Top French director wants to see more Chinese films

Luc Besson, one of the most commercially successful French directors, said he was keen to see more stories about Chinese history, culture and mythology made into films by Chinese directors in the future.

"I will be thrilled to watch such movies and understand more about the Chinese people through these stories," he said, in reply to a spectator's question at a Zheying Shidai Cinema in Hangzhou, capital city of East China's Zhejiang province, on Dec 12.

The veteran director, best-known for such works as Leon: The Professional, The Fifth Element and Lucy, was on a recent tour of China to promote his latest movie Dogman, which was officially released in Chinese theaters on Friday.

But he also said he will not direct such a film himself.

"I think it would be very pretentious," he said. "Imagine a Chinese director going to Paris, making a movie about the French."

Coming to a country like China, with 5,000 years of history and culture, Besson refuses to simply barge in.

Back in October, Besson made his first trip to China in six years, when Dogman was screened at the Seventh Pingyao International Film Festival in Shanxi province.

Inspired by a true story that Besson had read, in which a family forced their own child to live in a cage, Dogman depicts a wheelchair-bound man who has to deal with a similar trauma, faces rejection, and finds friendship, solace and eventually salvation through his canine friends.

At Pingyao International Film Festival, the movie not only brought many audience members to tears; Besson himself also shed tears, overwhelmed by the warm reception from the Chinese viewers. He received a 6-minute standing ovation when Dogman had its world premiere during the Venice Film Festival at the end of August.

In making the new film, Besson said he is still "the same little boy who tries to express himself" every three or four years.