Full Lineup Announced for the 17th Annual New York Asian Film Festival

The Film Society of Lincoln Center

and

Subway Cinema

present

The 17th Annual New York Asian Film Festival

When: June 29 - July 15, 2018

Where: Film Society of Lincoln Center

& SVA (School of Visual Arts) Theatre

The full lineup for the 17th New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) has been announced by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Subway Cinema, joint presenters of the event. The festival begins this coming Friday, June 29th and continues through July 15th. Films, Q&As, and award presentations will take place at two venues: the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the SVA (School of Visual Arts) Theatre.

The announcement is here.

An alphabetical listing of the films, including dates, times, and location can be found here.

Initial details for 14th New York Asian Film Festival have been announced!!!

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER and SUBWAY CINEMA

Announce initial details for

THE 14th NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL

June 26 – July 11, 2015

Director Ringo Lam will be presented with the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award, superstar Aaron Kwok with the 2015 Star Asia Award, and Japanese actor Shota Sometani with the 2015 Screen International Rising Star Award

Film lineup to include the North American premieres of Nobuhiro Yamashita's La La La at Rock Bottom and Yim Soon-rye's The Whistleblower and the international premiere of Namewee’s Banglasia, which was banned in Malaysia

A spotlight on Myung Films and Korean women filmmakers and a joint film tribute to Japanese legends Ken Takakura and Bunta Sugawara are among the notable sidebars

The New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF), North America’s leading festival of popular Asian Cinema, is back for its 14th edition. Co-presented with Film Society of Lincoln Center and Subway Cinema, the festival will run from June 26 to July 11. The festival takes place from June 26 to July 8 at the Film Society and July 9 to 11 at SVA Theatre (333 W. 23rd Street). Initial details include notable awards to be presented to director Ringo Lam, superstar Aaron Kwok, and actor Shota Sometani. The festival will also host a slew of North American film premieres, as well as spotlight the works of Korean female directors and honor the memory of Japanese legends Ken Takakura and Bunta Sugawara with a joint tribute.

Hong Kong’s legendary director Ringo Lam (City on Fire) will receive the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award. One of Hong Kong’s most influential directors, Lam was directing comedies when City on Fire was released in 1987, fusing the social-protest movie with kinetic action filmmaking. It was followed by the massive hit Prison on Fire later that year, and then School on Fire, a movie so unblinking that nervous Hong Kong censors sliced it to ribbons. Lam became one of the city’s best action filmmakers, and one of the few local directors to be so deeply concerned with the price of progress, the corrosive influence of money on human relationships, and the lives of the little people crushed beneath the wheels of change. In 2003, he directed what was to be his final feature and went into semi-retirement, only to be lured out again in 2015 with Wild City, in which Lam’s tooth-and-claw vision of modern urban living remains untamed.

Hong Kong’s superstar actor-singer Aaron Kwok (Divergence, After This Our Exile, Cold War) will receive the festival’s 2015 Star Asia Award on June 26. One of Hong Kong’s Four Heavenly Kings of Cantopop, Kwok has won dozens of awards for his chart-topping albums. For over 30 years, he has performed steadily both on television and in movies and is respected for his box-office star power as well as his outstanding acting chops. Kwok has worked with some of Hong Kong’s finest directors, like Johnnie To, Jacob Cheung, Andrew Lau, and Patrick Tam. His self-described Method acting was rewarded in 2005 and 2006 when he won back-to-back Golden Horse awards for Best Actor, a feat previously achieved only by Jackie Chan. Kwok was awarded his first Best Actor prize was for his performance in 2005’s Divergence, but it was his work in the 2006 After This Our Exile, for which he won his second award, that blew audiences away. In that film, Kwok’s fearless portrayal of a gambling addict exhibited a serious commitment to his craft as well as a complete lack of vanity. He then went on to give a series of startling performances in films like Yim Ho’s Floating City, the blockbuster Cold War, as well as his upcoming tour de force, Port of Call.

Japanese actor Shota Sometani will attend the festival on July 4, on the occasion of the New York premiere of Kabukicho Love Hotel, to receive the Screen International Rising Star Award. Director Ryuichi Hiroki will also be in attendance. This marks the second year of a partnership with Screen International, with whom the NYAFF will honor an emerging talent in the East Asian film world each year. At age 22, Sometani is already a leading man in both blockbusters and indie gems and has earned critical acclaim on the international film festival circuit. In 2011, he received the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New Young Actor at the Venice Film Festival for his performance in Himizu, along with his co-star Fumi Nikaido (last year’s recipient of the Screen International Rising Star Award).

Notable NYAFF titles this year will include the North American premieres of Nobuhiro Yamashita's La La La at Rock Bottom and Yim Soon-rye's The Whistleblower and the international premiere of Namewee’s Banglasia, which was banned in Malaysia, its home country.

The festival will also feature a section on Korea’s production company Myung Films, highlighting a few of their major works—Cart, The President’s Last Bang, The Isle, and Waikiki Brothers—as part of a greater focus on women who work behind the camera. Producer Shim Jae-myung and directors Yim Soon-rye (The Whistleblower) and Boo Ji-young (Cart) will be in attendance.

