Jam packed with rare retro screenings and new fare alike, our ace New Yorkers, Dustin Chang and Christopher Bourne step up to bat today with a fiery preview for what is one of the most fun fests this side of the Mississippi.
PORT OF CALL - Opening Night Film, June 26, 8:30pm [w/ Aaron Kwok Star Asia Award presentation]; June 27, 3pm [Aaron Kwok intro/Q&A]
An almost unremittingly bleak portrait of Hong Kong, Philip Yung's third feature Port of Call continues the writer-director's focus on disaffected youth, and as in his previous film May We Chat? (a NYAFF 2014 selection), there's a pointed emphasis on the prevalence of technology and social media and how this affects, and indeed determines, their relations with one another. Port of Call expands this focus to encompass the adults in the picture as well, who seem hardly more in control of their destinies than their children.
Based on an actual case that occurred in Hong Kong in 2008, Port of Call features megastar (and NYAFF Star Asia Award honoree) Aaron Kwok as Chong, a detective investigating the grisly murder and dismemberment of an underage teenage prostitute in a tenement. Kwok buries his movie star-looks here, disappearing under a dowdy wardrobe, graying hair, and large spectacles. He also gives an impressive performance as a man whose obsessive, workaholic ways have all but ruined his home life.
The film dispenses with the whodunit aspects roughly midway through, when the killer (Michael Ning, a chilling performance) turns himself in and confesses. (A difficult-to-watch sequence late in the film dramatizes the gory details of the murder and later dispensing of the body.) The chronology shifts between three different time frames (1998, 2009, 2010) to offer a somber requiem for the life of Jiamei (impressive newcomer Jessie Li), the young victim at the center of the case, detailing her descent into prostitution and alienation from her mother (Elaine Jin).
A very unusual kind of police procedural that refuses to follow genre conventions, Port of Call’s downbeat portrait of Hong Kong is artistically rendered by Yung’s assured direction and Christopher Doyle’s nightmarishly vivid cinematography. - Christopher Bourne
A FOOL - June 26, 6pm
Actor Chen Jianbin makes a fantastic debut as a director with A Fool, a combination film noir and deadpan comedy that derives much of its humor, as well as its caustic commentary on the state of contemporary Chinese society, from the shifting identification of who exactly is the “fool” of this story.
Chen plays Latiaozi, a hapless rural shepherd who one day encounters a starving, homeless man (Jin Shijia), who after being given a bit of food by Latiaozi, begins following him. Latiaozi can’t shake this guy, no matter how much he tries, so the man ends up staying at the house Latiaozi shares with his wife Jinzhizi (Jiang Qinqin, Chen’s real-life wife). Latiaozi and his wife’s kindness, however reluctant, comes back to bite them, as this begins a set of comically bizarre entanglements, as a procession of “relatives” begin claiming this man as their own, and threaten the couple, especially as money becomes involved in these transactions.
Chen keeps things moving at a brisk pace and shows an artful eye for visual composition and comic repetition (the repeated car rearview mirror shots as Latiaozi is continually rebuffed by Datou (Wang Xuebin), the wheeler-dealer he appeals to for help; the vast, forbidding countryside landscapes). Chen depicts a China where casual corruption and systemic injustice are as much a fact of life as the seasons. The artful humor with which Chen puts across his message buttresses the forcefulness of his societal critiques. - Christopher Bourne
FULL ALERT - June 28, 2pm; Director Intro -- Ringo Lam will be honored with the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award at NYAFF
Full Alert is a great Policier from Ringo Lam, the director of City on Fire (which Tarantino ripped off for Reservoir Dogs) and arguably the last great HK film he directed. Lam announced retirement from film business after his unsuccessful Hollywood stint with a string of movies starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.
This kinetic film tells a cat and mouse game between inspector Pau (Johnny To regular Ching Wan Lao) and the educated master criminal Mak (Francis Ng). After Mak is captured and confessed for the murder of a chemist, his crew bows to get him out of police custody. This sets up the full scale street battle and heist sequence akin to Michael Mann's Heat. Full Alert also features great car chase sequence running through crowded downtown city scape and presents great street chase scene through bustling outdoor markets of Hong Kong. Lam doesn't neglect the human drama he is known for - loyalty, honor, family all play big parts amidst of mangled metals and flying bullets.
After a long hiatus, Lam is directing again. I am excited about his new film Wild City which he describes as the last of the City Trilogy (After City on Fire and Full Alert), starring Louis Koo and Shawn Yue. - Dustin Chang
PALE MOON - June 29, 8:30pm; director Q&A
A housewife turned bank employee loosens herself from the strictures of society’s morality in Pale Moon, which seems like a straight drama on the surface, but which in fact embeds some slyly subversive, deadpan comedy into its scenario.
