There's also a video attached but I can't get it to play.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/stor...5001026,00.html

Thanks for the article. Everyone here knows I think Australia is great, and I heard DVD sales are going well....

I bought the DVD, but I sure would love to see it again on the big screen! It is absolutely one of my favorite films. Maybe, next time for you Baz! Just don't hype the film too much and let it stand on its own merit. Marketing is everything and so is the wrong type of marketing!

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...5013404,00.html

'Glad to know that the dvd is doing great. Thanks Narrows.

Way to go, Baz! I am pretty annoyed still about the reception of Australia in the U.S. at the box office and with critics (also one particular one in England that everyone probably recalls). None of the criticism was justified but some of the critical rejection I think was reflected at the U.S. box office. The public has rejected creative works in the past if you look at the reaction to various forms of art, however far back you want to go...Baz is absolutely right, people do tend to reject good things that are "outside the box". I think Australia will be a classic, also! I'm delighted that the box office outside the U.S. was so phenomenal. It's wonderful but definitely not a surprise that the DVD's are selling well. Australia is a breathtaking film and many more people are eager to see it on DVD than went to the movie theaters even in the U.S.

It missed out on many technical awards including music/score, which they deserved. I feel sad for those who were ignored. The oscar noms just go with best films nomination and I don't think they are as valuable as/any better than Australia.

Go Baz Go. Believe in your creativity and go for it. He is unique and will stand the test of time.

Australia - DVD Sales
DVD Sales Performance
Released on DVD: March 3, 2009
DVD Units Sold: 1,142,413
Consumer Spending: $19,176,676
See full information for Australia

Date Rank Units this Week % Change Total Units Sales this Week Total Sales Weeks in Release
3/8/2009 2 753,245 -.-% 753,245 $12,797,633 $12,797,633 1
3/15/2009 6 252,957 -66.4% 1,006,202 $4,297,739 $17,095,372 2
3/22/2009 8 136,211 -46.2% 1,142,413 $2,081,304 $19,176,676 3



http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2008/AUSTL-DVD.php



Top selling DVDs of 2009

http://www.the-numbers.com/dvd/charts/annual/2009.php

To this box office thing: I think the media should go off this thing of rating the success of a movie from how good it was at the box office.
Especially today. Everyone knows that through the financial crises less people are going to the movies. Also many people prefer watching a movie at home on their own couch more than in cinema and so they wait for the dvd. So that was my word of the day

Thanks for the article. Good to hear that the dvd sales are going well.

Thanks SOM for the update.

Thanks for posting.
Ciao

Well said Baz!

Thankyou for posting!

DVD sales are doing incredibly well!

Thanks for posting the article. That's one DVD I intend buying although it will never compare with the big screen version. Baz seems to be taking the criticism well--he certainly has nothing to be ashamed of--Australia is a great movie as far as I am concerned.

Baz wasn't snubbed... australia was ok but it wasn't oscar worthy... baz should try making a small time movie, something that can be made with very little money... almost like what woody does with his films, I'm sure he would get a lot more positive attention that way...

I agree that Baz needs to try something on a smaller scale. I just don't get the need for everything to be "epic." I also feel that he talked too much about the movie during filming & let too many "secrets" out before hand. To me he did his own movie a disservice.

That is what I think too.

Australia was good, but 1000 times better than The Reader or Frost/Nixon.
The fact is, bad critics in US destroyed the possibility of oscar noms.

Baz needs to try something on a smaller scale? What were Strictly Ballroom, Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge?

Although they were highly stylized, which made them look spectular, they were all made for not that much money. With Australia he was trying something different. So I don't think he has the idea that everything has to be epic.

I agree with those here who said Australia is a good movie. Better than some that were nominated. Australia is a very watchable movie that can be viewed over and over again. For me it's a place I want to visit time and again. Some that were highly praised are not like that. One does not want to keep going to those places. Just my opinion.