Japanese film legends Ken Takakura and Bunta Sugawara, both of whom passed away last November, will be the subject of the first joint tribute outside of Japan, which will feature the brand-new digital remaster of the 1973 classic Battles Without Honor and Humanity—screened for the time in North America—among others.

Keep up with the latest festival news at:
www.facebook.com/NYAFF, www.subwaycinema.com, twitter: @subwaycinema (#NYAFF15)

Tickets will go on sale on June 9 for Film Society Members and June 11 for general public, both at the box office and online. Discounts are available for Film Society members. Read more about the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Screenings will be held at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater (165 West 65th Street, between Amsterdam and Broadway), and SVA Theatre (333 West 23rd Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues).

MANSHIN: TEN THOUSAND SPIRITS to close NYAFF 2014

Manshin: Ten Thousand Spirits

Written and Directed by Park Chan-kyong 

South Korea, 2013, 105 minutes 

Manshin: Ten Thousand Spirits will have its International Premiere as the closing film of this year's New York Asian Film Festival (details below). The Korean word manshin is a respectful term for shaman, and the film is about Manshin Kim Keum-hwa, who in 1985 became the first shaman of her type to be named an "Intangible Cultural Asset."

The film, written and directed by Park Chan-kyong (Anyang, Paradise City, and the two shorts Day Trip and Night Fishing) is part bio-pic, part documentary. Manshin Kim is depicted at various stages of her life by different actresses, including Moon So-ri, who portrays her during the 1970s. But Kim also appears as herself, both in old and in contemporary footage.

Moon So-ri as Manshin Kim during the 1970s

She was born in 1931 during the Japanese Occupation of 1910-1945 in the northern part of Korea. When she was fourteen she married a man she had never met to avoid becoming a "comfort woman" for the Japanese troops. Horribly mistreated by her mother-in-law, she returned to her parents after three years.

Prone to visions from an early age, which had led to her being shunned by village children, Kim received her Naerim-Gut (initiation ritual) in 1948 when she was seventeen years old. Shamans dream more than other people and see images even when awake. Always outsiders, forever between spirits and "normal people," they have periodically been subject to efforts to end their practices. There was a campaign to expel superstition during the Japanese Occupation, and in the 1970s by the South Korean government with the New Community Movement.

Manshin Kim during filming

Kim, who came to Incheon in South Korea by boat, managed to survive these campaigns and other threats to both her calling and her life. In the 1980s, shamanism got a reprieve, first from the repressive government of Chun Doo-hwan and then from anti-government student activists. Prejudice against traditional culture and shamanism was alleviated, and shamanism came to be regarded as a new type of culture instead of merely backward superstition. It was at this time that Kim made numerous TV appearances, leading to her becoming an "Intangible Cultural Asset" in the middle of the decade. Kim eventually came to have more than eighty spiritual sons and daughters.

The film makes clear the conflicting dual attitudes that Koreans tend to have toward shamanism. On the outside, they seem to despise it and act dismissively towards it. However, in private, they hold rituals when they have important house issues or seek to have heir fortunes told.

Kim (portrayed by a young actress) followed by part of the film crew. "Augment" refers to becoming a powerful visionary shaman.

Manshin: Ten Thousand Spirits provides a fascinating look at a unique and remarkable woman and into the realm of Korean mysticism and spirituality. It ends on a note of self-reflective filmmaking that is both touching and artistically sublime.

AsianCineFest Rating: 3.5 out of 4 stars; highly recommended.

Manshin: Ten Thousand Spirits is showing on Monday, July 15 at 8:05 pm at Asia Society as the closing film of the New York Asian Film Festival. The full schedule for NYAFF 2014 can be found here.

THE MOLE SONG: UNDERCOVER AGENT REIJI screening July 10th

The Mole Song - Undercover Agent Reiji

(Mogura no uta - sennyû sôsakan: Reiji)

Directed by Takashi MIIKE

Written by Kankuro KUDO

Japan, 2014, 130 minutes

When: Thursday, July 10, 2014 at 6:00pm

Where: Japan Society

333 East 47th Street, NYC

(Between 1st and 2nd Avenues)

U.S. Premiere

Buy tickets

The Mole Song: Undercover Agent Reiji is the latest offering from Takashi Miike (Ichi the Killer, 13 Assassins, and about 90 other titles), Japan's enfant terrible director. Co-presented by the New York Asian Film Festival, it will be the opening film of this year's JAPAN CUTS: The New York Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema.

Reiji Kikukawa (Toma Ikuta, The Brain Man) is a conscientious cop but totally ineffectual. This is not surprising since he graduated with the lowest score in police academy history. However, his superiors come to believe that his ineptness makes him perfect as an undercover agent, a.k.a., a mole. His assignment: get the goods on and bring down the Sukiya-kai, Japan's most nefarious criminal organization.

Reiji receives training from Kazumi Akagiri and some other police officers, part of which consists of a series of tests. After he finally passes, his instructors sing "The Mole Song" (yes, there actually is a song!).  From it Reiji learns the "Rules of a Mole": never reveal your identity, beware of female pheromones, etc.