Set in 1994 and based on a novel by Kakuta Mitsuyo, the film is crowned by a brilliant performance by Miyazawa Rie as Rika, a woman living a humdrum life as a bank employee and with a rather bland milquetoast of a husband who later wishes to uproot them both and move to China, where there are supposedly greater opportunities. One day, Rika encounters Kota (Ikematsu Sosuke), the much younger, college student son of one of her wealthy, elderly bank clients; his ministrations awaken the desires of the bored and sexually unfulfilled Rika. This starts her down the path of embezzlement, which begins as a way to help Kota relieve his debts, but soon pulls her headlong into the reckless abandon of luxury goods, expensive cruises and hotel suites.
Pale Moon, as well acted and conceived as it is, at first gives the impression of being a standard-issue morality tale, until a very subtle concluding twist which invites us to question the efficacy and authority of society’s rules of proper behavior. - Christopher Bourne
TAKSU - July 2, 6pm
An intensely erotic drama that plays out against the picturesque backdrop of the Indonesian island of Bali, Taksu, the second feature directed by actress-producer Sugino Kiki, connects sex, death, and the spiritual atmosphere of its setting in a beautiful and mesmerizing way. Two sets of couples feature in this story: terminally ill Chihiro (Saito Takumi) and his wife Yuri (Mitsuya Yoko); and Yuri’s pregnant sister Kumi (Sugino) and her Dutch husband Luke (film critic Tom Mes). Yuri and Chihiro have come on a vacation to get away from Tokyo’s hustle and bustle, and to provide Chihiro with a calm environment to help him better deal with his apparently hopeless medical condition. However, the vacation is sunk by Chihiro’s petulant, self-pitying angry tirades, driving a wedge between him and Yuri. Yuri soon drifts off to explore the island alone, eventually ending up in the arms of a local gigolo (Sunny Cornelio).
As a director, Sugino favors long, lingering takes of her actors in conversation and solitary exploration, in ways not dissimilar to other films she has appeared in as an actress. She has clearly gleaned valuable lessons from the low-key, yet gem-like artistry of the other films she has appeared in; Taksu is suffused with an eroticism and a melancholy that permeates and lends a gossamer grace to all her camera surveys. - Christopher Bourne
CART - July 6, 8:45pm; Q&A with director Boo Ji-young and producer Shim Jae-myung
If you’re the Occupy Wall Street-friendly progressive type, then Boo Ji-young’s feminist social-issue drama Cart will push all the right buttons for you. Based on a true story, the film takes place mostly in and around a Walmart-type big-box retail store (called, with Orwellian anonymity, “The Mart”), where the full-time permanent staff is augmented with a mass of temporary contract workers (a common situation in South Korea). When management decides to terminate the workers’ contracts and use an outside outsourcing company, thus absolving themselves of responsibility for the workers’ employment rights, the cashiers and custodial staff get together to form a union, go on strike and shut down the store. Boo vividly depicts the starkly gendered aspect of this labor conflict – the workers are all women and the management staff are all men.
Cart paints a broad yet intimate canvas of the workers’ struggle, leading to a rousing and moving conclusion. - Christopher Bourne
THE WHISTLEBLOWER - July 7, 8:45pm; director Q&A
Yim Soon-rye, one of Korea’s finest directors, delivers one of her best works to date with The Whistleblower, a social-issue drama that is as suspenseful as any thriller, and which often recalls, in spirit if not cinematic style, Michael Mann’s The Insider.
Inspired by true events, the film features great performances by the actors playing the two main antagonists. Park Hae-il plays a TV newsmagazine reporter who sets out to expose the fraud perpetrated by a stem-cell scientist, played by Lee Gyeong-yeong, whom the reporter believes has faked his research.
The Whistleblower powerfully depicts how easily and completely the mass populace can be fooled by con artists who skillfully play on the public’s patriotism and willingness to believe in heroes and miracles.
Even though this film, and Yim’s most recent work, is more overtly political than her previous work, the great humor and humanity evident in her previous works (such as 2001’s Waikiki Brothers, which screens on July 7, 6:30pm, the first half of a Yim double-bill) is fully on display here as well. - Christopher Bourne
VENGEANCE OF AN ASSASSIN - July 10, 6pm
Thai martial arts action choreographer cum director Punna Rittikai died of liver failure in 2014. Rittikai was a mentor for Tony Jaa and largely responsible for the rise of Muai Thai craze. So unsurprisingly, his last film Vengeance of an Assassin features some of the most delicious no-holds-barred choreographed action sequences to cover up some very schmaltzy storyline and bad acting.
It starts out strong with a full contact soccer match in a rusty factory full of sharp objects. Then there is a low angle, shooter's POV long take gunfight sequence. A runaway train fight sequence is also awe-inspiring. Rittikai tops it all off with a John Woo style gun fight sequence in one continuous shot, which is so mindblowingly choreographed, all I couldn't help but admire the logistics team behind it all. You definitely need to get a tetanus shot after seeing this movie! - Dustin Chang
BANGLASIA - July 10, 8pm *Intro Q & A
Censored upon release then subsequently banned by Malaysian censor board, Banglasia is a controversial Malaysian musician/filmmaker/internet personality, Namewee's all-out satire on racism and jingoism in Malaysian society. The irreverent comedy stars a lowly worker from Bangladesh trying to earn enough money to get back to his fianée back home before she gets married off to another by the Chinese New Year, which is January 31st. He is confronted and bullied by a jingoistic internet activist (Namewee) who regularly calls him Bangla, even though he himself is from a Chinese heritage.
