-language film ever released in the United States, Taiwanese director Ang Lee’s lyrical martial arts spectacle received an astonishing 10 Oscar nominations, the most ever for a foreign-language picture.

Add to that an L.A. Film Critics award, Golden Globe and British Academy Award trophies, and it would appear that the only thing separating “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” from officially being the “Titanic” of foreign-language movies is winning an actual Oscar or two, something that most already consider a certainty.

Unfortunately, a closer look at Oscar’s tainted relationship with Asian cinema yields a much less encouraging picture.

The problem is probably rooted in a long-standing American distrust for a region that lured it to war three times in 30 years. Throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s, while the rest of the world lauded the films of the Japanese New Wave, Hollywood indulged its own patronizing stereotypes, yielding such clinkers as 1957’s “Sayonara” and the widely derided 1961 Rodgers & Hammerstein musical “Flower Drum Song.”

During an era renowned for progress in civil rights, Asian performers saw their starring roles passed to white actors who either garnered Oscar nominations for their efforts (Jennifer Jones in 1955’s “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing”) or openly mocked the very people they were portraying (Mickey Rooney in 1961’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”).

Though academy voters of this notorious generation no longer wield the kind of power they once did, they remain firmly in control of the one category that “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” most needs to win: the coveted best foreign-language film.

Ironically, it was not always so. It was, after all, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that first sought to remedy the inattention given to foreign films when, in 1947, it established a special award for their honor. The bestowal of this award was left to the discretion of the academy’s very enlightened board of governors (a small body of representatives from the various academy branches) who, between 1947 and 1955, gave three of seven trophies to Japanese films (French and Italian productions received the other four).

In 1956, the best foreign-language film category was created, taking the decision out of the hands of the governors and opening it to a vote of the full academy, with nominees chosen imperiously by a foreign-language film committee. Since that time, despite numerous nominations, no Asian film has been able to secure a win, a drought that has been especially frustrating for Japan, whose 10 nominations give it the dubious honor of being the only double-digit nominee without a statuette.

That the great Akira Kurosawa won his Oscar for his only non-Japanese film, the Russian-produced “Dersu Uzala” (1975), merely adds insult to injury.

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At one time, any suggestion that the powerful foreign-language film committee--made up almost entirely of older members able to make the required time commitment--might have exerted undue influence in favoring European films would have been automatically dismissed. Voting, after all, was open to the entire body of the academy. But a 1976 rules change that disallowed the votes of any member who had not actually seen all five nominees gave renewed weight to such accusations. Clearly, committee members who had already seen all five nominees as part of the nominating process would be disproportionately represented among those casting valid votes.

The emergence of Chinese cinema as a major force during the 1990s confirmed the extent of the bias. From the late 1980s to the present, Chinese pictures dominated international film festivals at Venice, Berlin and Cannes, joining with other Asian films to win six Golden Lions, three Golden Bears and two Palmes d’Or. At last year’s Cannes Film Festival, where “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” made its debut, half of the major awards went to Asian productions.

Yet Academy Award recognition for these same films has been painfully elusive. Since 1990, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan have received a combined six nominations, including nods for such modern classics as “Farewell, My Concubine,” “Raise the Red Lantern” and Ang Lee’s own “The Wedding Banquet.” Still, no wins.

Despite these ominous signs, there may be a glimmer of hope. As was recently reported in The Times (“An International Gold Standard,” Feb. 12), producer Mark Johnson, who has chaired the foreign-language film committee since 1999, is actively seeking to recruit younger committee members to help rectify the demographic imbalance.

There have been other indicators of changing acceptance as well. At the Toronto International Film Festival, where Asian films have long enjoyed a place of prominence thanks to the efforts of Asian film scholar David Overby, it wasn’t until this last year that an Asian picture finally won the festival’s audience award. That picture was “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”

Still, even if Lee and his esteemed collaborators fail to reverse Oscar’s shameful trend, they can be proud of having broken a long-standing cultural barrier. For those who braved the lean years of the 1970s, when critics and audiences treated with derision the very films to which “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” pays homage, Lee’s triumph is nothing less than poetic justice. Should academy voters fail to join with the rest of the world in validating that triumph, the real loser will be Oscar’s credibility.