Subway Cinema News

Yesterday was the last day at the IFC Center and now the New York Asian Film Festival has moved up to Japan Society (47th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues) for the last three days of the fest. We ended our IFC run on July 3rd with the Super Mega Enormous Prize Pack Giveaways (one at each show), sold out screenings of PUBLIC ENEMY RETURNS and a near-capacity crowd for the Korean stuntman documentary ACTION BOYS with the movie’s director Jung Byoung-Gul (who also went through stunt school and is now working on his second film, a black comedy), producer Lee Ji-Youn (who spent her time filming every single thing that happened) and stuntman Kwak Jin-Seock (he of the mighty abs - which he refused to bare to the audience at the Q&A, allowing the NYAFF to retain some small measure of its dignity).

Here’re Magic Marker Rembrandt’s contributions for the day:

Look at the care lavished on TGP…

And here’re the last works of art from Magic Marker Rembrandt:

As promised, the face of Magic Marker Rembrandt revealed. James, one of the IFC theater managers, does these the night before a show or early in the morning. High on toxic marker fumes, fingertips bleeding, poisonous ink seeping into his fingernails and causing them to fall off, all so patrons know which theater is playing their movie.

And here’s his final message, a scream of delight and farewell from the heart of his felt-tipped wonderland:

And now the New York Asian Film Festival is at Japan Society, uptown - where it’s art. Quick note: ACCURACY OF DEATH screenings are all sold out, as is SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO. Tickets are available for FINE, TOTALLY FINE, ALWAYS 2, YASUKUNI and UNITED RED ARMY but they’re going fast!

I think it’s Thursday, but here at New York Asian Film Festival central time is a long-forgotten concept. The sun goes down, audiences come, audiences go, the sun comes up, audiences, audiences, audiences, movies, intros, prize giveaways, drink, day, night, day, night. It’s a big swirl. So forgive us for giving up on the day-by-day for the time being.

Last night was another sold-out crowd for SPARROW and it marked the first time that the Subway members who programmed the film got to see it for real. Previously all we had was a little tiny screener copy with giant watermarks all over it so the picture onscreen was barely visible. But projected in widescreen on a great-looking print with that beautiful international jet set soundtrack kicking in our ears in surround sound it was a damn-near religious moment.

If you want to hear the soundtrack for yourself, then head over here and take a listen.

(The SPARROW soundtrack, streaming at you like a bar act from a Melville film)

And of course, the night before we had a massively and gruesomely oversold screening of Lee Myung-Se’s M with the director present. He’s hanging out in NYC for a few more days working on his next script, but the screening itself was great and M proved to be as divisive as ever. The audience gave the movie an enormous number of “10″ ratings (although those were balanced out by some who gave it a “5″), and director Lee confirmed his reputation as the esoteric master of the Q&A session. His intro was brief, “I first wrote this movie in New York, then I made it, and now you’re here watching it. I want you to enjoy the film.” When asked about how he chose the leads for the film he said, “I knew Jang Dong-Won and he wanted to do it, and Lee Yeon-Hee was right for the part. So I put her in the movie.” Later that night, bombarded with technical questions after the Q&A he said, “I don’t know anything about lighting. I don’t know all these things. I’m the director. I only know how to direct.” Modest, cryptic and funny - it’s exactly what we wanted.

Thursday, July 3 is the day before independence day in the US, so we’re calling it Dependence Day and celebrating our sick dependency on Asian movies by showing some of our best films, all in a row. Also, we’re giving out massive prizes. We’re getting rid of tons of swag that hasn’t been given out yet, plus at all 6 of the day’s screenings we’ll be giving away a Mega Supreme Enormous Prize Pack that contains the following prizes from our sponsors:

1 Dragon Dynasty DVD of either PTU or Jackie Chan’s ROB-B-HOOD
1 Bonehouse Asia DVD of either LONG DREAM or NORIKO’S DINNER TABLE
1 TLA Releasing DVD of Pakistani horror film HELL’S GROUND
1 copy of Osamu Tezuka’s manga, DORORO vol. 1, from Vertical
1 six pack of Kirin Beer
1 bottle of Jinro Soju
1 year-long subscription to Giant Robot Magazine
1 Danger After Dark t-shirt from TLA Releasing
1 SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO t-shirt
1 New York Asian Film Festival t-shirt
And it will all come to you in a special edition New York Asian Film Festival messenger bag from Manhattan Portage. You can’t beat that with a stick. Well, you could, but it would be difficult. And strange.

Our screenings that day are:

12:00 noon - high-kicking, adrenalized Vietnamese flick, THE REBEL

2:10pm - Takashi Miike’s action fest, LIKE A DRAGON (which some of us like better than SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO)

4:20pm - the awe-inspiring glory of TOKYO GORE POLICE

6:30pm - Korea’s biggest blockbuster of the year, PUBLIC ENEMY RETURNS

9:00pm - the jaw-dropping documentary about stuntmen, ACTION BOYS, followed by a Q&A with director Jung Byung-Gil, producer Lee Ji-Youn, and actor/stuntman Kwak Jin-Seock

11:55pm - the sleaziest women-in-prison movie ever made, SASORI

And because THE REBEL, LIKE A DRAGON and TOKYO GORE POLICE are all matinee shows you can use your matinee pass to get in or purchase a Subway Matinee Six Pack so that if you bring friends you guys can go to these matinee shows for $8.25/ticket instead of $11.50/ticket.