Reiji begins his assignment by befriending Masaya Hiura, a.k.a. "Crazy Papillon" (Shinichi Tsutsumi, Why Don’t You Play in Hell?). Papillon is the boss of an illegal casino run by the Akogi-gumi, an arm of Sukiya-kai. He's also fond of butterflies and detests drugs. The bond between the two of them becomes stronger when they come in conflict with Issei Nekozawa (Takashi Okamura, The Great Yokai War).

Bald and with diamond teeth, Nekozawa is a boss of the Hachinosu-kai, the biggest yakuza clan in Kansai. A fragile peaceful co-existence between it and the Sukiya-kai is on the verge of ending because of the ambitions of Aiko, the new director and 5th generation boss of Hachinosu-kai.

Reiji's assignment to penetrate the Sukiya-kai, which has its own perils, is thus further endangered by the threat of an all out war between rival yakuza gangs. The situation could well be more than this mole is able to handle, even if he is "the ultimate non-existent undercover agent"!

The film is a combination of outrageous comedy, all-out action and garish costumes. For me, at 130 minutes, it's a tad on the long side. Some of the fight scenes, for example, might have been trimmed a bit. It's somewhat lesser Miike, but certainly still quite enjoyable.

AsianCineFest Rating: 3 out of 4 stars, recommended. It may not be a great film, but it's a good one and definitely entertaining.

Oh, be sure to stay though the credits for the film's coda.

The full schedule for NYAFF 2014 can be found here; the Japan Cuts schedule, here.

RIGOR MORTIS at NYAFF on Friday

Rigor Mortis / Geung si

Directed by Juno Mak

Produced by Takashi Shimizu and Juno Mak

Hong Kong, 2013, 101 minutes
When: Friday, July 4th @ 2:00pm
Where: The Film Society of Lincoln Center's
Walter Reade Theater, 165 W 65th Street, NYC
Buy tickets

Rigor Mortis will be shown at the New York Asian Film Festival as part of a Chinese "hopping-vampires" double-feature with Mr. Vampire (1985). The showtime for Friday is indicated as 2:00pm, and I believe that Mr. Vampire will be shown first.

In Juno Mak's 2013 film, Chin Siu-Ho stars as a has-been actor who moves into a decrepit tenement building complex. He had left his village when he was 13 and become a leading actor by 16, but has fallen on hard times. Divorced, or at least separated (it's not clear which and doesn't really matter), he dearly misses his son. Not helping his depression is the fact that his room, number 2442, is inhabited by the ghosts of twin sisters who died there under horrific circumstances.

Chin Siu Ho moves in

The tenement's denizens are a strange bunch. Yau (Anthony "Friend" Chan, in his first film in nearly 20 years) is the last in a line of vampire hunters. He saves Chin when he hangs himself from the ceiling fan in his room. Yeung Feng (Kara Wai, My Young Auntie) used to live in #2442 with her husband and son Pak. Now she wander the halls and lives with Pak in an area provided by Uncle Yin (Lo Hoi Pang, Blind Detective, Drug War), the building's 72-year-old security guard.

Yau, the vampire hunter

Auntie Mui (Nina Paw, a.k.a. Hee Ching Paw, Bullet in the Head, Special ID) has diabetes; she does sewing and takes care of children. Her "Old Man" is Tung (Richard Ng, Once Upon a Time in China and America), who has a serious fall in one of the building's stairwells.) Finally there's Gau, who dabbles in the black arts.

Auntie Mui

The film genre of Chinese hopping vampires is known as Geung Si. Although termed "vampires," to me they're more like zombies. But unlike their Western counterparts, these creatures are extremely rigid (hence the title Rigor Mortis) and can only ambulate by hopping around. (Mr. Vampire, in which Chin Siu-Ho was one of the stars, was of the most popular Geung Si films. That 1985 film's success led to a number of sequels.)

Yeung Feng and son Pak

Rigor Mortis is an homage to these classic genre movies, but one with a modern day visual sensibility. It's dark and eerie, and it'll keep you enthralled.

AsianCineFest rating: 3.5 out of 4 stars; highly recommended.

The sisters from Room 2442

For those interested in reading more about Chinese hopping vampire films, I strongly urge you to check out Grady Hendrix's Film Comment article Kaiju Shakedown: Hopping Vampires Edition. Grady was one of the founders of Subway Cinema, the organization that began the annual New York Asian Film Festival.

The New York Asian Film Festival 2014 runs through July 14, 2014.

R100 playing at NYAFF tomorrow

R100

Written and directed by Hitoshi Matsumoto

Japan, 2013, 98 minutes
When: Wednesday, July 2 at 7:15pm
Where: The Film Society of Lincoln Center's
Walter Reade Theater, 165 W 65th Street, NYC
Buy tickets

R100 is the latest offering from Japanese cult fave director Hitoshi Matsumoto. His previous works include  Big Man Japan (2007; original title Dainipponjin)  and Scabbard Samurai (2011), both of which played as co-presentations of the New York Asian Film Festival and Japan Cuts in 2008 and 2012 respectively. This time around he ventures into the world of S&M. The title is a play on the Japanese film rating system: it indicates that this is a film that should only be seen by viewers at least 100 years old!

