One of the premiere festival events in North America is regards to Asian cinema is the New York Asian Film Festival. You get two solid weeks of excellent cinema from all corners of the Asian world and if the first half of the titles announced today are any indication as to what kind of festival you'll experience this year then you're in for a good one. Joko Anwar's The Forbidden Door, the first two chapters of Yukihiko Tsutsumi's 20th Century Boys trilogy, Kanji Nakajima;s The Clone Returns Home, Ryu Seung-wan's Dachimawa Lee, Jang Hun's Rough Cut are just some of the titles. The press release is after the break and there are a tonne of titles that should be familiar to ScreenAnarchy readers.
NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2009
June 19 ¬ July 5, 2009
from June 19 to July 2 at the IFC Center (323 Sixth Avenue, at West 4th Street) and from July 1 ¬ 5 at Japan Society (333 East 47th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues)
This year the New York Asian Film Festival says ³fiddle dee dee² to the economic apocalypse and we¹re singing in the rain of fire and brimstone that heralds the end of the world. It¹s our biggest, most ridiculous festival ever!
Keep your eyes on www.subwaycinema.com for more news and more details as we get them.
Our opening night film, closing night film, centerpiece presentations and our Hong Kong New Action line-up are still to come, so keep watching www.subwaycinema.com for full details.
SPECIAL EVENTS
DACHIMAWA LEE and MISS, PLEASE BE PATIENT
Director Ryu Seung-Wan (CITY OF VIOLENCE) is here with his new movie, DACHIMAWA LEE (see below) but he will also host and introduce a screening of the very rare Korean movie, the exuberantly punch drunk Hong Kong style action comedy MISS, PLEASE BE PATIENT (Korea, 1981, Lee Hyung-Pyo). The film
stars Kim Tai-Jeong, famous as a Bruce Lee double in GAME OF DEATH under the name Tong Lung. He would later play Bruce Lee in a string of Bruce-ploitation movies in Hong Kong, and he appeared in a number of Korean action films like MISS, PLEASE BE PATIENT. This film has never appeared on video or DVD anywhere in the world and will screen for one night only.
PINK POWER: PINK EIGA PRESENTS JAPAN¹S UNKNOWN FILM INDUSTRY
Japanese pink films are the last bastion of analog filmmaking in a digital world: softcore, sixty-minute sex films shot on film, edited on flatbeds and released theatrically. They¹ve been around since the 60¹s and not only have many mainstream directors gotten their start shooting pink films (including Kiyoshi Kurosawa), but 2009¹s Academy Award winning director, Yojiro Takita (DEPARTURES), has a long string of pink films on his resume, and we¹re showing two of them. We¹ll be screening two double features in association with US-based pink film distributor Pink Eiga, who have begun releasing these treasures on DVD in the US this year.
Program One will be Yojiro Takita¹s ridiculous MOLESTER TRAIN: SEARCH FOR THE BLACK PEARL and the comedy/drama BLIND LOVE. Program Two will consist of Yojiro Takita¹s MOLESTER TRAIN: WEDDING CAPRICCIO and hilariously bawdy send-up of Pier Paolo Pasolini¹s TEOREMA, JAPANESE WIFE NEXT DOOR, PART 1. Daisuke Goto, the director of BLIND LOVE and Masahide Iioka, the cinematographer of BLIND LOVE, are expected to attend the festival and introduce the screenings.
TOKYO GORE NIGHT
One of the most insane new voices in cinema is the screaming howl of Yoshihiro Nishimura, director of TOKYO GORE POLICE, and special effects genius (who also did the effects for LOVE EXPOSURE and SAMURAI PRINCESS, screening in this year¹s festival). He couldn¹t join us for the premiere of TOKYO GORE POLICE last year so for one weekend only we¹ll be hosting him at the New York Asian Film Festival and holding a special TOKYO GORE NIGHT event. First up will be screenings of several completely nuts short films from Nishimura and his cabal of lunatics all set in the TOKYO GORE POLICE and MACHINE GIRL universe. Then there will be a special onstage presentation by these madmen followed by a screening of TOKYO GORE POLICE during which we¹ll record a live audio commentary for the movie¹s upcoming special edition DVD. Accompanying Nishimura will be Noboru Iguchi, the director of MACHINE GIRL and the maniac responsible for the short film SHYNESS MACHINE GIRL which we¹ll also be screening that night. Also coming will be Tsuyoshi Kazuno, a visual effects supervisor on SAMURAI PRINCESS, MACHINE GIRL and many others. More surprises are in store, so make sure you wear something that you don't mind getting soaked with blood.
