The full line-up for the NYAFF (June 20 – July 6) has been announced and the full schedule, including advance ticket sales and complete write-ups will be available at the main NYAFF site starting Monday, June 9. In the meantime, Subway members are picking some of their favorite titles from the line-up and writing them up here. This time around it’s Dancing Dan talking about Vietnamese action flick, THE REBEL:

Like manufacturing jobs, hardcore action films seem to constantly move to where life is cheap, stuntmen are fresh and unions are non-existent. Now that Hong Kong is all civilized and wearing fancy pants it seems like it’s hard to find a guy willing to take a knee to the head or fall face first through a plate glass window for $20 and all the craft services he can eat. The latest action films from Hong Kong (Donnie Yen excepted) feature pretty-faced young pop stars floating around on the end of wires, afraid to risk life, limb and career on our entertainment…go figure.

So, like Nike, martial arts movies have moved on into Southeast Asia. Not wanting to be outdone by their neighbor Thailand and its favorite son, Tony Jaa, Vietnam throws its hat in the ring with THE REBEL. And, unlike Tony’s films, not only is the fighting and stunt work top-notch, but the movie itself is actually good. Playing like a 1920’s, Vietnamese version of LOGAN’S RUN, it features more Nyguens than you can shake a stick at. Director Charlie Ngyuen films this tale of an elite secret agent working for the French colonial government with all the scope and production values of a ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA-era Tsui Hark. The high-kicking secret agent is tasked to infiltrate the trouble-making, nationalist revolutionaries who’ve been ruining his masters’ afternoon lattes, but he quickly finds that maybe there’s a reason they call them “freedom fighters,” after all. Star Johnnie Nyguen, who’s already faced off against both Jet Li and Tony Jaa, steps into his first starring role as the conflicted agent and he throws both knees and both elbows into his performance. Handling the drama with equal aplomb, his work here announces the arrival of an action star to be reckoned with. Add in Dustin “21 Jump Street” Nyguen as a surprisingly believable nigh-invincible nutjob, and pop star Ngo Thanh Van (who also acquits herself well both dramatically and action-wise) and you get one rousing martial arts film with more than its share of “HOLY SHIT!” moments. I can’t wait to see this with a crowd and you can expect this crew of filmmakers to have a standing invite to the New York Asian Film Festival for their next film if it kicks butt this hard. – DC

Full write-up for THE REBEL and the trailer are here.