Don't get me wrong, I really love Australia. I thought it was great & will definitely watch my copy again & again. But I do think Baz/Fox made a mistake in using the word "epic" it semed in every article I read. The media is doing it again here. That is why I used the word. They kept saying, "an epic love story" like "Gone With The Wind", "Titanic" etc. And when I saw it quite honestly I thought "This isn't an epic love story. It is barely there." The story I loved was Sarah's journey & her relationship with the aboriginals. I came to not even care if the drover had lived or died because again honestly in the last half of the movie I wanted to see Sarah's story & it seemed that the Drover took over too much. I was more interested in his aboriginal "right hand man" then the drover. Sarah was the most interesting character & I think she was sacrificed for "the sexiest man alive." I would have been just as happy if there would have been no inkling of romance that they just would have stayed friends & butted heads over the land & on the cattle drive. Which again i really wanted to see & it felt too short.

It would really surprise me if movies that we now think as "classic" were ever thought that they would be classics by the director/producers when they were made. Such as The Wizard Of Oz. That is still shown on TV here 3 or 4 times a year. The same thing may happen with Australia in Australia. But I also wanted to see more of the beautiful landscape that he took so long to film, it all seemed to go by so fast & in such quick cuts.

I have said before that I also don't believe that Fox gave this movie a really good chance in the US. They put it out at a time when a lot of the people who wanted to see it were busy with holiday preperations & their kids were home from school. I have heard more & more stories of people who wanted to see it but it was gone too quickly. I think movies that are successful find an audience & then the word of mouth spreads. I think that is one reason Moulin Rouge became such a success. It wasn't the first time around from what I heard but it was given another chance.

He can still do "grand scale" movies if he wishes but perhaps he should treat them in the public relationshs arena as if they are small independent films & wait until they are finished? I don't know, it isn't as if this movie is a failure because it is far far from a failure. I just really believe the PR was not handled right by a lot of people in charge of the movie.

As for the other Oscar nominees this year. I had no desire to see any of them. The Reader I had read the book a few years ago after just looking at it in the bookstore & not knowing anything about it other then the back cover. I didn't like it enough to see it in movie form.

and look how those films were received. Very positive feedback from the critics/public. Moulin Rouge cost 50 million to make, so that's not small scale, and that's basically what it made at the US b.o. but no one talked about money because the movie was so unique. Had Australia been a better movie no one would even mention the cost... Australia had so many flaws, starting with the title it was destined to go down... it was called Australia and I don't get how this title falls in with the rest of the movie? the movie is most definitely not about australia... one could make at least three different films here.... is it about this little boy and nicole trying to save the boy? or is it about hugh saving this little boy? is it the romantic story between nicole and hugh? is it an adventure story about cattle ranchers and their struggles with this evil guy who wants to ruin them? the only reason to have this evil guy and this part of the storyline is to have that long shot at the end where the boy is again in danger of losing his life... is it a movie about war? and what's the deal with grandpa guy? is he a ghost, some sort of spiritual being, an angel, what the frak was that all spiritual stuff all about? too many things happening at the same time...

I'm trying to remember if Gone With The Wind had angels and ghost or perhaps Out of Africa had angles... I haven't seen Titanic so I don't know, perhaps an angel could've moved that iceberg just a bit to the left...

This is like a writer submitting a 1000 page manuscript to his publisher and the editor gets drunk, doesn't read it, says to himself... ah it's quite alright we know his previous work, I'm sure it's good... the book goes out to public and it's just a big don't know what's up or down disaster...

Sure it's an epic... epic fail...

Feel free to bombard me now... hehe

"You can hate the film but nobody denies the pictorial power of it."
I agree with this. I haven't seen cinematography of that standard in decades. It's what made the film so breathtaking to me. As one critic said (for me) 'The star of Australia was Australia'.

I thought it was odd and a poor reflection on the Oscars and other so-called credible Award shows that such beautiful cinematography was snubbed in place of films with a more expensive Oscar Campaign and stars that have more media support.

As for some of the Critics. When your dislike of someone stops you appreciating the beauty of nature it says more about the unhealthy level of your dislike for them than about the person you're attacking.

An epic failure??

The spectacular DVD sales seem to say otherwise.

Again, this movied failed only in the US box office. Everywhere else it has been a success.

