Subway Cinema News

It’s a bit far afield of New York City, but Austin’s Fantastic Fest thunders like a herd of longhorns into the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in two weeks, and we’d feel like sad little cowpokes if we didn’t give our friends down there a shout-out. Besides, there are more than a few connections between FF and NYAFF.

For starters, they’re going to be screening the splatterific TOKYO GORE POLICE, which we hosted the North American premiere of back in June. Madman director Yoshihiro Nishimura is due in Austin for the screening, and based on his bad behavior at Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival in July, it sounds like a can’t-miss screening. Bring a raincoat.

Fantastic Fest is also going to be screening a bunch of highly-recommended new Asian films that we really wanted to show, but for various reasons weren’t able to book. FF, since it takes place in the highly-enviable spot immediately after the behemoth Toronto Film Festival, had better access to these tentpole titles, and as a result will be presenting the US premieres of many of them, like the acclaimed (and extremely violent) Korean serial killer thriller THE CHASER (picked up not long ago by IFC for US release); the Thai RAIN MAN-with-martial-arts-and-a-girl action-fest CHOCOLATE; Japanese heartwarming pro wresting comedy GACHI BOY (aka WRESTLING WITH A MEMORY); A BITTERSWEET LIFE director Kim Ji-woon’s all-star, big-budget, Italian western / martial arts homage THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE WEIRD (also picked up by IFC for US release); and the anthology film TOKYO!, 1/3 of which is truly Asian and directed by THE HOST’s Bong Joon-ho.

But those aren’t the only Asian titles in their lineup. They’ll also be screening a couple of films NYAFF programmers liked, but decided not to show, like the is-it-the-third-part-of-a-trilogy-or-only-a-sequel? gore flick ART OF THE DEVIL 3 and the well-made, but overly familiar Thai boxing-versus-friendship epic MUAY THAI CHAIYA.

We’re also very excited to see that the Alamo guys aren’t averse to throwing some challenging titles into their lineup, like a movie we screened back in 2005 and continue to shower our love on, Go Shibata’s handicapped serial killer art film LATE BLOOMER, a movie that took years to find distribution in Japan and deserves all the adventurous viewers it can find. And they’re going retro with a rare 35mm screening of the Australia / Hong Kong co-production THE MAN FROM HONG KONG, which features beautiful scenery, awesome action (including Sammo Hung in a fight scene atop Ayers Rock), a killer theme song, Jimmy Wang Yu, and George Lazenby sporting a killer moustache and flared pants.

Last but not least, FF is presenting a four-film retrospective of Japanese pink films, in conjunction with the launch of the new FAB Press book BEHIND THE PINK CURTAIN: THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF JAPANESE SEX CINEMA, by Midnight Eye founder and Raindance programmer Jasper Sharp. All four films are difficult to see, with two of them being given their international premieres via newly-struck, English-subtitled 35mm prints. But since one of the Subway members also helped to organize this retro, we’ll point you to his blog for the full details.

Good luck, defenders of the Alamo, and enjoy the BBQ!   - mw

Most of us Subway Cinema-ites have other endeavors that keep us busy during the nine months of the year we’re not working steadily on the NY Asian Film Festival (and sometimes they also keep us busy during festival time, too). While some other members have day jobs, a couple of us are freelancers or otherwise semi- or non-employed and have our fingers in a number of different projects involving film or video.

One of the things I’ve been involved with for the past year or more is a retrospective film series called NO BORDERS, NO LIMITS: 1960s NIKKATSU ACTION CINEMA. It’s basically a touring program of originally eight (now six) films produced in the 1960s by Japanese studio Nikkatsu. From the mid 1950s to the early 1970s, Nikkatsu produced a steady stream of hundreds of “action” films, heavily inspired by Western genre filmmaking that was popular at the time. Many of these took the form of gangster movies, westerns, melodramas, films noir, and the like, and seem to have been equally inspired by American moviemakers and the French New Wave as well as other European auteurs. Many of the films were extremely popular at the time, although virtually none of them were ever seen outside Japan until 2005, when a large series of them was programmed for the Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy. American journalist Mark Schilling, who’s lived in Japan for many years, was the original programmer, and he has recently written a book on the genre—the only comprehensive writing on the subject in English—which was debuted at the first screenings we held, at Austin’s Fantastic Fest in September 2007.

Since then, the series has traveled in various forms to fourteen different venues throughout the U.S. and Canada, and I’ve been traveling with it for the most part, projecting the English subtitles onto the subtitle-less prints via a digital slideshow; this is the only way these films can be seen in English, since none of them are available on video anywhere in the world except Japan, and even there only a handful have come out on DVD. It’s been a great experience, and several U.S. home video companies have learned about the genre through this series and purchased various titles for release on DVD here. But as of early August, the final set of screenings will have happened, the prints will be shipped back to Japan, and I’ll have to find some other underpaying pursuit to occupy my time with.