BE A MAN THE TAK SAKAGUCHI WAY
Also at this year¹s festival is a small focus on Japanese stuntman, director and action choreographer, Tak Sakaguchi (VERSUS, AZUMI, GODZILLA: FINAL WARS). He¹ll be presenting his films YOROI SAMURAI ZOMBIE and BE A MAN! SAMURAI SCHOOL. He also did the action for LOVE EXPOSURE. He¹ll be accompanied by stuntman and action choreographer Isao Karasawa (who worked on the Hong Kong film, FLASHPOINT, and who holds two world records for being hit by cars, and is hard at work on a third) and the two of them are apparently going to be doing some onstage stunts before the screenings.
MSFF KOREAN SHORT FILMS
For the third year in a row, selections from Korea¹s most popular genre short film festival are hitting the New York Asian Film Festival in two programs. But this time there¹s more animation than ever before, and some of the funniest movies we¹ve ever screened. Line-ups include the animated gems LOVE IS A PROTEIN (about a world of fried chicken restaurants haunted by half-human, half-chicken mutants) and A COFFEE VENDING MACHINE AND ITS SWORD (about a martial arts master reincarnated as a coffee vending machine). Also, the nastiest send-up of local TV news, SHAGGY-DOG STORY, as well as the usual line-up of elderly gay lovers, vindictive butchers, angry cats, dead moms and riot cops on the rampage. Presentation of MSFF Korean Short Films at the NYAFF 2009 is made possible through the generous support of the Korean Cultural Service in New York.
LOVE EXPOSURE
(Japan, 2008, Sion Sono, New York Premiere)
The director of EXTE and NORIKO¹S DINNER TABLE returns with one of the most amazing cinematic achievements of the year. A four-hour epic about pornography, Catholicism, families, fathers, true love, cross-dressing, kung fu, cults and mental illness, this movie will cleanse you of your sins and leave you horny as hell. This is your only chance to see it, and if you ever loved movies you cannot afford to miss it.
Director Sion Sono will be present to bless the audience at the screening.
(Presented in association with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film)
THE LINE-UP
CHINA
THE EQUATION OF LOVE AND DEATH
(China, 2008, Cao Baoping, New York Premiere)
A twisty Chinese thriller anchored by an award-winning performance from Zhou Xun as a chain-smoking, obsessive-compulsive cab driver desperate to find her missing boyfriend.
IF YOU ARE THE ONE
(China, 2008, Feng Xiaogang, North American Premiere)
Feng Xiaogang (THE BANQUET, ASSEMBLY) turns in this gorgeous, sharply-written romantic comedy starring a radiant Shu Qi and a razor-tongued Ge You. No surprise: it¹s the second-highest-grossing Chinese movie of all time.
OLD FISH
(China, 2007, Gao Qunshu, North American Premiere)
Written by and starring actual Chinese cops and bomb squad officers, this movie belongs to real life ex-cop and non-actor Ma Guowei, who plays the titular Old Fish in this gripping, ultra-realistic look at China¹s bomb disposal procedures, which apparently include putting a ticking explosive device in your bicycle basket and pedaling like hell for the river.
HONG KONG
AN EMPRESS AND THE WARRIORS
(Hong Kong, 2008, Ching Siu-tung, North American Premiere)
Directed by Ching Siu-tung, this bubblegum pop martial arts movie stars Cantopop star Leon Lai, Hong Kong pop idol Kelly Chen and the kung fu-tastic Donnie Yen. Imagine if Disney made a musical version of Zhang Yimou¹s HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS starring a clever princess and full of cute, talking animals. Then replace the songs with martial arts and the cute, talking animals with Donnie Yen and Leon Lai and you¹ve got this flick.
FIVE DEADLY VENOMS
(Hong Kong, 1978, Chang Cheh)
A retrospective screening of the iconic old school Shaw Brothers martial arts flick that introduced the world to the onscreen dream team of martial artists supreme, the Five Venoms. If you decide to see one old school kung fu movie before you die, make it this one. The Five Venoms are like angels in the form of shirtless, charismatic young men who punch you in the face.
IP MAN
(Hong Kong, 2008, WIlson Yip, US premiere)
But just to prove that Hong Kong action isn¹t dead, Sammo Hung choreographs this astounding kung fu flick starring Donnie Yen and directed by Wilson Yip (SPL, FLASHPOINT). Based on the life of Ip Man, who was Bruce Lee¹s martial arts master in real life, it¹s a throwback to the glory days when Hong Kong action movies made the screen catch on fire.