If it is to be labeled a failure merely becaused the US box office underperformed so be it. But as I've said over and over again....the studio took the $200 million plus foreign dollars and the DVD sales $$ to the bank too. In the end that is all they are concerned about.

I love these discussions! And I think it's okay if we agree to disagree...

I agree with Bluebell that it would have been better if Baz would not have called the film an epic and also would not have built it up so much as being a film to compare with Gone with the Wind or Out of Africa. Gone with the Wind is one of the best movies of all time. I, like Bluebell, wonder if the producer/director of GWTW ever talked about GWTW as an epic or classic before the film was released, i.e., before people had a chance to see the movie. When Baz mentioned GWTW while "Australia" was in the making, he set the standard very, very high for Australia and I guess that was just too tempting for critics and other writers to resist knocking the film down because of that and other comparisons with Titanic and Out of Africa.

I don't want to "bombard" you, Ed, but I just can't agree with you about some of the things you wrote about "Australia". People all over the world enjoyed "Australia" and a lot of them wrote comments on the Internet to question how critics could have been so negative. Some people writing comments on line asked if the critics had seen the same movie they did. Also, I don't see a problem with the title Australia; the movie was about a foreigner, Sarah, whose life was transformed by the country she came to know. Also, the creator of a film has the right to include as many elements in the story as he/she envisions so Baz had the freedom to include World War II (which I thought was fascinating to see WW II through the eyes of Australians), the story of the aborigines, a love story, a story of personal transformation and whatever else he wanted to include.

I guess what it all boils down to in regards to the critical and public reception of Australia (even our reactions as NKU members) is that people have greatly differing opinions about movies, as about anything else. I just think that regarding critics and journalists, whatever they write or present to the general public should be done in good taste, with respect for other people. I think there were many things said and written about Australia (and Nicole) that were in very poor taste and imo it did affect the box office in the U.S. and possibly awards bodies everywhere. I believe that Baz said something to that effect (on Nicole's behalf) at the press conference when he got his award at G'Day NYC. And, of course, there's that old saying that my mom and grandmother told me, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." This world could sure use some of that philosophy, couldn't it?

In Theory: when I say that australia was a failure for me, I'm not talking about money and how many dvd copies it sold...

gracie: I know critic/journalist circle had a lot to say about the movie and Nicole especially... If pressed I would say that Nicole's performance is the only thing I liked in the movie... perhaps first 45 minutes... this is not a jab at Nicole... she did exactly what was expected of her... if anything she created a character out of nothing... I could watch Nicole wash paint buckets and enjoy it... my beef is with Baz and how he structured the movie... sure he can put anything he wants into the movie, but is it a right thing to do...so many different plots pushing and pulling every which way, it's just not how good movies are made... I really hate cheap emotional pulls in movies and this one is full of them... I enjoy some romantic films and had this been a simple love story movie about two people on some cattle ranch in the middle of nowhere trying to move thousands of head of cattle to save their ranch without anything else added... don't add wars, don't add multiple bad evil men trying to take over the ranch, who kill each other in the process, don't add plots within plots within plots... (simplest meals are the most satisfying meals because they are easy to digest)... don't add weird spirits and supernatural events/moment... I so would've enjoyed it... think about it... you have two of the most beautiful people on the planet in Nicole and Hugh and potential for a great love story, why not spend every frame on the two of them, but then you add all these other unnecessary things and you mess up the whole thing... I understand why Russell Crowe had issues with the script... he was right...

Unnecessary? I don't think so. It's an epic movie, a drama, a love story, and first of all a story about Australian culture. It seems everybody has forgotten this.
Magical elements were necessary to describe Autralian's culture and history.

Australia flopped in US because it seems epic movies must be done only by Americans, not other people. We have to say that US critics before the movie opened were cinycal and skeptical and they didn't lose the opportunity to attack Nicole again.
Australia flopped ONLY in US also because people are not more intrested to see big and epic love stories if they are not Americans stories.
Australia is totally Australian: director, actors, story, so American cynism was obvious but rude, gross and vixing.

