You make excellent points. I'm thinking about your comment that most directors' primary audience is "their people" and how it must feel to be one of the few whose films are better-received abroad. Abbas Kiarostami is the major director that comes to mind. Some of his films aren't even SHOWN in Tehran. At least Americans get a chance to watch Woody Allen's films and embrace them, and reject them as deserved.

For me, Hou is in a class by himself. Of course he is "informed and influenced" by others, no one lives in a vacuum. But Hou is a true original, perhaps the most inventive narrative filmmaker working today. Artists like Hou are seldom given enough credit until old or dead, because they push the medium forward rather than repeat  the old, comfortable modes. I still remember 2001 getting horrid reviews from notables like Pauline Kael. 