Takafumi gets some in a restaurant

The film centers on Takafumi Katayama (Nao Omori, whose credits include Ichi the Killer, the "Interior Design" segment of Tokyo!, Helter Skelter, and over eighty other films). He's a salesman  in a department store who has an eight year old son named Arashi. His wife Setsuko is in Japan University Hospital where she has been in a "persistent vegetative state" (that is, a coma) for three years.

With his father-in-law, Takafumi (right) celebrates his son's 8th birthday

Takafumi doesn't have a lot of joy in his life, what with his bland job and non-present spouse. One day he goes to a club specializing in providing masochistic experiences doled out by a variety of dominatrices. By signing a contract, Takafumi is to receive one year of visits from different dominatrices who will appear at different times. (One just has to accept that he somehow has the money to do so, since this can't come cheaply.) For his part, he must comply with the club's three rules:

1. There is no cancellation in mid-contract
2. The customer must always be submissive
3. There is to be no touching, no violence, and no initiating of any activities by the customer

The dominatrices who tend to Takafumi, sometimes to his displeasure

Initially he is pleased with the services he receives. Indeed, ripples of joy can actually be seen emanating from his face. But as the visits begin to intrude on his workplace and his home, he realizes that he's gotten himself more than he bargained for. The club is quite serious about their "no-cancellation" rule and things get weirder-and -weirder for the increasingly desperate Takafumi.

Takafumi gets some on the street

Director Matsumoto likes to mix things up in this film. Instead of just a straight narrative, we also get two diversions. One is a number of quasi-documentary interviews with the club manger and several of the dominatrices. The other is a self-referential look at the film.

Five people periodically come out of the screening room where the film is being shown. The two who remain standing to the left of the image, one male, the other female, apparently are on the film crew, perhaps an assistant director and the script girl. The other three -- all males -- discuss the problems they have with the film. It wasn't clear to me if they were censors or just involved with the production company, though I suspect the latter. It really doesn't matter just who they are; their discussion of the film, especially the absurdity of the director's intention that it be shown only to people a hundred years old -- is hilarious. These episodes include shots of the director seated in the screening room. Maybe it's just me, but the actor playing him seemed to be made to look like venerable Japanese director Seijun Suzuki, who just happens to have turned ninety this past May.

Takafumi tries to get help but the police are not sympathetic

R100 is a crazy, kinky comedy, quite unique and very entertaining, assuming you're not the type automatically offended by the subject matter.

ACF rating: 3.5 out of 4 stars; very good.

This screening of R100 is part of the New York Asian Film Festival 2014.

BLIND MASSAGE at NYAFF 2014

Image © Copyright Wild Bunch 2014

Blind Massage / Tui na

Directed by Lou Ye

China, 2014, 117 minutes

When: Monday, June 30 at 8:45pm

and Wednesday, July 2 at 2:30pm 

Where: The Film Society of Lincoln Center's

Walter Reade Theater, 165 W 65th Street, NYC

U.S. Premiere

Buy tickets

Synopsis (courtesy Subway Cinema and the Film Society of Lincoln Center):
Easily the most powerful and innovative Asian film of this year, Blind Massage consolidates the rebirth of Mainland director Lou Ye (NYAFF 2013 selection Mystery) as a world-class talent. Lou creates a true ensemble movie: the blind and partially sighted masseurs and masseuses of Sha Zonqi Massage Centre, in Nanjing, central China, a distinctly unglamorous, bottom-line undertaking run by the light-hearted Sha Fuming (Eric Qin Hao) and the more serious Zhang Zongqi (Wang Zhihua).

It’s a powerful ride through a parallel world of metaphysical cinema that Lou first flirted with in Suzhou River (1999) and the big-budget Purple Butterfly (2003), but this time he also shows us a world of faces without eyes, full fathom five into the fundamentals of cinema and the very fabric of perception, a world where light and darkness lose their usual meaning but basic human emotions (love, jealousy, friendship) remain the same.

Alongside its scenes of beauty felt or briefly glimpsed, Blind Massage contains moments of humor, joy, and pure horror, and Jóhann Jóhannsson’s music is always there to add color to Lou’s magnificent poetic canvas.

Image © Copyright Wild Bunch 2014

AsianCineFest Thoughts:
I saw Blind Massage at a press screening at the beginning of June. The film is a very compelling drama. What impressed me was how, for the most part, what the blind and partially sighted are concerned with are the same things that the sighted confront: the search for love and companionship, family pressures, and so forth.

Some of the scenes are depicted in what -- for lack of a better term -- I'll call "blind-o-vision." By this I mean that what's depicted on the screen turns dark and out of focus, much like what I imagine a partially sighted person sees. For me this served to create empathy with what the lives of the blind and partially sighted are like in that regard.

Blind Massage is a far different film from the vast majority of those shown at NYAFF, this or any other year. It's to the credit of the Subway Cinema programmers of the festival that they include such a film and it most certainly deserves viewer support.

