This year, and this very week, CinemAsia has its ninth edition, and with 38 features and shorts it shows a pretty great selection of films from all around Asia. Some classics are there, but mostly it's recent output, with some big titles in the roster.
You can see the whole list at CinemAsia's site here, but we have a gallery of recommendations as well. CinemAsia runs from the first of March till the sixth, so hurry!
The Office - Johnny To
The opening film of the festival is an adaptation of a successful Sylvia Chang stage play, starring herself (she's in the picture above). And, as one of the festival's guests of honour this year, Miss Chang was present at the opening screening yesterday.
James Marsh saw the film last September, and described its pros and cons in his review.
The Golden Cane Warrior - Ifa Isfansyah
One of the martial arts films at this year's festival, The Golden Cane Warrior is an entry from Indonesia, and according to J. Hurtado review, it is "a very well drawn story with typical wu xia flourishes and some mostly very decent looking action", as he says in his review.
Collective Invention - Kwon Oh-kwang
A man participates in a shady medical experiment which turns him into a half-man half-fish, and that's only the start of his troubles in this bizarre satire of Korean life.
In his review , Pierce Conran says the film is "confidently paced, easy to follow and well designed", but he does have some issues with the story and its resolution.
The Birth of Saké - Erik Shirai
Hmm, saké... The good stuff is almost ridiculously intricately made, and this documentary shows a rare view at the process in what the festival calls "one of the finest breweries in the world", as a team of artisans create the fabled daiginjo.
SPL 2: A Time for Consequences - Soi Cheang
And hot damn, what do we have here? Wu Jing, Tony Jaa, Louis Koo and Simon Yam kicking the shit out of each other! James Marsh put it in his first Top-10 of 2015's Asian films, and says "in terms of balls-out action entertainment it more than delivers".
Madonna - Shin Su-won
A nurse working at a special VIP-ward of a Korean hospital tries to secure the heart of a braindead patient for a transplantation into a rich old comatose client, but her investigation opens a cesspool of social inequalities and cruel privilege.
Pierce Conran was very impressed with this film, and in his review he even states that "Shin Su-won juggles an enormous amount of weighty themes, which proves to be a masterful balancing act that speaks to an unerring attention to detail, an absolute command of story and a tactile sensitivity that guides its characters through their moral quagmires and desperate realities."
A Copy of my Mind - Joko Anwar
A young couple fall in love in Jakarta, brought together by their hobby of watching pirated DVDs. But when they accidentally get their hands on a DVD with sensitive political information, they get chased by several shady organisations.
Pierce Conran saw the film in Venice, and liked it a lot.
Lazy, Hazy, Crazy - Luk Yee-sum
Three high-school student friends play and gossip as girls do, but one of them is shocked to find out her friends earn some extra money by selling sexual favours. An uncommonly frank (and explicit) look at Chinese youth, Pierce Conran praises the film in his review for its cinematography and excellent character work.
The Royal Tailor - Lee Won-suk
Two tailors compete for the right to service the Korean aristocracy in this incredibly lavish and rich period drama. According to Pierce Conran, this was the best Korean costume drama of its year, especially because director Lee "has a natural sense for color, timing and staging, and cleverly manipulates shot structure, music and editing to get the most out of the screenplay".
Mr. Six - Guan Hu
When an old retired gangster tries to help his son, he gets embroiled into a fight with a young gang of Beijing thugs, so he calls in some old friends to start a war. This one has a very strong word of mouth, and its trailer is damn good.