DAY 4: SUNDAY APRIL 2 2006

Don't miss Monday's Indonesian Surprise Film, 19.30 hours - Filmmuseum Vondelpark Amsterdam!

Sunday's afternoon screening of Thai horror movie Shutter brought a decent crowd to the Rialto. More of an assault on your adrenaline levels than the average guts-and-gore horror movie, Shutter caused a good few people to jump out of their seats on more than one occasion. It's the profoundly unpleasant story of a vengeful spirit wreaking havoc on the lives of those who were the cause of its demise - a havoc that is richly deserved as the deeds of those haunted by this spirit slowly come to light through the course of the film. Missed the screening yesterday? You're in luck: there's a second viewing at 22.00 hours on Monday April 3rd, at the Filmmuseum Vondelpark Amsterdam.

During her introduction to the film, Thai cinema expert Dr. Irene Stengs named some reasons why this movie may be differently received by a Western than by a Thai audience. In Thai culture it is commonly believed that there is another world that the eye cannot see. Even amongst scientific circles there is a belief in the absolute objectivity of the camera in its capacity as a scientific witness, and that technology may one day enable the recording of this “unseen world”. In the Western world, these ideas are marginalized as belonging to the world of the “paranormal”, rather than forming an integral part of cultural belief.

The Gruesome Asia horror debate after the screening addressed some interesting questions around typical tropes of Asian horror - the girls with the long black hair and the general victimization of women. It also emerged that the rights to US remake of Shutter had already been snapped up - although no-one knew by whom. This prompted a discussion on the respective merits of Hollywood remakes of Asian horror films - such as The Ring and The Grudge - and the Hollywood practice of also buying up the rights to the original movie that will be remade, so as to be able to prevent any distribution of that original film once the Hollywood version is released. And were Hollywood remakes necessarily inferior to the originals? The relationship between the originals and the re-makes is a complicated matter, and also touches upon the question of what, in fact, constitutes an Asian film. To what extent can the remake of, say The Ring, still be called an Asian film? Is this a matter of having an Asian director working with the Hollywood system, as is the case with The Ring 2? Or is it necessary for the film to be shot in Asia with an Asian crew and Asian cast in order for it to qualify? For Japanese cinema expert Luk van Haute, it's all about the predominance of the film's budget and production issues rather than questions of cultural or national identity in film-making.

Not only horror featured this weekend. Many Asian film aficionados in The Hague visited the CinemAsia tour films in their city, and both Shanghai Dreams on Saturday and Dumplings on Sunday were sold out. On Wednesday April 5th, Quentin Lee will be present at the screening in The Hague of his film Ethan Mao and afterwards discuss the film with Sinologist Remy Cristini and others during a film debate organised by JONC.