Nothing to report, not even Magic Marker Rembrandt. Tired. Body is exhaustion-shaped. The only thing to warn people about is that the Wednesday, July 2 screening of SPARROW is getting very close to selling out so get your tickets early. They’re going even faster after this piece in last Friday’s New York Times in which Dave Kehr wrote

“But the most beautiful film in the festival has got to be SPARROW (Wednesday)…a new work by Hong Kong’s prolific and prodigiously talented Johnny To. Simon Yam, the ruthless gang boss in Mr. To’s 2005 ELECTION, here slips into a weightless, Cary Grant manner as the leader of a small band of Hong Kong pickpockets — all brothers — whose gallant attempt to liberate a young woman (Kelly Lin) from her older underworld protector leads him into a gloriously staged finale: a pocket-picking duel conducted in the rain. No gore here, just an infectious joy that somehow evokes Ernst Lubitsch collaborating with Sergio Leone.”

And, we’re going to be making another live, on stage phone call to Johnnie To’s offices right before the screening hoping that he’ll pick up and give us all a special message of peace, love and understanding.

Also, ALWAYS 1, screening Wednesday, July 2, is getting close to sold out. If you want to experience one of the biggest, best feel good movies of the last few years (and its sequel, ALWAYS 2, coming up over the weekend at Japan Society) then get your tickets before they’re gone or you’ll become a regret machine.

Also, the two shows of ACCURACY OF DEATH at Japan Society are close to selling out. Very close. So close that Criswell predicts they’ll be totally gone by Wednesday. And, finally, a reminder that SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO is completely sold out. Sorry, but it’s getting a US theatrical release in August of this year from First Look pictures.

And last but not least…kittens!

Probably the most controversial, acclaimed, attacked, defended, studied and debated Korean director these days is Lee Myung-Se, director of the kinetic action movie, NOWHERE TO HIDE, the swooningly gorgeous swordplay film, DUELIST, and this year’s psychedelic romance, M. Director Lee has been a good friend of the New York Asian Film Festival for years, and we’re pleased as punch to announce that he’ll be here for the Tuesday, July 1 screening of M at 7pm. Director Lee will be introducing the movie and then conducting a Q&A afterwards - and if there’s ever a movie that leaves the audience wanting to know more, it’s M.

Starring one of Korea’s biggest male stars, Jang Dong-Won, M is a movie that director Lee started writing when he was living in NYC after the release of NOWHERE TO HIDE. Informed by a short story by Truman Capote, Haruki Murakami’s novel East of the Sun, West of the Moon, a dream he had about Alfred Hitchcock and a complicated and tangled dreamscape that grew in his mind based on his observations of New York City and his memories and dreams about Seoul, M sounds simple: a writer is followed by a young woman who claims to know him. She could be real, she could be a ghost, she could be a memory or a dream, and that’s when things get funky. It’s like dreaming with your eyes open, and here’s what critics have to say:

“The film’s initially disorienting avant-garde tropes and heavy noir atmosphere, as it progresses, gradually reveals its big, beautiful romantic heart.” - Meniscus Magazine

“… impressive and bewitching…” - New York Press

“Lee’s M drowns in style…Bodies overlap, rooms merge into one another or turn on their axis’; a running girl vanishes into a pitch-black alley and emerges into a sunny street that instantly becomes a noon-time thunderstorm.” - Brooklyn Rail

“There is little doubt that Korea’s Lee Myung-Se is one of the purest cinematic talents working in the world today.  His grasp of the language unique to cinema is staggering, his ability to merge cinematography, editing and sound unparalleled.” - Twitch Film

Tickets are available and on sale now. You really don’t want to miss this. Director Lee’s Q&A sessions are legendary, he’s truly a unique artist and his brain works in ways most of us don’t understand.

Trailer, complete write-up and showtimes here.

Rather than bore you with a list of what we showed, why not let Magic Marker Rembrandt tell the tale.

Friday

And finally!

Then Saturday we showed…

And evening shows of…

And finally, at midnight (Magic Marker Rembrandt tops himself)…

On Sunday the line-up was of two double features, the two LOVE ON SUNDAY movies and a back-to-back, six hour screening of the two KING NARESUAN films…

Currently, the KING NARESUAN movies are leading the audience award voting and there’s one last screening of KING NARESUAN 2 tonight, Monday June 30 at 8:15pm. Tickets, trailer and more info here.

Right now, all of us at Subway hate Kazuo Umezu, one of Japan’s greatest horror manga creators. The production company of AKANBO SHOJO was looking for an English title for their movie and so we suggested TWISTED SISTER, HELL BABY and INFANT FROM HELL. But they wanted something with Tamami, the name of the demon baby, in it and so we suggested TAMAMI NEVER DIES, THE SUN WILL COME OUT TAMAMI, JET LI’S TAMAMI, TAMAMI FORCE, WHAT PRICE TAMAMI? and even TAMAMI 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO. Kazuo Umezu hated them all and so they ultimately went with TAMAMI: THE BABY’S CURSE.

