Funky Freaky Freaks - Han
Yong-gi, Jisook and Dumbo are foul-mouthed, troubled high-school friends. When not in class, they engage in various mischief, including selling dirty underwear and pretending to be a girl online.
The film's rough, handheld aesthetics -- with jumpcuts, mixed media formats, and urban decay settings -- give an energetic, edgy feel to the trio's shenanigans. Everything changes with the arrival of Woojoo, a handsome Judo champ transfer student from a rich family. Much to the distress of Yong-gi, Jisook's childhood friend who has been carrying a flame for her, Jisook destructively falls for Woojoo, who is a known womanizer.
After Woojoo unceremoniously dumps Jisook, they devise a plan to kill him, first luring him into a deserted building. But Dumbo never shows up; Woojoo gets spooked and runs away. Jisook chastises Yong-gi and drives him to kill Woojoo in school.
Funky Freaky Freaks features the social media-saturated environment and its pressure to conform in the most artificial ways, where looking good means everything and deception becomes the weapon of choice for the outsiders and non-conformists. It's a stark, uncompromising debut.
Kinki - Shiraishi
Kinki is a south central region of the mainland of Honshu, also known as Kansai. So despite how it sounds, it's not that kind of film. The found-footage horror master Shiraishi Koji (Noroi), directs this Lovecraftian horror that has a lot of creepy imagery and jump scares, also touching on Japanese folk horror involving torii gates, a cult group, and resurrection.
It plays out as a missing persons case involving a reporter on a big mystery case. The mountains of clues in physical media -- videotapes of interviews, folklore, anime, CDs, newspaper clippings, and thumb drives -- throw a young journalist and a friend of a missing reporter deep into the mystery, where peoples heads bend back in unnatural ways, disappearing limbs, falling deaths, and so forth. It's a good throwback to early 2000s Japanese horror.
Human Resource - Thamrongrattanarit
Fren works at the HR department of a company situated among the glass and steel towers in Bangkok's business district. She discovers she is in early stages of pregnancy, but her feelings on expecting a baby are ambivalent at best.
The world is a scary place, according to the news, which is bombarding the airwaves every day in her commute. Her husband, Thame, is a sales person for an anti-stabbing protective gear company. Fren and her co-worker interview many young people for an entry level position in her company, vacated by a young woman who failed to show up to work for several days now.
The applicants are all overqualified and demanding. But in this economy, it is hard to be choosy. The company wants someone who can work six days a week with low salary under a tyrannical boss, whose bad temper goes unchecked.
The threat of the everyday world escalates in a monstrous traffic jam in Fren's neighborhood, and confrontations become more frequent. Fren's stress and exhaustion results in a fender-bender and Thame finally finds out that they are expecting a baby.
He is overjoyed and busies himself to provide for his family, enquiring about the elite international school, decluttering the house, and so forth. But for Fren, often seen in silhouette or in profile at night, something is eating at her.
With constant overhead shots of the urban jungle combined with long static shots of inanimate objects and great sound design, Human Resource shares the universal concern of treating human beings like resources, leaving humanity behind.
Montreal, My Beautiful - Xiaodan He, *starring Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, Joan Chen
Joan Chen stars in this queer drama set in Montreal. She plays Feng Xia, a dutyful housewife of Wang, an immigrant who has a convenience store business.
They have two kids: a daughter who just started college and son in elementary school. She is having hot flashes and irritability issues due to menopause. Her daughter's refusal to translate anymore in public forces Feng Xia to take up French classes, after living in Montréal for 14 years.
With the encouragement of a gay Cuban classmate who finds the city liberal and open, Feng Xia joins a dating app and finds Lisa (Charlotte Aubin), a stunning 30-year-old blonde, working as a server in a cafe. Feng Xia had a secret love in her youth with another girl.
Forbidden love, duty, and culture clash all take part in Chinese Canadian filmmaker Xiaodan He's immigrant story. Joan Chen, at 65, is still luminous; she plays Feng Xia, a woman trapped between tradition and desire, gracefully. Aubin, as a young woman still trying to figure out herself and finding love, is also commendable.
