"Asian Minimalism" (Bordwell)
"[..] A Regional Tradition By the mid-1990s, one stream of Asian art cinema shared many aesthetic features with specialist films from other countries. The prototype is now familiar. The story traces the lives of relatively few characters, with a focus on mundane activities. In place of the earth-shattering conflicts we see in more mainstream entertainments, these films present everyday and intimate human dramas, often embedded in routine activities - riding a train or bus, walking through a neighborhood, eating and drinking with friends and family. While the situations may recall the problems of love and duty we associate with melodrama, the characters tend not to burst into grand emotional displays. Instead, their feelings tend to be muted or stifled, repressed rather than expressed. In plot, this strain of Asian cinema tends not to present the goal-oriented, problem/solution dramatic arc to be found in mainstream entertainment. Instead, we get episodic plot structures, which ...
