6. Shinya Tsukamoto (Haze, 2005)
Although one of his least-known and acknowledged works, Shinya Tsukamoto's “Haze” is a short, sharp curio that marks one of the most committed actor-director turns in Asian cinema. Tsukamoto is an unnamed man who finds himself trapped in between two concrete walls, unable to stand up. He crawls through this subterranean hellscape inch by inch, the camera getting uncomfortably close to his sweating, pained face. His journey back to the surface is as purely nightmarish as cinema gets, and the trials Tsukamoto puts himself through are truly disturbing; the unforgettable sight and sound of him scraping his teeth along a rusty pipe to get along a dark passage is a very unpleasant moment that will dig its claws into even the most seasoned viewer. Tsukamoto maybe does not get to explore a lot of depth in this particular role, but he certainly puts himself through one of the worst experiences imaginable for his art.
7. Jafar Panahi (Taxi, 2015)
Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi stands as one of the most rebellious filmmakers of all time, having been repeatedly arrested for what the Iranian government qualifies as propaganda. Currently fourteen years into the middle of a twenty year ban on filmmaking, he is not taking that ruling sitting down, having made numerous covert documentaries and dramas in protest to the tyrannical sentence exacted upon him. His 2015 docu-drama “Taxi” sees him dramatise his stint as a taxi driver around Tehran, taking real-life experience and setting up cameras inside his car to recapture the magic of reality. Not handling any of the cameras himself, he has found a tenuous loophole to make art, relying on people turning the dashcam for him and picking up passengers who have their own video cameras. As a screen presence, he is remarkably naturalistic and three-dimensional, inhabiting the role of the taxi driver with the exact degree of invisibility required of every cabbie the world over. He is in turn paternal, melancholic, frustrated and confused as a cast of characters drop in and out of the passenger seats, living their own little lives dictated by oppression, superstition and opinion. His vehicle becomes a moving home for film curation, with a pirated DVD seller using it as his office to give his clients anything from a rare Akira Kurosawa film to season 5 of “The Walking Dead”. Panahi putting himself front and centre of the film is perhaps the only way he could have logistically made “Taxi”, and it pays dividends with a wonderful performance as well as an assured lo-fi cinematic vision.
8. Isabel Sandoval (Lingua Franca, 2019)
Isabel Sandoval's breakout drama launched her as an international presence on the directing and acting stage, writing, directing, producing and performing in a timely drama about transgender Filipina caregiver Olivia under threat of deportation. Her quiet existence is stirred by the presence of Alex (Eamon Farren), a slaughterhouse worker struggling with addiction and self-destruction, and a sensuous, sensitive romance begins that could be both their salvation. The looming shadow of the Trump administration is clearly something Sandoval wants to skewer with her work here, penning an honest, angry screenplay and performing it with open-hearted sincerity. There is a moment where her face is lit by the TV broadcasting yet another report of an undocumented immigrant being ripped away from their family, and the only detail we see is her eyes glistening with tears in its unsettling glow. It is a subtle performance that works brilliantly in tandem with her impassioned worldview, and both are captivating in equal measure.
9. Tan Chui Mui (Barbarian Invasion, 2021)
The frustrated power that lies in motherhood is captured in an unorthodox fashion in Tan Chui Mui's “Barbarian Invasion”, a witty, twisty meta-movie hybrid of the gritty action of Paul Greengrass and the sleepy truthtelling of Hong Sang-soo. Tan is retired actress Moon Lee, an acclaimed screen presence who has disappeared from the world stage after a messy divorce. Her friend and collaborator Roger Woo (Peter Teo) coaxes her back in front of the camera in a career-redefining role as an action hero stricken with amnesia who must fight a shadowy organisation on her trail. Her training regiment is rough and time-consuming, and doesn't leave a lot of time for childcare, sending her on a journey from guilty mother to ass-kicker extraordinaire in real life and on-screen. Tan is terrific as both long-suffering mom and battered-and-bruised avenger, effectively modulating her mood from scene to scene to pull some serious rug pulls as reality and fiction become intertwined. It's a surprising creative vision that satirises the difficulty of being a good mother and a great actress all at once, and by putting herself in the spotlight in that tricky moral quandary, shows herself as unafraid of confronting an industry built on making women's lives as difficult as possible.
10. Lee Jung-jae (Hunt, 2022)
Lee Jung-jae's status as a beloved actor in South Korea ballooned at the end of 2021 with his Emmy-winning role in Netflix's “Squid Game”, making his directorial debut (political thriller “Hunt”) a welcome one, arriving just over half a year later and garnering extra publicity from his international success on the small screen. He steps in front of the camera too as ASNP (South Korean Agency for National Security Planning) Foreign Unit chief Park Pyong-ho, a stressed-out agent on the trail of a North Korean spy in his organisation's midst following an assassination plot on the South Korean president being foiled. It's classic John Le Carré-esque fare, with some impressive gunfights peppering the labyrinthine plot as both Park and his Domestic Unit counterpart Kim Jung-do (Jung Woo-sung) lock horns over who is hiding the most secrets. Co-writing the film as well, it's easy to see why Lee sculpted this role for himself; his Chief Park is more than meets the eye, tormented and angry by decades of political turmoil and betrayal. He gets to glower and brood in equal measure, and forms a solid core for the twisty drama to operate around. We all know he's a talented screen presence, so it's great to see he has a promising career as a director too.