AsianCineFest Rating: 3.5 out of 4 stars; highly recommended.

These screenings of Blind Massage are part of the New York Asian Film Festival 2014.

GOLDEN CHICKENSSS at NYAFF

Star (and producer) Sandra Ng (fourth from left) and some of her "Golden Chickens"

Golden Chickensss / Gam Gai SSS

Written and Directed by Matt Chow

With: Sandra Ng (who also produced), Ronald Cheng, Louis Koo, Nick Cheung,
Anthony Wong, Dayo Wong, Chin Ka-lok, Chapman To, Jinny Ng,
Elena Kong, Eman Lam, Rainky Wai, Monna Lam, Fiona Sit,
Michelle Wai, Ivana Wong, Carl Ng, Eason Chan,

Lo Hoi-pang,Tony Leung Ka-fai,… and others

Hong Kong, 2014, 102 minutes

Language: Cantonese with English subtitles

When: Friday, June 27, 8:30pm

and Tuesday, July 1, 4:00pm

Where: The Film Society of Lincoln Center

Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th Street, NYC

North American Premiere

Purchase Tickets

In the Hong Kong comedy Golden Chickenss, Sandra Ng Kwan Yue reprises her role as Kam, first seen as a charming prostitute (i.e., a "Golden Chicken") in Golden Chicken (2002) and then in Golden Chicken 2 (2003). After this eleven year hiatus, Kam is now a highly successful madam with a large roster of her own "chickens." (Ms. Ng will attend the Friday evening screening of  Golden Chickensss and will be presented with the Star Asia Star Award. Golden Chicken will be shown at NYAFF on Saturday, June 28th at 12:30pm)

She shepherds them to clubs, beach parties, whatever and wherever there's a way to cash in on the "do-anything-for-money spirit" of Hong Kong. She even goes with two of her girls to Japan to learn about their blowjob parlors, where customers stand on one side of a wall while the employees -- including Takuya (Wyman Wong), a man who excels at his job -- sit on the other. Access is provided by holes in the wall. Other lessons are learned in the "20 second subway grope" cars.

As you can tell from the above partial list of those appearing in the film, there are a ton of Hong Kong's film stars who are present, some in significant roles, others in brief cameos. My favorite occurred early on in a brief scene in which Donnie Yen plays Ip Man, only he's dressed like Tony Leung Chiu Wai as Ip Man in Wong Kar Wai's The Grandmaster! Hilarious!

Louis Koo has a terrific bit as a Lous Koo look-alike from -- get ready -- Bumfuck, China. And be sure to stay through the credits or you'll miss Sandra Ng wrestling with Andy Lau in a spoof on his popularity. (A running joke in Hong Kong is that he's so beloved that he could be elected Chief Executive.)

I really enjoyed Golden Chickensss. Just about all the comedy comes across well, which is not an easy thing in a film with subtitles, especially one from a place that has its own idiosyncratic sense of humor. There's more to appreciate in the film if you're familiar with Hong Kong cinema and its major screen personalities. I recognized quite a few, but there were some that I didn't until I saw who they played on the film's IMDb cast page.

AsianCineFest rating: 3.5 out of 4 stars; highly recommended.

These screenings of Golden Chickensss, presented with the support of Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office New York, are part of the HONG KONG FOREVER! spotlight section of the New York Asian Film Festival 2014.

2014 New York Asian Film Festival Dates and Highlights Announced

 

13th NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL

June 27 – July 14, 2014

at Film Society of Lincoln Center (June 27 – July 10)

Japan Society (July 10-13)

Asia Society (July 13-14)

The Film Society of Lincoln Center and Subway Cinema, in association with the Japan Society, have announced that Umin Boya’s Kano has been selected as the Centerpiece selection for this year’s New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF), June 27 – July 14, 2014. Returning for its 13th edition, the New York Asian Film Festival is one of North America’s leading festivals of popular Asian Cinema.

 

Umin Boya's Kano, produced and co-written by Taiwan's hitmaker Wei Te-Sheng (Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale, Cape No.7), is an epic sports tale, based on a true story from Taiwan's colonial past, about an underdog mixed-race high-school baseball team that beat the odds and earned the right to travel to Japan in 1931 to compete in a national tournament. In order to succeed against their elite competition, the team had to overcome their ethnic differences and find a way to utilize their individual strengths in order to come together as a true team. The screening will mark the film’s North American Premiere.

 

NYAFF’s Korean Actor in Focus program will welcome Lee Jung-jae to New York City and present some of his most notable films as well as two exciting recent releases: Han Jae-rim’s historical comedy-drama The Face Reader, and Park Hoon-jung’s epic gangster thriller New World.

 

Early highlights among the first group of titles announced include Philip Yung’s explosive female-juvenile-delinquent drama May We Chat; Benny Chan’s resurrection of the heroic bloodshed genre The White Storm; Lee Kung-lok’s porn-industry comedy 3D Naked Ambition (NYAFF’s first 3-D movie!); superstar Andy Lau in Allen Yuen’s heart-busting police thriller Firestorm; Juno Mak’s hopping-vampire homage Rigor Mortis, along with the classic that inspired it, Ricky Lau’s Mr. Vampire; and Chow Yun-fat reuniting with director Wong Jing in the gambling comedy From Vegas to Macau.