But Australia is a good movie, well directed, well acted and it's full of love and passion for Australia as a country and for Australian tradition and people.
Baz did a great job, I'm sad it flopped in US but it is an huge success in the world, and I couldn't be more happy. Baz, Nic, Hugh and all the others said to the world how much magical and amazing is Australia, and how much the love of the people for their work can be stronger that human cynism.

nicfan22:

I won't take this personally, it's ok if you feel this way about americans but here's my counterargument...

Let me tell you what a truly EPIC film is... LAWRENCE OF ARABIA This is a film that deserves to be called EPIC... this is a film one watches for direction, CINEMATOGRAPHY, acting and all the other things that deserve to be called epic.

Now you go do some research about the people involved in making one of the greatest films ever.

Oh Gosh, you're talking about a movie who's 40 years old.
Don't you ever think Australia will be an epic film loved as Lawrence D'Arabia is?

Australia, for definition is an EPIC movie.

And, do you really think Australia's cinematography is not epic eough?
Australia has everything to be called an epic movie, never mind if you don't agree.

Are you kidding me?
You can't even imagine how much I'm prepared about movies, so, please, don't play this joke with me.

NO I'M NOT KIDDING YOU... this is what you said "Australia flopped in US because it seems epic movies must be done only by Americans, not other people."

and I presented a counterargument... no I'm not kidding you...

No! Australia will never be loved as much as Lawrence of Arabia... in 5 years no one is going to even remember Australia.

And that's true.
Lawarence D'Arabia is an Uk movie, done 40 years ago. Do you know any recent epic movie done by not-Americans?


Are you able to see in the future? What a fortune.

a film is called an EPIC because it stands the test of time... I don't need to look for a more recent film... I've proved my point!!!

I'm sorry, but you hadn't proove nothing.

See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_film

Australia is an epic movie for definition. That's it. And one of the reason it flopped in US is because many of the epic movies are done in US and American people in general don't see with enthusiasm epic movies done in other countries.
It's not a critic or an insult, I don't know why you think it is.

Australia history is mostly uknown everywhere. American people didn't find intresting Australia because Australia's history (as a country) is not known as UK history. I hope I was clear.

I don't use wikipedia so I don't know what it says there... definition is one thing and execution is another...

You're kidding me again, aren't you?
Australia is an epic movie in the definition and in the execution. Read the wikipedia link and you can see all the elements that make a movie epic, and you can see how Australia is epic.

Said this, I think it's better for me to stop here the discussion.

I actually have to agree with Ed about Australia. I've seen Australia three times now, each time hoping that I'll enjoy it or find new appreciation for it, but I just don't. The funny thing is is that the movie actually angers me, the reason being is that it is a movie I so much want to love, because of all the people involved, but every time I see it, I find more problems with it.


The main problem for me is the same for Ed, there are too many story elements going on that the movie feels jumbled and loose, as if it's about to fall apart at the seams at any moment. There's no narrative focus. There's about four different movies in Australia, all struggling to get out, each one fighting for attention, and this mainly is a disservice to the film. It never really dug deep into the characters motivations or feelings, everything felt very on the surface because there was never enough time to explore the characters; everything had to be spent rushing from one plot point to the next.

It's funny because a friend and I were discussing how we thought the movie could have been more successful (storytelling wise). And it's pretty close to what Ed mentioned. If the movie would have just focused on Lady Sarah Ashley coming to Australia, inheriting the cattle station and teaming up with the Drover, and their relationship/blossoming romance, I think it would have been a much stronger movie.

Think of Out of Africa and what makes it successful. It's story is rather simple and focuses on Karen Blixen and her life in Africa. There's no big war plot, no kidnapping of African children plot, no evil scheming men killing people plot, etc. It's just a simple story of Karen and her emotional journey in Africa and romance with Robert Redford. It's a character study and because there's not five different plots in the movie, it allows us to get to know the characters feelings, their emotions, what their thinking and connect with them. At the end of Australia, I never really felt like I knew Sarah Ashley or the Drover, and never really cared about their relationship, because we never got to spend too much time with them. Nothing was able to unfold at a leisurely pace because we were constantly being rushed to the next plot point.