INDONESIA
THE FORBIDDEN DOOR
(Indonesia, 2009, Joko Anwar, North American Premiere)
The director of last year¹s festival favorite, KALA, is back and boy is this one twisted. Like a 19th century gothic novel adapted by Alfred Hitchcock and directed by David Lynch, this movie about a sculptor and the horrible things he does to become successful is one of the sickest, kinkiest movies we¹ve ever screened.
RAINBOW TROOPS
(Indonesia, 2008, Riri Riza, New York Premiere)
This Indonesian blockbuster gives feel good films a good name. Set in the 70¹s, it¹s about a small, rural Muslim school that needs ten students to stay open. Ten enroll and the movie follows them over the next five years of their lives as they struggle to cope with what the world throws at them.
JAPAN
20TH CENTURY BOYS
(Japan, 2008, Yukihiko Tsutsumi, New York Premiere)
20TH CENTURY BOYS: CHAPTER TWO - THE LAST HOPE
(Japan, 2009, Yukihiko Tsutsumi, New York Premiere)
As revered as the DEATH NOTE series, 20TH CENTURY BOYS (named after the T. Rex song) is an epic, acclaimed manga series finally realized as three much-anticipated movies, with the third, concluding installment coming out in August 2009. In 1969, a group of kids start a club where they imagine the
earth being destroyed by evil and they have to save the day. Decades later, they¹re disillusioned adults and when their childhood fantasies of global destruction begin to come true they realize that it¹s up to them to...gulp...actually save the world.
(The 20th Century Boys manga is currently being released in America by Viz)
(Presented in association with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film)
ALL AROUND US
(Japan, 2008, Ryosuke Hashiguchi, New York Premiere)
After a seven-year break, director Ryosuke Hashiguchi is back and the results are shattering. This movie observes eight years of a marriage, marking the passage of time with famous Japanese murder trials covered by the husband who is a courtroom sketch artist. Actress Tae Kimura won ³Best Actress² for her performance as the wife at the Japanese Academy Awards and she deserves it. An amazing, sensitive film that speaks quietly but makes everyone sit up and listen.
(Presented in association with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film)
BE A MAN! SAMURAI SCHOOL
(Japan, 2008, Tak Sakaguchi, New York Premiere)
An action comedy about a school where real men are formed in a crucible of bare knuckled brawling.
Tak Sakaguchi will introduce the movie with his fellow stuntman and action choreographer, Isao Karasawa.
CHILDREN OF THE DARK
(Japan,2008, Junji Sakamoto, North American)
A Japanese movie shot in Thailand about the child trafficking business (both for sex and for their internal organs) sounds awful, but this movie blew us away with its unblinking, hard-nosed howls of outrage. Full of more horrible sights per second than any other movie made this year. Of course, it¹s been banned in Thailand.
CLIMBER¹S HIGH
(Japan, 2008, Masato Harada, North American Premiere)
Masato Harada, director of last year's SHADOW SPIRIT, gets his Howard Hawks on again with this gripping ensemble drama about a group of newspapermen covering the real-life tragedy of a 1985 plane crash in the mountains of central Japan.
THE CLONE RETURNS HOME
(Japan, 2008, Kanji Nakajima, New York Premiere)
It¹s been compared to Tarkovsky¹s SOLARIS, and they ain¹t wrong. Debuting at the Sundance Film Festival this quietly shimmering science fiction movie starts as hard sci fi and then morphs into a surreal space opera set on earth. An astronaut dies in an accident while in orbit, but surprise! The Japanese Space Agency cloned him before he went up into space and now his wife gets the traumatized clone as a consolation prize.
FISH STORY
(Japan, 2009, Yoshihiro Nakamura, North American Premiere)
If you miss this dense, intricately plotted hymn to the powers of rock and roll, you¹ll kick yourself. In 1975, one year before the Sex Pistols debuted, Gekirin was a Japanese punk band that recorded a single song called ³Fish Story² and then broke up. Years later, their song saves the world. Literally.
(Presented in association with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film)
HOUSE
(Japan, 1977, Nobuhiko Obayashi)
A special screening of a restored master of Obayashi¹s head-spinning, unbelievably surreal and completely amazing 1977 horror movie. The only horror film you¹ve ever seen that was written by a seven-year-old girl (literally), this is the kind of mind blower that is whispered about but rarely screened.