 

The legendary Takashi Miike will also be represented at NYAFF once again with his outrageous gangster comedy based on a popular manga, The Mole Song: Undercover Agent Reiji. Korean cops take on a criminal mastermind in Jo Ui-seok and Kim Byung-seo’s thriller Cold Eyes; Takashi Yamazaki’s Japanese WWII kamikaze pilot drama The Eternal Zero; and Anna Broinowski’s Aim High in Creation, a behind-the-scenes look at the North Korean film industry, are also set to screen. 

Keep up with the latest festival news at: www.facebook.com/NYAFF, www.subwaycinema.com, www.filmlinc.com, twitter: @subwaycinema (#NYAFF14)

Tickets will go on sale to Members of the Film Society of Lincoln Center on Tuesday, June 3 and to the General Public on Thursday, June 12. Single screening tickets are $13; $9 for students and seniors (62+); and $8 for Film Society members. A three-film package is $30; $24 for students and seniors (62+); and $21 for Film Society members. Discount prices apply with the purchase of tickets to three films or more.

Visit www.FilmLinc.com for complete film festival information.

Screenings will be held at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater (located at 165 West 65th Street, between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway), Japan Society (333 East 47th Street, between 1st and 2nd Avenues), and Asia Society (725 Park Avenue, at 70th Street).

 

The 2014 NYAFF receives support from the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office New York, the Korean Cultural Service New York, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York, Kenneth A. Cowin Foundation, and The Celebrity magazine.

NYAFF's sponsors include The Kitano Hotel, Anthology Film Archives, Møsefund Farm, Manhattan Portage, Well Go USA, Epic Proportions, Flaskingtree, and Kirin.  Its media partners are Screen International, Film Business Asia, and Noonchi.

 

ACF 2102: IT'S ME, IT'S ME opens today in select U.S. theaters

Pictures Dept.

Presents

The U.S. Theatrical Release Of

The Japanese Sci-Fi Sensation

It's Me, It's Me / Ore Ore

Written and directed by Satoshi Miki
Based on a prize-winning novel by Hoshino Tomoyuki

Japan, 2012, 119 minutes

Satoshi Miki's unique fantasy It's Me, It's Me is opening in select US theaters - including NYC's Cinema Village - today, Friday, November 8th. The movie had its North American premiere at Japan Society on July 13, 2013, as a joint presentation of the New York Asian Film Festival and Japan Cuts: The New York Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema. (Yet another example of why -- as I've repeatedly written -- reading about these two festivals is a great way to gain an early heads-up on many upcoming theatrical and DVD releases of Asian films.)

Hitoshi Nagano (Kazuya Kamenashi) at work (This image is a cropped screen capture)

Hitoshi Nagano (played by Kazuya Kamenashi of the pop band KAT-TUN, in one of several roles in the film) is a seemingly average twenty-eight year old. Though talented, he's given up on being a professional photographer and works in a huge appliance store selling the kinds of equipment he once used. While eating at a fast food restaurant, the cell phone of a young man named Daiki, who's sitting to his right, slides unnoticed by Daiki onto Hitoshi's tray. Hitoshi surreptitiously walks off with it and uses it in a phone scam to bilk Daiki's mother out of 900,000 yen.

Three "Hitoshi's"

This sets off a truly bizarre train of events that leads to Hitoshi's encountering not one but two other "Hitoshi's." As they say to one another, "We're all me." Soon many more "me's" are found in a surrealistic and seemingly endless proliferation of doppelgangers. But duplications lead to "bad copies" who suffer from "generation loss" and these bad copies must be "deleted."

Sayaka (Yuki Uchida)

There's also an incredibly sexy married woman named Sayaka (Yuki Uchida) who lives in a huge white loft  and who hires the original Hitoshi to take photographs of the front and back of a house. When Hitoshi asks her if she's in real estate, she replies, "Kind of." She's enigmatic, to say the least.

Who is who? Which "me" is the real "me"? And who will survive and who will be deleted? These are the kinds of questions relating to individual identity that arise in this one-of-a-kind film.

If straightforward narrative is your thing, you may not enjoy this movie.

But if an unreal, surreal, and absurdest black comedy appeals to you, It's Me, It's Me will satisfy you in spades.

ACF 1762: R.I.P. Daniel Anderson Craft, film fan and a director of Subway Cinema

Paige Barr (Daniel's wife), actor George Takei, and Daniel

The legion of Asian Film Fans, particularly the New York City contingent, suffered a tragic loss with the recent death of Daniel Anderson Craft. I knew Daniel, not well, but I knew him from Subway Cinema's NY Asian Film Festival. He'd joined Subway Cinema in 2004, a couple of years before I started covering the festival in 2006, and was one of its directors. He was one of the nicest people I've ever met, and I'm glad that we had more conversations at the 2012 NYAFF than ever before.

Daniel is survived by his wife Paige Barr, a comedic actress and filmmaker, his mother, and brother.

