Lastest installment of Mad Max take audience by storm at 68th Cannes Film Festival

Oscar-winning Australian director George Miller took the audience by storm this Thursday with the latest installment of his Mad Max franchise shown at the Out of Competition section of the ongoing 68th Festival de Cannes (Cannes Film Festival).

Haunted by his turbulent past, Mad Max believes the best way to survive is to wander alone. Nevertheless, he becomes swept up with a group fleeing across the Wasteland in a War Rig driven by an elite Imperator, Furiosa, played by Oscar winner Charlize Theron.

With his movie described as an "intimate" and "pro-feminist" movie, the director Gorge Miller said: "Initially, there was never a feminist agenda, it was just the story."

"The story needed a warrior. But it couldn't be a man, because a man taking five wives from another man is an entirely different story. So then we created Furiosa, and everything grew out of that," said Miller.

For Charlize Theron, Mad Max Fury Road can be considered as a feminist movie given the way how women are represented in the film.

"Women are just as complex and interesting as men. He (George Miller) was really interested in discovering all of that, through just his need and want for the truth," said the Oscar winning actress, who risks everything to save five women in the movie.

Mel Gibson played the leading role Max in the first three Mad Max movies. For the fourth installment, Mad Max: Fury Road, British actor Tom Hardy plays the role of Max.

"You have to pay respect to the legacy of Mel Gibson, and Mel was synonymous as Max," said the new Max Tom Hardy.

"Mad Max is synonymous with Mel Gibson and there is a group of people who love Mel as Max, so if it's not Mel as Max, I was a little bit crestfallen for a second," explained Hardy during the press conference earlier Thursday afternoon.

Australian director George Miller created Mad Max in 1979, then continued to make it into a franchise with Mad Max 2 and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in 1985. His animated movie Happy Feet won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2007.

Nine films were selected for the Out of Competition section of this year's festival, including the closing film La Glace et Le Ciel (Ice and the Sky) directed by French director Luc Jacquet. The 68th Festival de Cannes (Cannes Film Festival) runs from May 13 to 24. Endit