Throw in a pretty nurse who is smitten by the handsome, good natured foreigner and a cute tattoo artist, Banglasia is a kitchen sink full of infantile humor, gunfights, crazy dream sequences and instantaneous singing (including a Bollywood style dance number). It also is damning indictment of politicians who uses race as bait for their own political gain.
Banglasia is an over-the-top satirical comedy with a style and resonance that makes you wonder about paranoia and humorlessness of those in power. - Dustin Chang
SECOND CHANCE - July 11, 1pm
An orphaned high school girl Hsieh (Huang Peijia) has to keep up with both being a Miss Little Perfect (a sword wielding captain of the school's honor guards) and a billiard parlor owner (inherited from her father). But unless she finds her washed up billiard champ uncle Siang Shuan Fen (Monster of Taiwanese rock group Mayday, making his feature film debut here), she has to go to a foster home and will surely lose her beloved billiard parlor to loan sharks.
Thanks to a youtube clip, Shuan Fen is located and forcibly brought back by Hsieh Hsieh's long time admirer/neighbor/best friend/minion Oden (Liu Yihao). Hsieh decides to get into playing pool to save the parlor but needs a lot of practice and coaching. Shuan Fen sees it as an opportunity to get back in the game and get a second chance to get it right.
Filled with likable performances, featuring real life international pool players, Second Chance is a great redemptive sports film in the tradition of Color of Money and Rocky. - Dustin Chang
PARTNERS IN CRIME - July 11, 3:15pm
Chang Jung-chi's second film represents a sharp stylistic about-face from his previous work, Touch of the Light, a gently inspirational tale about the friendship between a blind pianist and a dancer. Chang’s latest is a much darker, more ornate film, its high-school setting the occasion for a despairing vision that encompasses suicide, bullying, and the viciousness of social media-fueled gossip.
Three boys – representing the familiar youthful types of the jock, the studious bookworm, and the bullied outcast – stumble upon the bloodied body of a girl who’s apparently just thrown herself off the balcony outside her apartment window. The boys barely knew each other before this, but this shocking occurrence brings them together. Led by the bullied student, the three begin to suspect that there’s more to this case than meets the eye, and become amateur sleuths to determine who it was that drove the girl to kill herself. Their manipulations and deceptions – posing as the best friends of the girl (who they never knew) to her grieving mother, sneaking into the girl’s room and seizing her diary in search of clues – soon spin beyond their control and irrevocably ruin them, causing another death along the way. Flashbacks of the girl’s life detail her alienation and isolation; her reading material of Camus’ The Stranger speaks volumes to her state of mind.
Chang’s mastery of atmosphere and mise-en-scene is evident in every frame, contrasting the regimentation of school with the wilds of the jungle woods that surrounds it, which becomes the site for revenge, atavistic regression, and ultimately, death. A dark flower in the midst of the cheerful youth romances which have become a particular Taiwanese cinema specialty of late, Partners in Crime stands out for this and many other reasons. - Christopher Bourne
CAFÉ. WAITING. LOVE - July 9, 7:30pm
From the mind of popular and beloved Taiwanese novelist-filmmaker Giddens Ko (You Are the Apple of My Eye), comes Café. Waiting. Love, another whimsical, sweet romance with healthy helpings of toilet humor. Ko’s professional partner Chiang Chin-lin is in the director’s chair this time, and if he’s not quite in complete control of the wildly disparate narrative elements of this tale as Ko displayed in You Are the Apple of My Eye, the charms of this concoction are ultimately winning.
Just as in Ko’s own film, this new one (written by Ko, based on his novel of the same name) greatly benefits from the spirited, charismatic performances of its fresh-faced leads. Siying (promising newcomer Vivian Sung) is a brash and brassy college girl who’s rescued from nearly being struck by a bus by Zeyu (Marcus Chang), a radiantly handsome man who’s a daily patron of a local café (the name of which provides the film with its title). Infatuated, Siying follows him into the café and eventually gets a job there to be closer to him. Meanwhile, Siying is befriended by classmate A-Tuo (Bruce, another impressive newbie), a guy who goes roller skating everywhere he goes dressed in a bikini and dragging a cabbage on a chain with him, the result of a succession of lost bets. To make matters worse, A-Tuo is the school laughingstock not only because of his sartorial appearance, but because he’s been dumped by his girlfriend for another girl.
Once the initially grating farcical and absurdist toilet humor settles down, Café. Waiting. Love becomes a greatly entertaining romantic comedy that delves into love destiny, bizarre school club activities (e.g. “Iron Kung Fu” head-smashing and literal pissing contests), magic realism involving pulling sausages and bowls of hot tofu pudding out of the air, as well as a ghost thrown in for good measure. It’s all so sweet that it’ll practically give you a toothache, but this movie is quite a wonderful way to spend two hours. - Christopher Bourne