The Venice film festival Friday turned the spotlight on Asia as Soi Cheang's "Accident" bloodied the silver screen and Yonfan recalled Taiwan's anti-communist White Terror in "Prince of Tears". An angry motorist in a Hong Kong traffic jam jumps out of his car to yank away an advertising banner that has fallen across his windscreen. This causes a huge pane of glass to fall from an upper floor, shattering on his head and killing him.
It is one of the murders "choreographed" by a professional hitman nicknamed The Brain in the tense thriller by the Macau-born Cheang, who cut his teeth with horror flicks.
Veteran Hong Kong producer Johnnie To produced the film for his former assistant, who said in his program notes that it was "my attempt to challenge the codes of genre cinema."
"Prince of Tears" recounts the brutal White Terror in Yonfan's native Taiwan in the 1950s as he was growing up.
"I heard, I felt and I saw what I showed in the film," Yonfan said of the web of intrigue and betrayals that led to the summary execution of more than 3,000 people suspected of spying for the mainland communists.
"It's a story about my childhood. I think all directors want to do one at some point, and this is mine," Yonfan told a news conference.
Screened out of competition on Friday was Werner Herzog's action-packed "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" starring Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes.
The cop flick set in the Big Easy has nothing to do with Abel Ferrara's 1992 cult thriller "Bad Lieutenant" set in New York, Herzog insisted.
Nevertheless his fast-moving, zany non-remake involves a police lieutenant investigating homicides who is addicted to drugs and gambling.
Cage's performance of his deranged character is at times hilarious and so credible that Herzog said he had to be reassured that he was not snorting the real thing.
The German director of "Grizzly Man" (2005), asked at a news conference whether he had cut a deal with Ferrara for a remake, insisted again on Friday that he had never met Ferrara or seen the film.
"I hear he's here, I hope he sees my film and that we can meet," Herzog said. "We should meet up soon over a bottle of whisky."
When Ferrara learned of the project he told the Guardian online that Herzog and company "should all die in hell."
On Saturday, US filmmaker Michael Moore unveils his latest documentary "Capitalism, A Love Story" targeting the world financial crisis.
Moore's work is among 24 selections competing for the Golden Lion award at this year's Mostra, the world's oldest film festival.
"It's got it all -- lust, passion, romance and 14,000 jobs being eliminated every day," says the Oscar-winning Moore, whose past targets have included President George W. Bush, the US health care system and the gun lobby.
The world's oldest film festival, in its 66th edition this year, has already courted controversy since opening on Wednesday, with movies on Romanian immigrants to Italy and the nation's TV-celebrity-power nexus.
Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of the Italian dictator, threatened to sue the makers of a film that claims she wants to have Romanian immigrants killed, while public television's decision to ban the trailer of "Videocracy" backfired triggered a marketing bonanza for the film.
Taiwanese film-maker Ang Lee, the Oscar-winning director of "Brokeback Mountain," heads the jury of this year's festival, which runs to September 12.
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