Festivals: NYAFF Reviews
New York Asian 2021 Review: SINKHOLE, Disaster Comedy Struggles to Dig Itself Out
When a new genre catches on in Korean cinema, it tends to proliferate pretty quickly, but before audiences grow tired of it, filmmakers try to find new ways to freshen things up. Take the disaster film. A perennial favourite at...
New York Asian 2021 Review: TIME Is On The Audience's Side
When Ricky Ko's Hong Kong comedy drama Time played at the International Film Festival Rotterdam earlier this year, it nearly won the audience prize. It's a testament to how easy the film is on the eyes, though its charms never...
New York Asian 2021 Review: In ESCAPE FROM MOGADISHU, Ryoo Seung-wan Wants No Korean Left Behind
As violence erupts in the African nation of Somalia, delegates from both North and South Korea scramble to evacuate the capital city of Mogadishu in Ryoo Seung-wan's action-packed political thriller Escape From Mogadishu, which was the opening night film at...
New York Asian Winter Showcase 2020 Review: EXTREME JOB, A Tasty Cops-and-Criminals Farce
Lee Byeong-hun's police action comedy is an entertaining farce that will leave viewers hankering for fried chicken and beer in between laughs.
New York Asian Winter Showcase 2019 Review: MISS BAEK, A Tough, Unflinching Depiction of Child Abuse and Its Aftermath
Lee Ji-won's beautifully crafted debut feature is tough and uncompromising, but also a vibrant showcase for her impressive filmmaking and the equally impressive performances by main actresses Han Ji-min and Kim Si-ah.
New York Asian 2018 Dispatch: Asian Noir in New York
Don’t tell the U.S. President, but if this edition of the NYAFF is any indication, his nation is probably running a massive trade deficit with Asia when it comes to film noir, China in particular. Here’s a quick look at...
New York Asian 2016 Review: CREEPY, A Master Heads in a New Direction
Creepy has been touted as Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "return" to horror, but it feels, in its own right, like a new departure for the director. Where vintage Kurosawa fare was vague, mysterious, and mournful, Creepy is bracing, black-humored, and overt. A...
New York Asian 2016 Review: WHAT A WONDERFUL FAMILY! Mixes Broad Comedy with Ozu's Legacy
Yôji Yamada is a director known for retreading and reusing elements, both visual and in terms of plot, being the director of many series of movies that have been done across decades. While he really hasn't made a new series...
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New York Asian 2016 Review: A BRIDE FOR RIP VAN WINKLE Excels At Portraying Womanhood In Today's World
The director of this film, the famed artist and writer Shunji Iwai, started his career doing television films before shaking the entire landscape of Japan with films like Love Letter and Swallowtail Butterfly, and he somewhat goes back to the...
New York Asian 2015 Review: IT'S ALREADY TOMORROW IN HONG KONG, A Charming Romantic Travelogue
Here's the basic plotline of producer and now first-time writer-director Emily Ting's immensely charming romance It's Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong, boiled down to its basic essence. A man and a woman meet, and (spoiler alert) fall in love over...
New York Asian 2015 Review: TAKSU, An Erotically Charged Island Sojourn
Taksu, the second feature by actress, producer, and now director Sugino Kiki, takes its title from the Balinese concept (often associated with dance) of artistry and charisma that taps into divine, spiritual power. And though it may be going too...
Japan Cuts 2014 Review: MONSTERZ, In Which Nakata Hideo Misfires With A Lackluster Remake
The slow but steady decline of the once-great Nakata Hideo (The Ring, Chaos, Dark Water) continues unabated with his latest, Monsterz. This is a remake of Haunters, the 2010 Korean film by Kim Min-seok that itself was no classic, but had...
Japan Cuts 2014 Review: WOOD JOB! Takes Us Deep Into the World Of Forestry, With Wonderfully Comic Results
The recent Japanese film Wood Job! is not, despite its very suggestive title, a pornographic film, which will either relieve or disappoint you, depending on where your movie tastes happen to lie. Instead, it is the latest comedy by Yaguchi...
NY Asian 2014 Review: HOPE, Devastatingly Sad Yet Beautifully Uplifting
One of the drawbacks of being a working critic is that the volume of film viewing this necessitates, trying to keep up with new releases, festival and retrospective screenings and such, can tend to flatten out your emotional responses to...
NY Asian 2014 Review: BLIND MASSAGE, An Artful And Affecting Ensemble Drama
Often controversial Chinese filmmaker Lou Ye delivers one of his finest films with Blind Massage, a delicately observed and artfully directed ensemble drama, based on the novel of the same name by Bi Feiyu. Putting aside, at least for the...
NY Asian 2014 Review: GOLDEN CHICKENSSS, In Which the Third Time Isn't Entirely the Charm
The 2002 comedy Golden Chicken and its 2003 sequel Golden Chicken 2, starring Hong Kong's queen of comedy Sandra Ng, were love letters both to Ng herself, who was given perhaps the greatest showcase committed to film of her formidable...
NYAFF 2013 Review: Sono Sion's BAD FILM Is By No Means That
Nobody should walk into a Sono Sion film and expect to anything close to a conventional experience. The director's two most well-received films -- 2008's upskirt photography romance Love Exposure and 2010's fish store owner/serial killer epic Cold Fish-- are...
Japan Cuts 2013 Review: IT'S ME, IT'S ME, A Surreal Farce On the Nature of Identity
A comically surrealist farce on the nature of identity in the digital age, Miki Satoshi's latest film It's Me, It's Me features an impressively energetic and remarkably varied multiple performance by J-pop star Kamenashi Kazuya as the central character, or...
Japan Cuts 2013 Review: A STORY OF YONOSUKE Reflects on Human Kindness and Unending Optimism In ... Us
From reading a brief synopsis online of A Story of Yonosuke, and with its 2 1/2 hour plus runtime, and the fact it is a period piece (taking place in 1987), I was fully expecting a Being There or Forest...
Japan Cuts 2013 Review: I'M FLASH!, A Visually and Sonically Stylish Tale of Gangsters and Religious Cultists
Religious cultists, yakuza hitmen, a lovely bar pickup, and a speeding motorcyclist collide, quite literally, in the genre oddity that is I'M FLASH!, the latest from iconoclastic director Toyoda Toshiaki (9 Souls, The Hanging Garden). This time, Toyoda jettisons the...
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