While he enjoyed many types of movies, Daniel was an especially big fan of Star Trek, as evidenced by the photo above of him and Paige with actor George Takei at a convention. When Daniel wasn't able to see the teaser for the upcoming Star Trek: Into Darkness film, friends and family posted a plea on the Reddit message board and, long story short, Daniel got to see a a rough cut of the film in his home shortly before he died. You can read about it at this post at The Hollywood Reporter. There's also a very nice post at Reddit.com by Grady Hendrix, one of the founders of Subway Cinema, and a friend of Daniel's.

I was so sorry to hear about Daniel's illness and passing, but so glad he got his own special screening of the next Star Trek movie. Thanks to all those who made that happen, and heartfelt condolences to his widow.

ACF 1528: Meeting and interviewing Giddens Ko & Michelle Chen

Giddens Ko, left, yous truly, and Michelle Chen

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of spending some time interviewing Giddens Ko and Michelle Chen. They were in town for the New York Premiere of You Are the Apple of My Eye (Taiwan, 2011) at the 2012 NY Asian Film Festival.

Giddens wrote the novel upon which his screenplay was based and also directed. The film just happens to be his first feature film, but it's done with such a sure hand and fine sense of narrative development and pacing that one would never suspect that. It's an autobiographical teen coming of age story set in Taiwan in the 1990s. Michelle portrays Shen Chia-yi, an exemplary high school student who becomes the focal point of the attention of several young male co-students.

Michelle received a well-deserved Star Asia Rising Star Award at the Sunday, July 1st screening which was packed, as was yesterday's screening which took place right after our talk. The final screening will be next Monday, July 9th at 12;30 PM, and as of now, some tickets are still available.

While neither Giddens nor Michelle will be at that screening, just seeing the film is well worth your time. First because it's a sweet, touching teen rom-com that Giddens intended as an apology to a girlfriend to whom he never said "Sorry." Secondly, it also happens to have been wildly successful in several major Asian markets, and if you see it you'll understand why.

Further info about the film and a link to order tickets can be found here.

I'm hoping that the full interview will be run soon as a special podcast at VCinema. If that doesn't work out, I'll be posting a transcription here at AsianCineFest. Stay tuned.

ACF 1523: Opening Night at NYAFF

Scene from Pang Ho-cheung's Vulgaria

Last night I attended the 2012 New York Asian Film Festival's opening night screening of Vulgaria.

It was the most joyous film night of my life.

Just before 6 pm I left my apartment in Riverdale, a section of the Bronx near the Hudson River. Walked east several blocks, then up the three flights of stairs to the Number 1 train for the ride down to Lincoln Center, which takes a bit under an hour.

Grabbed a chili-dog from a street vendor after I got out at the 66th Street subway stop and ate it on the short walk to the Walter Reade Theater of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, which is on 65th Street just east of Broadway.

The terrific 2012 NYAFF T-shirt

I had some time before my scheduled interview with Pang Ho-cheung, director of Vulgaria, at 7:15, so I got my 2012 NYAFF t-shirt which features terrific graphics from Oldboy, which will be shown at 1 pm today (Saturday) and King Boxer, a.k.a. Five Fingers of Death, which is playing at 5:30 today. I also grabbed a copy of the gorgeous,, full color NYAFF festival brochure and some other materials about NYAFF and the upcoming Japan Cuts festival, which will run July 12-28, 2012.

When the time came, I was led up, around and down various stairways and hallways to one of the "Green Rooms" where I had my 15 minute interview with director Pang. (I made this trek a couple of times for interviews at the 2011 NYAFF and have almost gotten the hang of it. But I still think I might get lost if I had to do it on my own.) Pang's English was very good, and the available interpreter was only needed briefly a very few times. Hope to get the interview online very soon.

With director Pang after our interview

I then hooked up with Colleen Wanglund; she writes for the VCinema blog, to which I also post as well as serving as a co-host on the VCinema podcast. I was glad to have the presence of mind to introduce her to the members of Subway Cinema who were passing by from time to time.

Then it was time for the 8:30 screening of Vulgaria. After the prime movers of Subway Cinema were introduced, Grady Hendrix, one of the original founders of Subway Cinema gave his usual energetic and rousing, P.T. Barnum-like address to the audience, which pretty much packed the theater. Pang spoke briefly, then the film began.

And it was a rousing success. This was the first time that I'd attended the opening night screening at NYAFF, and it was just as I expected. The film (which I've reviewed here at ACF) was a perfect choice. The audience roared with laughter, over-and-over-and-over again, and there were empathetic responses to some of the touching scenes involving the main character's young daughter, scenes that serve as beautifully measured counterpoints to the raunchy vulgarity that dominates the film.

I wasn't able to stay for Pang's Q&A after the film or for the free beer provided by festival sponsor Kirin. Wish I could have.

But it still was as perfect an evening as I could've dared hoped for. And I think that probably was that way for just about everyone else who attended.