Introduced by its devoted fans, directors Yoshihiro Nishimura and Noboru Iguchi.
K-20: LEGEND OF THE MASK
(Japan, 2008, Shimako Sato, New York Premiere)
Takeshi Kaneshiro (ACCURACY OF DEATH, FALLEN ANGELS) plays a masked thief in an alternate history where World War II never happened. One of the biggest Japanese productions of recent years, and featuring special effects by the team behind the ALWAYS movies, K-20 is an old-school, running-and jumping, two-fisted, pulpy, steampunk action adventure in the grand tradition of swashbuckling Errol Flynn movies. And, oddly enough for a Japanese film, it¹s got a female director at the helm.
LOVE EXPOSURE
(Japan, 2008, Sion Sono, New York Premiere)
The director of EXTE and NORIKO¹S DINNER TABLE returns with one of the most amazing cinematic achievements of the year. A four-hour epic about pornography, Catholicism, families, fathers, true love, cross-dressing, kung fu, cults and mental illness, this movie will cleanse you of your sins and leave you horny as hell. This is your only chance to see it, and if you ever loved movies you cannot afford to miss it.
Director Sion Sono will be present to bless the audience at the screening.
(Presented in association with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film)
THE MAGIC HOUR
(Japan, 2008, Koki Mitani, New York Premiere)
Koki Mitani (UNIVERSITY OF LAUGHS) has turned in a film that could be a lost screwball comedy classic from Hollywood¹s golden age. A low level gangster is caught having an affair with his boss¹s mistress. To make amends he agrees to help his boss hire the world¹s greatest hitman for an upcoming gang war. Unable to procure said hitman he finds an out-of-work actor to play the part, convincing him that he¹s actually making a movie about the world¹s greatest hitman. Lavish, unbelievably ridiculous filmmaking at its best.
(Presented in association with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film)
MONSTER X STRIKES BACK: ATTACK THE G8 SUMMIT
(Japan, 2008, Minoru Kawasaki, North American Premiere)
Preceded by GEHARA: THE LONG-HAIRED GIANT MONSTER
(Japan, 2009, Kiyotaka Taguchi, short film)
Guilala and Gehara are the two goofiest giant monsters in Japanese cinema and these two films lovingly recreate and satirize Japanese kaiju movies of the 60¹s and 70¹s. Plus: Takeshi Kitano as ³Takemajin² the savior of Japan. Between these two films you¹ll get more monster love than you¹ve had all year.
SAMURAI PRINCESS
(Japan, 2009, Kengo Kaji, North American Premiere)
Yoshihiro Nishimura produced and is responsible for the outrageously gore-soaked special effects in this movie about a samurai girl who¹s actually a cyborg. Her breasts are bombs, her feet contain rockets and she¹s up against bad guys with chainsaw arms. As stupid and jaw-dropping as it sounds.
Presented by its producer and special effects director, Yoshihiro Nishimura and visual effects director, Tsuyoshi Kazuno.
SNAKES AND EARRINGS
(Japan, 2008, Yukio Ninagawa, North American Premiere)
Based on the best-selling novel about a woman who decides that her one goal in life is to have her tongue split, this is the sexy body modification opus you¹ve been waiting for. Yuriko Yoshitaka gives an incredibly raw, totally exposed performance that¹s cleaning up the awards and she¹s the anchor for this emotional, erotic, disturbing and seductive movie for anyone who ever looked at a pierced tongue and thought, ³Well, maybe...²
VACATION
(Japan, 2008, Hajime Kadoi, New York Premiere)
A warts-and-all look at the way Japan executes those it sentences to death. It quietly builds to a powerful punch in the guts as a guard volunteers to be the guy who holds down the legs of a condemned prisoner when he¹s hung in order to get extra vacation time.
(Presented in association with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film)
YOROI SAMURAI ZOMBIE
(2008, Japan, Tak Sakaguchi, New York Premiere)
What could be more fun that watching a bunch of rotting, samurai zombies rise from the grave and go after a happy little family on their vacation? Throw in some heavily armed crooks on the run and a gaggle of mentally unbalanced cops and garnish with hard-rocking horror action.
Tak Sakaguchi will introduce the movie with his fellow stuntman and action choreographer Isao Karasawa.