Like I said, this was one of my most anticipated films of all time, and it upsets me that it disappointed me on such a level that it did. And while Australia may have the ingredients of an epic (gorgeous cinematography, costumes, grand landscapes, etc.) that doesn't make it a great movie by any means (though I do appreciate the technical aspects of the film).

And Nicfan22, I would say that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is an example of a recent, successful non-American epic film.

you said it better than I did...

the movie was snubbed because it was titled "AUSTRALIA". If it had carried a title like 'AMERICA', the background changed from Australia to some wild west place in America, it might even get nominated for 'best picture'....

nicolefan19 we're not talking about personal/subjective tastes or opinions or views about movies and about Australia. Australia for DEFINITION AND EXECUTION IS AN EPIC MOVIE.

An epic mvie is composed by many elements like love, war, etc. If you say it is too much in a move, well, you don't know how to look an epic movie. That's it. Do you think Gone With The Wind is focused only on Scarlet O'Hara charachter? And Out Of Africa? The English Patient? Have they just one and focused argument?
Or probably because you tought Australia would be the most deep and complex movie ever, you were disappointed. Well an epic movie has the beauty sometimes of being simple and/or childish. As Australia is. If you want to find some philosphyc meaning go to see Bergman movies as I do when I want to think about something. Australia is an entertainment movie and the reason you think it's not complete it's because you wanted to find something else behind a simpl kiss.
Have you ever seen the probabily your reasons to dislike this movie come from this reason? I'm only supposing, because few friends thought the same but after a logical discussion about what is epic or not they changed their minds. I don't want to change your opinion that I respect completely, but sometimes even personal opinions could be wrong, like everything else.
I'm not saying Australia is the best movie ever, it has some diffects actually, but you can't be angry with Baz because you expected something else. Baz said from the begining: WARNING! KOLOSSAL LOVE MOVIE, NOTHING MORE. It seems many people didn't see the warning.

And Crouching Tiger is not just an epic movie. Don't get confusion please.
The genre is more specific:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_arts_film
Hope you read wikipedia links.
Martial Arts movies are more marketable and scheming than movies like Australia, that's sure.

Anyway, I'm sure in 20 years Australia will be a classic. The success of a movie is linked with the time of the realization it doesn't depends by the quality only, and things can change suddenly. People are changed from 10 years ago and they don't seem more intrested in love stories.
As you can see, things can change. Probably from here to 30-40 years Australia will be a classic of the new generation epic movies. But probably it is right now, because it fopped only in US (and in the Box Office, DVD sales are impressive) in the rest of the world did beautifully well and for so many people it is the best movie they ever seen. And it was one of the most discussed, analyzed movie in years and it get an extrordinary and massive attention by media in a good way and... In a bad way. Also this make a movie "epic".

I can understand your point of view, Ed and Nicolefan 19, and I would have definitely enjoyed the focus on the love story between Sarah and the Drover, similar to the love story in Moulin Rouge. That would possibly, if done well, have received more positive attention, but only if it had a lot of depth to it. On the other hand, a lot of people loved the variety of Baz' Australia; that was a different "take" for Baz, after Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge and Ballroom Dancing, which focused on a love story (though in Ballroom Dancing, the competition and the young man's love of El Paso Doble and his relationship with his father on "ballroom dancing" were actually the primary focus I believe. ) Baz is a lot like Nicole, though, and enjoys doing new things that challenge him so that probably is what drove his vision of the movie Australia. Baz will probably do better with the Great Gatsby which is from a novel so already the central plot will be set for him. Baz probably should have taken more heat than Nicole because the vision for Australia was his and, as we know, Nicole puts herself in the hands of the director. I wish for Nicole that she would be interested in also directing movies (like Clintwood began to do) but only Nicole knows what her passion is and it seems it is for acting within the visions of creative directors, which is not a bad way to approach films as an actor.

Anyway, I respect the different points of view, yours, Nicolefan 19 and others who have expressed their opinions though I am more inclined to agree with Nicfan22 (she and I seem to be more on the same wavelength on a number of issues, including an enjoyment of the film Australia and and dislike of critics who attacked it and Nicole's performance.)