ACF 1518: Win Tickets to See VULGARIA at the New York Asian Film Festival [NYAFF 2012]

VCinema, an affiliate of AsianCIneFest, has a pair of tickets to give away to the 8:30 pm screening of Vulgaria at the NY Asian Film Festival this Friday, June 29th.

To win you must answer one simple question. That question, rules and info can be found here.

But you must hurry as entries must be received by Wednesday, June 27th, 2012, midnight PST.

Read Pierce Conran's review of Vulgaria at VCinema.

Read my review of Vulgaria at AsianCineFest 1513.

ACF 1517: Win Tickets to See WAR OF THE ARROWS at the New York Asian Film Festival [NYAFF 2012]

VCinema, an affiliate of AsianCineFest, has a pair of tickets to give away to the 6:30 pm screening of War of the Arrows at the NY Asian Film Festival this Friday, June 29th.

To win you must answer one simple question. That question, rules and info can be found here.

But you must hurry as entries must be received by Wednesday, June 27th, 2012, midnight PST.

Read Pierce Conran's review of War of the Arrows at VCinema.

ACF 1513: VULGARIA at NYAFF

A photo shoot in producer To's office space

Vulgaria

Directed by Pang Ho-cheung

Hong Kong, 2012, 90 minutes

In Cantonese and Profanity with English subtitles

When: Friday, June 30, 2012 at 8:30 PM

North American Premiere

Where: New York Asian Film Festival

The Film Society of Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th Street, New York, NY

Map here

Buy tickets

This hilarious, raunchy romp through the process of film-making as experienced by a CAT III Hong Kong producer is the Opening Night Film at this year's New York Asian Film Festival. And it more than lives up to its title.

To Wai-cheung (actor Chapman To) is a down-on-his luck producer of the kind of films whose premieres are never shown on TV. He's being interviewed about just what it is that a producer does by a Professor Cheng in front of an auditorium full of students. He explains that, just as pubic hair reduces friction between a couple fornicating, so a producer is responsible for easing friction between people! And we -- and the film -- are off!

In a series of flashbacks, To elaborates on what befell him in the course of making his latest movie. He has had to deal with his ex-wife, a barrister to whom he is behind in his alimony payments. She wants to severely curtail, if not completely end, his visitation rights with their daughter, Jacqueline. To's further suffers from his almost totally incompetent female assistant. And then there's the matter of a bounced check, or two, or three, or four, or more.

Double the pleasure of Clerks II?

A call from a friend results in him hooking up with Brother Tyrannosaurus, a mainland gangster with money to born and some peculiar culinary and sexual inclinations. Brother T says he'll back a film remake of the porn classic Confessions of a Concubine, providing it again stars Yum Yum Shaw, who was in the original.

This puts To in a quandary because, as Yum Yum indicates when she and To "do lunch," she wouldn't think allowing herself to be shot in the nude at her age and that no one would want to see her like that anyway. When he hooks up with a would-be starlet named Popping Candy, To comes up with a brilliant plan to make everyone happy. Tyrannosaurus will get the porn star he loved when he was a youth in the film he's financing. Yum Yum will get to star but not reveal her aged body. Popping Candy finally will get to star, at least to a degree, in a movie. And best of all, To will get to make a movie and hopefully lots and lots of money!

Director To with aspiring actress Popping Candy

[Popping Candy, I must note, is played by the lovely and extremely well-endowed Dada Chan (best known as "E-cup Babe"). The character's name, build, and nature bring to my mind the character Kandi (played by April Bowlbi) who became Alan's second wife and was in a total of fifteen episodes of Two and a Half Men from 2005 to 2007.]

Needless to say, things do not go according to To's plans. But he has an angle and an answer for everything. And he also proves himself to be a masterful manipulator as he slyly arranges to save his completed film from pre-release purgatory.

Subway Cinema, the group that presents the annual NYAFF, says this about Vulgaria: "Shot in just 12 days, on a microscopic budget, the actors, director, and screenwriter wrote this porno Apocalypse Now as they went along." All I can say in response is that to have come up with a comedic triumph like Vulgaria under these circumstances is INCREDIBLE!

This is a "be sure to see it if you can" screening. Just also be sure to stick around through the credits or you'll miss some final touches that further cement this film as one helluva terrific comedy.

I'll be there even though I've already watched a screener DVD. I can't wait to see it again, especially in the context of NYAFF's opening night with what's sure to be a huge, enthusiastic and appreciative audience.

Plus, special guest, director Pang Ho-cheung, will attend the screening!

This screening of Vulgaria is part of Return of the King: Hong Kong Movies 15 Years After the Handover, a festival sidebar update on the status of the Hong Kong film industry fiften years after the handover to Mainland China.

And for another positive review of Vulgaria, this one by Pierce Conran at AsianCineFest associate VCinema, click here.

ACF 1510: NYAFF 2012 Trailer

The trailer for the 2012 New York Asian Film Festival is now available online. It is not to be missed. So click here and watch it already!

ACF 1508: Win tickets to GOKE: BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL

AsianCineFest affiliate VCinema has two pairs of tickets to give away to the midnight screening of GOKE: BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL on June 30th, 2012 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center as part of the New York Asian Film Festival. Info and contest rules here.