Lee's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk and Feng's I Am Not Madame Bovary both premiered in China one week apart this month. [Photo provided to China Daily]

It is hard to find two film directors more different in temperament and artistic vision. But strangely they may have more in common than first meets the eye, when it comes to their latest films.

Both their releases are very personal stories with limited mass appeal even though they are adapted from critically acclaimed novels.

And they have both used technologies that are daring even for accomplished old hands.

What really strikes me as audacious is the level of immersion they manipulate with these technologies.

In Lynn, the format of 3-D, 4-K and 120 frames per second puts the audience in the center of everything, so close that many complained of being uncomfortable with the lack of reasonable distance.

It reminds me of immersive theater where an audience member may stand next to an actor and almost touch him.