Directed by Yudai Yamaguchi, who directed BATTLEFIELD BASEBALL and CROMARTIE HIGH SCHOOL, this flick looks like a 30’s gothic, haunted house thriller, shot in 1983 cheese-o-vision through a soft-filter lens and punctuated with geysers of gruesome, wet gore. But who is this Kazuo Umezu and why is he so crazy?

Umezu enjoys a status in Japanese pop culture like Charles Addams crossed with David Lynch, a living symbol of deep weirdness since he rose to massive fame and prominence in the 70’s with his series, THE DRIFTING CLASSROOM. What was it? It’s was the touching manga series about a school full of kids that is transported to another dimension. What happens there?

Things like this:

And this:

And this!

And this!

And this!

And, of course, then there’s TAMAMI…15 year old girl, versus 15 year old baby!

TAMAMI: THE BABY’S CURSE playing Friday, June 27 at 10:15pm and Monday, June 30 at 4pm.

(Tickets, showtimes, trailer and more info here)

(Kazuo Umezu’s official website)

So PUBLIC ENEMY RETURNS opened in Korea this past weekend. It’s the third stand-alone part in the hugely successful PUBLIC ENEMY series about a corrupt cop who puts aside his hunger for a quick buck in order to take down some pillar of society or prominent citizen who really gets his goat. With a script by Jang Jin (THE KING AND THE CLOWN), the lead role played by Sol Kyung-Gu (CRUEL WINTER BLUES) and direction by the most powerful producer and director in Korea, Kang Woo-Suk (SILMIDO) it’s being viewed as the movie that will save Korea from a really bad year. Did it live up to the hype? It just opened in Korea and here’s the box office report from Variety Asia:

“PUBLIC ENEMY 3, the third installment in a series helmed by Kang Woo-suk about a righteous, but weird cop, took a boffo $8.82 million in its opening four day weekend at the South Korean B.O.    Produced by Cinema Service and released by CJ Entertainment, pic locked up 1.4 million admissions at 764 crime scenes. Score is the second best arrest record this year behind INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL… And it is the first time in eleven weeks that a local picture has topped the chart. Last was GP 506. ENEMY 3 also enjoyed the biggest opening day by a Korean film this year, taking $1.2 million from over 200,000 ticket sales. That exceeded the opening day scores of this year’s biggest hits FOREVER THE MOMENT and THE CHASER.”

(Here’s the full article)

And what about the reviews? Here’s what folks had to say:

“The film is well crafted, with complex layers of narrative unfolding in an organic form, interjected with just the right amount of comic relief. Yet some might find this movie more disturbing than previous ones as it involves teenage crime…This may be an auspicious sign for the struggling Korean film industry, which marked a record low in May.” - The Korea Times (full review here)

We’re showing it just one time on July 3 at 6:30pm at the IFC Center and advance sale tickets are available at the link below. More reviews will be posted as they come in.

(Full screening info, tickets, trailer and showtimes)

Surprisingly large audience for DOG IN A SIDECAR but also a good audience for KALA and a sold-out crowd for the NYC premiere of Johnnie To’s SPARROW. We called Milkyway Image, Johnnie To’s production company, from onstage before the screening of SPARROW and reached the company’s manager, Shan Ding, who gave us a few words via cell phone before the screening. The audience was so inspired that they wept tears of joy and illumination. We’ll probably call Milkyway again before the July 2 screening of SPARROW. If we can’t bring over Johnnie To, at least we can bug him on the phone.

Let’s take a closer look at that SHAMO drawing:

Feel those rabies! One more screening of SHAMO left on July 2 at 4:40pm (a matinee!).

This was the slow day. It’s the end of the first week of the festival, about a third of the way through, and I imagine it’s a bit like the part in Columbus’s voyage to the New World where they were just floating around in the middle of the ocean and every morning some sailor would pop his head up through a hatch, look around, say, “More ocean,” and then they’d all go back to sleep. Magic Marker Rembrandt wasn’t sleeping, though!

After its second screening, ASSEMBLY continues to lead the Audience Award votes but its lead has been reduced to a hair.

Also we all sat around and came up with a great set of super-prizes for our July 3 screenings at the IFC Center. That’s the day when we do the heavy metal line-up of joycore headbangers: THE REBEL, followed by Miike’s LIKE A DRAGON, followed by the shocking TOKYO GORE POLICE, followed by the massive Korean blockbuster, PUBLIC ENEMY RETURNS, followed by ACTION BOYS with the director and stuntmen present and then finishing off the night with SASORI, the sleaziest women-in-prison movie ever made. The best thing about July 3 is that THE REBEL, LIKE A DRAGON and TOKYO GORE POLICE are all matinee shows so you can buy the Subway Matinee Six Pack (6 tickets, coming in at about $8.25 each instead of $11.50) and use them to bring friends to these shows. It’s your chance to see LIKE A DRAGON, TOKYO GORE POLICE and THE REBEL for super-cheap.