ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the creative tools required for what Singaporean academic Chua Beng Huat refers to as an emerging consciousnes's of Asia through the localised production of cultural texts. Nagata advocated the idea of participating in Asian film festivals, and made concrete plans for exporting to Asian markets. In many ways this was seen as an Occidentalist construction that assisted in marking out the parameters of Japanese national identity at a time when it looked to be the supreme economic power in the Asian region. For China's filmmakers the visual documentation of contemporary, scarred landscapes is tied to nostalgia rather than direct criticism, as Yomi Braester suggests the new urban cinema portrays construction sites to foreground social issues and to argue for cinema's role in chronicling urban transition. The tragic death of Yasmin Ahmad at the age of just 51 in 2009 robbed Malaysian cinema of one of its leading contemporary filmmakers.
