Berlin - A movie about a famed 20th century Chinese opera star heads the Asian cinema lineup at next month's Berlin Film Festival.

In a sense, the story of Mei Lan-fang represents a return for Beijing-born director Chen Kaige to a familiar theme with his famed Farewell My Concubine also focusing on the stars of the Peking opera.

Farewell My Concubine won Kaige the Cannes Film Festival's prestigious Palme d'Or in 1993.

Starring Beijing-born Zhang Ziyi and Japanese actor Masanobu Ando, Kaige's new movie, Forever Enthralled, is the only film from an Asian director that is in this year's race for the Berlinale's top honours, the Golden Bear.

Indeed, despite the recent success that Japanese movie makers have enjoyed at major film festivals around the world, no film from Japan has been included in this year's Berlinale main competition.

A batch of movies from Asian directors have been selected for year's festival, including from Indonesia, Singapore, Korea and Japan but the Berlinale so-called side-bar sections such as Panorama, which showcases independent and art-house cinema.

Also striking is the absence of Korean filmmakers from the competition for the Golden Bear.

But this appears to be another sign of the scale of the crisis that has recently engulfed Korea's film industry with layoffs having been on the rise as the box office has shrunk and companies have cut back movie production.

This comes in the wake of a glut of films made during the industry's rapid development during the last decade or more.

Moreover, the current problems facing the Korean movie business could soon begin to emerge in other parts of the Asian film industry as a slowdown tightens its grip on the world economy and consequently Asia as well.

In the meantime, this also gives other smaller film making nations such as Taiwan and Indonesia the chance to carve out a bigger profile at the world's leading film festivals.

This is especially the case as the digital revolution helps to lower movie production costs and boosts the industry in smaller nations.

With this in mind, this year's Berlinale will also help to underscore how a new generation of filmmakers is beginning to shape the Asian movie industry.

The Panorama section strong emphasis on Asian cinema includes Chinese director Zou Peng's A North Chinese Girl and Taiwanese director Yu-Chieh Cheng's Yang Yang as well as The Casuarina Cove from Singaporean director Junfeng Boo and Simon Chung's End of Love.

All are to have their world premiere in Berlin next month.

Gururi No Koto (All Around Us) from Hashigushi Ryosuke is representing Japan.

Indonesia has two entries in this year's Panorama, including At Stake in which five directors essentially explore the role of women in the world's most populist muslim nation.

In addition, for the first time, Malaysia, whose filmmakers have been gaining international recognition in recent years, has set up a stand at the European Film Market, the business side of the Berlinale.

One theme of this year's Panorama section is about people's lives in the unstable world of Kashmir, Pakistan and Kabul.

Included in the Panorama program is Khalid Gill's Kiss The Moon about the threat to those wanting to pursue a transgender life in Pakistan at a time when a battle is raging over the nation's cultural identity.

But it is the race for the Golden Bear that will inevitably be the main focus of the Berlinale.

A member of the so-called Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, who began their movie-making careers during the chaos of Mao's Cultural Revolution, 56-year-old Kaige's Forever Enthralled comes in the wake of his less-than-successful 2005 epic fantasy film The Promise.

His Farewell My Concubine's success helped to bring China's fifth generation directors to world attention.

But while Farewell My Concubine told the story of the impact on people's lives of the upheaval unleashed by the Cultural Revolution during the middle of the last century, in Forever Enthralled, Kaige moves back another step in Chinese history.

Mei Lan-fang's life unfolds in Forever Enthralled against the backdrop of international turmoil during the first half of the last century, which included the occupation of China by the Japanese army. (dpa)