London celebrates century of Chinese cinema

It's a weekend afternoon at London's BFI Southbank. A line of people are waiting for returns for the sold-out screening of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Lau Kar-leung's sumptuous 1978 martial arts masterpiece starring Gordon Liu Chia-hui and one of the more than 80 films playing as part of a five-month-long celebration of Chinese cinema.

Screening films from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan, "Century of Chinese Cinema" is the most comprehensive exploration of its kind mounted in the West. And judging by the packed auditorium of viewers watching the Shaw Brothers classic, it's hugely popular.

Augmented by lectures, events, on-stage interviews (Hong Kong New Wave pioneer Ann Hui On-wah is due in on August 24) and even a new, illuminating British Film Institute (BFI) book of critical essays, Electric Shadows, it is curated by Noah Cowan, artistic director of the Toronto International Film Festival's Bell Lightbox facility, where the season first played last summer.

"The 'Century of Chinese Cinema' programme is something of a miracle," Cowan says. "When we began, I didn't actually believe we would be able to successfully collaborate with all the various entities which finally helped to make it happen. In that respect, the programme is something of a milestone."

A trailblazing collaboration with the China Film Archive, the Hong Kong Film Archive and the Chinese Taipei Film Archive, it often involved "bizarre conversations" with government officials and rights holders to get hold of certain films, he says. "It's been quite a journey to get to where we are."

The season has been divided into five strands: "The Golden Age", dealing with the first classics of Chinese cinema, including an extended run of Fei Mu's Spring in a Small Town (1948); "A New China", showcasing films in the era following the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949; the action-packed "Swordsmen, Gangsters and Ghosts"; "New Waves", which focuses on the celebrated Fifth Generation of mainland filmmakers; and "New Directions", which soaks up works from the likes of Wong Kar-wai and Jia Zhangke.

"The impetus for me is that Chinese [cinema], taken as a whole, stands shoulder to shoulder with any great national cinema," says Cowan, "be it French cinema, or Hollywood, Bollywood - you name it." And given the dazzling array of films on show - many previously unavailable to British audiences - it's hard to disagree.

Cowan admits the purpose of the season was to provide an "entry-point" for non-Chinese speakers into Chinese cinema. But audiences - as I witnessed at the screening of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin - have also boasted a strong number of Chinese viewers.