I don't know where Skanky and Meisha are but I wish they would offer some comments on this post, please excuse me if I missed their comments but I don't believe that they have weighed in on this post.

nicfan22:

martial arts films can be epic... so can scifi films or a historicals film... a western can be an epic...

Lets say Australia is an epic because the definition of an epic says that we ---- put a hero and an event against a lavish background and we add just an amazing music score and costumes, a ton of extras, on location filming, and we make it long and we recreate all this history and we make it so extravagant that our eyes just pop out because of all the excitement.

Can you tell me who the hero is in Australia, because a hero must clearly be defined in an epic film, and what is the event we are supposed to follow?

Thanks for posting the articles, narrows.

I don’t think we can just pin the “blame” of the North America boxoffice returns and perceived “Oscar snub” on US critics. Firstly, I don’t agree with some statements made here that the film enjoyed boxoffice success everywhere else. I think if you were to look at the b.o. returns country-by-country, you would see that the film only did “okay” to “so so” in large film markets such as the U.K. and Japan, as well as elsewhere in Asia.

I have followed many of the reviews by U.S. critics early on. While some were quite harsh, there were also many favorable/glowing reviews. I think the problem lies in certain media outlets (and we know who they are, so no need to repeat them here) who would print and reprint the nasty reviews, and oftentimes in BOLD headlines. There simply wasn’t balanced reporting as the positive reviews were not given as much prominence as the negative reviews.

As to a perceived “Oscar snub” of the film, I don’t think so. Mandy Walker not getting an Oscar nomination probably has more to do with that branch of the Academy nominating only male cinematographers in the last 81 years! *grrr* I also think that Baz may have contributed to the film being “shut out” of nominations with his delay in “finalizing” the film only two days before the world premiere, which happened to be very close to the nomination deadlines of some of the earlier awards. I suspect some guild members may not even have seen the film when they had to turn in their nomination forms. So, without any nominations from the earlier awards like GG, Critics Choice, SAG et al, and apparently no Oscar PR campaign for “Australia”, is it any surprise that the film did not get any nominations? The power of PR/marketing cannot be overlooked, as Harvey Weinstein has shown for a number of years with his films doing well in the awards, and also as shown this year by “Slumdog”.

I’m not here to critique the artistic merit of the film nor weigh in whether it is or isn’t an “epic”. I enjoyed the film – I’ve seen it in the theaters several times and got a copy of the DVD as well. But, I do agree with some members who thought Baz and Fox should have managed the communication/expectation a bit better. There really is a big difference between “hype” and “buzz”, and I thought that Baz “hyped” it up too much by continually referring to other epics such as GWTW, Titanic, etc. He set the expectations, and some felt that he did not measure up to the bar he himself set. Also, Tourism Australia “piggybacking” their marketing campaign with the release of the film may have “turned off” some moviegoers who simply dismissed the film as one big travel ad. And it looked like there was simply not enough “buzz” from critics/bloggers/moviegoers here in the North American market to offset the negative reviews that kept getting reprinted by certain media outlets. And by the time positive “word of mouth” from people who have seen the film started to spread and gain momentum, there were not many theaters left still showing the film. So, are critics solely to “blame” for the disappointing boxoffice returns in North America, or did Fox perhaps miscalculate by opening the film as wide as can be right smack in the middle of a busy holiday season but letting it have a relatively short run?

Nicfan19: It's interesting you mentioned "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", which happens to be one of my all-time favorite films. I'll share my thoughts in another post. Got to run for now. btw, nicfan22: CTHD is much more than a typical "martial arts" film. It is very much a "cinematic banquet" (to borrow Baz's phrase) - yes, it does have eye-popping fight scenes, but there's also drama, romance (two love stories, as a matter of fact), adventure, mysticism and a bit of Asian philosophy. And CTHD is not just a boxoffice success; it has multiple awards to show for it, including 4 Oscar awards.

Thanks, Meisha, for your comments. You made some very good points that I had not thought of, especially the late completion by Baz, too late for Academy members and other awards bodies to see the film and consider it for nominations. I'm glad you found a lot of positive reviews. Yes, I and others are probably exaggerating the success of the film overseas; it did look good compared to the U.S. box office though.

