FILM / Casting electric shadows: A season of films at the NFT focuses on the flourishing Chinese cinema. Sheila Johnston reports

At a depressingly slack time for international cinema, China can lay a strong claim to the most exciting national film movement in the world. Over the past year alone, 'electric shadows' have scooped a grand slam of the top prizes at all three of the most important film festivals: Zhang Yimou's The Story of Qiu Ju won at Venice, Xie Fie's The Women From the Lake of Scented Souls was a co- laureate in Berlin (the other winner was from Taiwan) and Chen Kaige's Farewell To My Concubine shared the Golden Palm at Cannes. But this festival elite is only the tip of the iceberg, and, over the next two months, there is an unmissable chance to see 50-odd recent Chinese films at the National Film Theatre.

It's a broad church, encompassing familiar art house fare like Chen's King of the Children and Zhang's Raise the Red Lantern as well as many films which have never been seen here. They vary immensely in subject matter and style. Some are straight genre pieces like the Western The Swordsman in Double-Flag Town. Others revisit flashpoints from the past - the Sino-Japanese war in Red Sorghum, Evening Bell and the once-banned One and Eight; the Cultural Revolution in King of the Children and Sacrificed Youth. Still more look at contemporary issues like mental handicap in Mama and the Chinese diaspora in Letting Go.

Of the small selection available for previewing, Woman, Demon, Human is a colourful melodrama-cum- ghost story about a woman who becomes a Chinese opera star playing male roles. In the Wild Mountains is set in the breathtaking countryside of North China and looks at two peasant couples trying to sustain traditional marriages at a time of cataclysmic social transitions.

The Swordsman in Double-Flag Town is described in the NFT's programme notes as a 'vision of the mystery and magic of the art of Kung Fu', but its true roots lie elsewhere: essentially, it's a chop-suey Western that owes more than a little to Sergio Leone, especially in the iconography and shooting style of its opening sequence. A lone rider gallops into town in a cloud of sand and dust and meets universal derision, until his fighting skills save the community from the local bad hats.

This is not to say that the Chinese cinema is without problems. The soaring increase in television (and, more and more, video) ownership has made a mighty dent in local cinema seat sales. As China continues to barrel down the road towards what it calls a 'social market economy', film directors are finding themselves under heavy pressure to produce more commercially attractive films. 'Now everybody's talking about money,' said Chen Kaige sadly in Cannes last month. Many are forced to trawl abroad, to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Europe, for finance: technically Chen's Farewell to My Concubine is a Hong Kong film.

At the same time their films remain under close political scrutiny. The Blue Kite (another 'Hong Kong' production), the story of one Peking family during the Cultural Revolution, played in the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes this year to great critical acclaim. But the director Tian Zhuangzhuang was refused permission to accompany his film to France, and it has also been withheld by the Chinese authorities from the NFT season (several of Tian's earlier films are included, however, and The Blue Kite will open in London later this year). A cloud also hangs over the Chinese release of Farewell to My Concubine.

All of which suggests that, while 100 flowers are blooming right now, their fragrance may be short-lived. The door to an important and fascinating cinema culture has slipped open, and China-watchers are strongly advised to nip through quickly before it closes again.

'New Cinema Cinema' begins at the National Film Theatre next Thursday and runs throughout July and August. NFT, South Bank, London SE1 (071-928 3232).