Last Sunday night, Ben Affleck's Argo was named the best motion picture of the year at the 2013 Academy Awards ceremony while Ang Lee received the best director honour for Life of Pi.
Much was made in the run-up to the Oscars of Argo's helmer being shut out of the best director category, something Affleck made light of in the aftermath of the awards show. While he was initially disappointed, he consoled himself by noticing which other deserving directors didn't get a nod, including Quentin Tarantino ( Django Unchained) and Paul Thomas Anderson ( The Master).
Life of Pi also took the best cinematography, best visual effects and best original score awards. Its success was some compensation for the fact that Asian cinema had a slim presence this year.
All of the Asian submissions for the best foreign film were sidelined in favour of contenders from Austria (which won for the lovely Amour), Norway, Chile, Denmark and Canada. Films from Asia that didn't make the final shortlist of five films included the mainland's Caught in the Web (directed by Chen Kaige), Hong Kong's Life Without Principle and Taiwanese nominee Touch of the Light.
Not that Asia hasn't had a strong run intermittently in the past. In the 21st century alone, there was Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which won Oscars in 2001 for best cinematography (with Hong Kong's Peter Pau Tak-hei getting individual recognition), best art direction/set decoration (by Hongkonger Tim Yip Kam-tim) and best music, original score (mainland composer Tan Dun) along with best foreign-language film.
Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away won the best animated feature category in 2003. And Lee (again) earned his first best director prize for Brokeback Mountain in 2006. In addition, there was Slumdog Millionaire, whose eight Oscars in 2009 included ones for composer A.R. Rahman and lyricist Gulzar.
But what does seem especially striking about this year is just how American many of the top contenders in one of the more keenly anticipated Oscar races in recent memory are. The serious, historical Lincoln, the quirky Silver Linings Playbook, the relatively niche - and occasionally hard to watch - Beasts of the Southern Wild, the graphically violent Django Unchained and the controversial Argo: all are steeped in American culture and American history.