Movie structure could be very complex. There is a main genre who defines the movie, than there is under genre that can add something more to the movie.
Australia is an epic movie in its major genre, than there is the under-genre of the love story, historycal movies, etc.
As Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a Martial arts for the main genre and than it has many others under genres.

Thank you again, nicfan19 for that mention of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. And I do agree with Ed – yes, martial arts films can be epics, too.

I have thought about CTHD several times in relation to “Australia”. While on the surface they are two completely different films, in my mind they do have a lot of things in common. First off, they were the creations of two foreign-born directors who have made their mark in Hollywood, Ang Lee and Baz Luhrmann respectively. Both have a lifelong passion for films, and these two films represented for them a fulfillment of their childhood dreams and fantasy. In the case of Ang Lee, it was his childhood love of wuxia (martial arts heroes) novels and movies. Both films feature the vast, open landscape of their countries, in the case of CTHD you will see a landscape that stretched from the harsh Gobi desert, to bamboo forests and countryside. You would also see the household of the wealthy class as well as those less economically advantaged. Both films chose to include elements about their culture and history - in the case of “Australia”, it’s an original story developed by Baz and other collaborators. With CTHD, Ang Lee bought the film rights to a 5-part novel or Pentalogy written in the late 1930’s to early 1940’s; but rather than filming them in sequence from Part 1 to Part 5, Ang Lee adapted from Part 4 (CTHD) but also made some changes to the story plot. However you look at it, CTHD has all the elements of an epic. (btw… nicfan22: The link you provided for “Martial Arts” genre does not quite apply to CTHD. A better description would be Wuxia, which is described here in Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuxia

Baz has often used the term “cinematic banquet” by way of explaining that “Australia” has a little bit of everything – action, drama, romance, comedy, etc… He further mentioned that it’s something he wants the whole family to be able to come and enjoy as there’s something for everyone. Interestingly enough, Ang Lee and some of his leading stars had also described CTHD as a mix of different genres with many different elements that distinguish it from a traditional martial arts film. The term they used was chop-suey, which if you are familiar with Chinese “cuisine” is literally just throwing everything in a wok/pot , stirring them together to create one dish. And therein lies the big difference in my opinion between the two films: CTHD looks and feels like one seamless story at the hands of the “master cook” Ang Lee stirring all the different elements together to create one dish. Baz, on the other hand, delivered exactly what he said he was going to do …. he delivered a banquet with different dishes (“stories” and “themes”). But to some, certain “stories” and “themes” were simply not well-developed enough, giving one a feeling of having attended a “buffet”, instead of a “banquet”.

CTHD worked on many levels because of the interesting way Ang Lee weaved together elements from different genres, and presented something very unique to a Western audience. Interestingly enough, the film was picked apart by many Chinese critics and audience – criticizing everything from the lack of martial arts training of many of the leading stars, the strange/funny Mandarin accents of some of the stars, to the way Ang Lee handled the Pentalogy materials. But thankfully for everyone involved with the film, these criticisms were mostly written in Chinese and never really made it to headlines in the English language press. The film went on to be a hit in the boxoffice and garnered many awards. Unfortunately for Baz/“Australia”, the harsh reviews were written in English and widely circulated and re-circulated over the internet.

Wow, Meisha! Fascinating description of CTHD and comparisons between CTHD and Australia. How very interesting the way that the Chinese critiques did not make it into English translations and that worked to the advantage of the movie. Baz and Ang Lee---two geniuses with different and yet similar--in some ways--visions.

But I think the same thing.

Ang Lee and Baz hae the same view about what is beautiful: elegance and majesty. Their aesthetic tastes are exquisite. When I think to Lee I don't think to Hulk but to Pushing Hands and to Lust, Caution.
But they're also very different. They have two view of romantic very different in the execution. Baz is more eccentric, he likes to shock and he's ecessive, Lee is more intimate.

And a movie sometimes don't fit well the simple definition who comes from its main genre, obviously. But as I said before there is a big main genre for identifying the movie.
For this reason syaing that Australia is a non a film epic, watching at the element of the epic as genre, it's absurd.