MALAYSIA
WHEN THE FULL MOON RISES
(Malaysia, 2008, Mamat Khalid, North American Premiere)
The best way to describe this movie is Guy Maddin taking on the history of Malaysian cinema. Most of Malaysia¹s older movies have been destroyed by the ravages of time, so director Mamat Khalid makes a ³lost² black-and-white thriller from the 50¹s, that¹s part loving homage and part sharp-eyed send-up. Full of secret communist cults, werewolves, were-tigers, ghosts, private eyes, midgets and eerie secrets, it¹s so deadpan you don¹t know if you should be laughing or crying. An epic homemade achievement of brain-boiling strangeness and charm.
SOUTH KOREA
ANTIQUE
(South Korea, 2008, Min Gyu-Dong, North American Premiere)
One of the surprise hits of 2008, this flick stars four of Korea¹s hottest actors and is based on a wildly popular shojo manga series, ³Antique Bakery² by Fumi Yoshinaga. Oh, and it¹s a musical about gays of demonic charm, pastry chefs, and child abduction.
BREATHLESS
(South Korea, 2009, Lee Hwan & Yang Ik-june, North American Premiere)
Winner of the top award at this year¹s Rotterdam Film Festival this movie is a labor of love by Yang Ik-Joon who wrote, directed and stars. Playing one of the most unrepentant thugs ever to grace the silver screen, he¹s a debt collector who¹s in it purely for the violence. But when he meets a high school girl who¹s as unrelenting and tough as he is his world begins to come apart. From its first shouted obscenity to its last bloody beat-down, this is an uncompromising dissection of male violence that¹ll leave you completely ravaged and violated.
CRUSH AND BLUSH
(South Korea, 2008, Lee Kyeong-Mi, North American Premiere)
This hysteria-fueled comedy from Korea has already acquired a cult following and it¹s easy to see why. Produced by Park Chan-Wook (OLDBOY, and he also has a cameo ¬ as does HOST director Bong Joon-Ho) it¹s from first time female director Lee Kyeong-Mi and it stars actress Kong Hyo-Jin as a high school Russian teacher demoted to teaching English, a language she barely understands. Her solution? All-out war with the teacher she views as the source of her misery. The kind of movie that¹s very, very funny until it goes too far and starts making the audience very, very uncomfortable.
DACHIMAWA LEE
(South Korea, 2008, Ryu Seung-wan, US Premiere)
Ryu Seung-Wan (CITY OF VIOLENCE) makes this pitch perfect send-up of Korean spy and action cinema of the 70¹s and 80¹s that stands alone as a gut-busting comedy, a breathtaking action flick and a satire of Korea¹s motion picture past. An unholy blend of Stephen Chow, the Zucker Brothers and Jackie Chan it¹s full of elaborate set pieces and ridiculous contrivances, sending up Korea¹s anti-communist hysteria while serving up some ace martial arts.
Director Ryu Seung-Wan will introduce the movie.
DREAM
(South Korea, 2008, Kim Ki-duk, North American Premiere)
From Korea¹s number one cinematic transgressor comes this surreal, dark fantasy about two people who find that their dreams are connected. Kim Ki-Duk directs this dark fantasy starring Japan¹s Joe Odagiri and Korea¹s Lee Na-Young. It¹s a return to form by a master director.
GO GO 70¹s
(South Korea, 2008, Ho Choi, North American Premiere)
Do you wanna funk with Korea? After watching this infectious, period-perfect, butt-bumping, hip-grinding flick about the rise of real life 70¹s funk band, The Devils, your answer will be: hell yes. These rock n¹roll rebels were a flashpoint for social protest and GO GO 70¹s offers up plenty of tacky fashions, groove-a-licious musical numbers and enough politics to set the night on fire.
ROUGH CUT
(South Korea, 2008, Jang Hun, North American Premiere)
Under-promising with its story of a pampered actor hiring a real-life street thug to co-star in his new gangster picture, this high concept action film ultimately over-delivers and becomes an intimate, intense dissection of its two main characters who are both very bad men in very different ways.
TAIWAN
CAPE NO. 7
(Taiwan, 2008, Wei Te-sheng, New York Premiere)
The highest grossing movie ever released in Taiwan, CAPE NO. 7 is less of a movie than a phenomenon. Things kick off when a pop star decides to hold a concert in a tiny seaside town and the civic booster mayor vows to form a local band to be the opening act. Think of it as THE FULL MONTY only with Mando-pop instead of stripping and you¹ve got the idea. The director mortgaged his house and borrowed money from friends to make this film and it¹s so carefully observed, full of weird characters and completely crowd-pleasing that it¹s amazing it¹s his first film to get a theatrical release.