Asian film industry should NOT try to make movies for the sake of "pleasing" westerners. Because by intentionally making a movie that tries to please westerners, it has lost its characters and uniqueness.
I like Zhang Yimou's older movies, such as "Ju Dou", "Raising the Red Lantern" etc. At that time, he wasn't trying hard to please westerners. In my opinion, "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers" were lame. The more recent movies were too pretentious, laden with special effects and not much else. I read on the internet blog that some audiences in American theaters were laughing very hard at the last scene of "House of Flying Daggers" -- when Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro were fighting and killing each other, with Zhang Ziyi dying in the background. That fight scene, to westerners, seemed too supernatural and hilarious. Likewise, "Hero" used old tricks, imitating the Japanese movie "Roshomon".
Also, I don't think Chen Kaige's older movie, "Farewell My Concubine" was made with westerners in mind. It is precisely because the older movies (by Zhang and Chen) were NOT made with westerners in mind, that they come out real and memorable.
By the way, Ang Lee has lived in America for almost 30 years. He studied Film at New York University. He has a better grasp of Western culture as well as Chinese culture than Asia-bound movie directors.
I think Asian movie directors should make movies to please themselves, to come from the heart (rather than saying, "This better gets Oscar attention).
When Ang Lee made "Brokeback Mountain", he was at a very low point in his career. His previous movie "Green Hulk" was a box office loser, and got very awful movie critic reviews. He made "Brokeback" and thought this would only please the Arthouse movie audiences. He did not expect this movie to go mainstream and be nominated by the Oscar. Precisely because Ang Lee was not pretentious when he made "Brokeback", he made it from his heart (rather than worrying about commerical success, box office winner etc) that it came out as a thought-provoking and memorable movie.