As I write this, I’m en route to Seattle, where four films from the series will be presented at the NW Film Forum, from July 25-28. After that, I travel to Vancouver to present six films from the series at the legendary Pacific Cinematheque, from July 31 - August 4. Both of these cities have substantial Japanese populations and are well-known for their Asian film scenes, so I’m hoping for good audiences at both venues. If you happen to live in either of these cities, try to stop by and see some of the films. They’ve all been real discoveries for the audiences exposed to them up until now, with many people calling them some of the best classic genre films they’ve ever seen coming out of Japan. Imagine spending your entire life not knowing about or having seen any movies from American Independent Pictures in the 1950s and 60s, then suddenly running into the works of Roger Corman and others by accident. That’s something akin to the experience of discovering Nikkatsu Action, and it’s made die-hard fans out of many of the audience members who’ve attended the screenings. I hope you’ll be able to see these films at some point in the future, either on the big screen or in some of the forthcoming DVD releases. For an Asian cinema fan, they’re a missing link between the works of Akira Kurosawa and Takashi Miike, and a treasure unto themselves. —MW

(Read a review of the films in the series from Fantastic Fest)

(Read the Boston Globe’s coverage of the series)

(Read the New York Sun’s coverage of the series)

Wonderful Town at Anthology Film Archives through July 24th

Currently, the Thai film industry is mired in a depressingly bleak state in which only low brow comedy, action, teenage romance and horror can compete in the local commercial market place. The industry is nearly devoid of thoughtful films for adults or for more adventurous movie goers. Only a few years back it seemed that Thai films were on the verge of a renaissance, but the lack of box office success of many of these “New Wave” films forced the big three movie production companies to become risk averse and grab on to proven genres. Some serious new Thai filmmakers have adapted to this reality by making smart artistic films within those genre walls - Banjong Pisanthanakul and Pakpoom Wongpoom with the two horror films SHUTTER and ALONE and Chukiat Sakveerakul with the psycho drama 13 BELOVED and the controversial teenage romance between two boys, LOVE OF SIAM. Pen-ek Ratanaruang is one of the few directors who have been able to disdainfully turn their backs on the local box office because of his international standing due to films like PLOY, INVISIBLE WAVES and LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE. On the other hand, Wisit Sasanatieng, the director of the magnificently surreal Thai cowboy musical TEARS OF THE BLACK TIGER has been forced into genre servitude with his lackluster horror film, THE UNSEEABLE.

Barely noticeable within Thailand is a small independent film movement that primarily has had director Apichatpong Weerasethakul at its forefront. Films of his such as BLISSFULLY YOURS, TROPICAL MALADY and SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY have gained an art house following internationally, but little if any recognition or theatrical play at home.  Now this new independent artistic vision has broken on to the international film scene with WONDERFUL TOWN. Produced partly by grants from the Pusan and the Rotterdam Film festivals as well as other foreign investors, this debut from Aditya Assarat has been picked up in the United States by Kino and has scored itself a one-week run at the Anthology Film Archives. It has garnered awards in a number of festivals and has received terrific reviews from The New York Times, The New York Post and Time Out NY. Deservedly so.

As the film opens, waves roll gently upon the shore but the irony of this and what it symbolizes only becomes apparent as the film progresses. Things are not always what they first appear. A few years earlier the nearby town was hit by the 2004 tsunami and claimed thousands of lives. The water has long receded but not the emotional damage it left behind. Melancholy lingers everywhere and as the camera evocatively captures this gloomy mood in the dark lush landscapes, the broken down moss covered buildings, the missing people and the rain heavy clouds, a certain haunted menace begins to creep into the narrative. Ton arrives from Bangkok to work as an architect on a construction site and he stays at a small plain hotel run by Na, a young woman with very little happening in her life. Ton asks her if there is a room available, not realizing the absurdity of his question -  all the rooms are available and no other guests are ever witnessed – this seems to be a dying town. The two strike up a friendship of lonely souls that inevitably drifts into something more, but it plays out constantly against an ominous backdrop of threatening weather, gossiping neighbors and, eventually, bad intentions.  The story moves at a lethargic, almost hypnotic pace, but it feels perfectly in rhythm with the stillness, the silence and the isolation that surrounds these two characters. It creates an uneasy, expectant feeling that stays with you as you walk out of the theater into the bright sunshine.  - BN

7 and 9 p.m. at the Anthology Film Archives until Thursday, 7/24
92 minutes

You’ll get a full Subway Cinema News with much more nutritious info early next week, but for now here’s a glance at the slew of flicks hitting NYC theaters and video store shelves next week.

In Theaters
Three amazing movies are coming to NYC screens next week, all of which have some NYAFF connection.

First up, there’s LATE BLOOMER, which starts a run at the Pioneer Two Boots Theater in the East Village. Imagine TAXI DRIVER meets SILENCE OF THE LAMBS in a flick about a dude with cerebral palsy. We screened it way back in 2005 and I don’t really have words for how astonishing this picture is. Director Go Shibata bet everything on this film, and even tossed out a year’s worth of footage he shot because he felt that his relationship with Sumida (the lead actor, who is handicapped) was too colored by his own personal prejudices to be useful. This is one of the most vile, heartbreaking, eye-opening, breath-taking films about handicapped people you’ll ever see and it’s a great movie with a soundtrack from electronic group, World’s End Girlfriend, that’s sounds like ear sugar. (read our write up) (And here’s the trailer)

Then there’s this year’s NYAFF crowd-pleaser TOKYO GORE POLICE which has way more gore and way more substance than you can possibly imagine. It’s also starting a run at the Pioneer Two Boots next week because it couldn’t get into any other theater which is too bad - this is a movie that deserves to be seen in public where you can’t hide the sick joy it puts into your heart. (Here’s our write up and a link to the trailer which will slap your brain like jelly)

Finally, SWORD OF THE STRANGER starts a run at ImaginAsian. Not sure why Bandai turned us down when we offered this animated action flick a slot in the festival this year, but maybe they know secrets that we don’t. None of us in the festival are big anime fans, but this flick (produced by BONES who also did the animation on FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST) is a gritty, well-choreographed swordplay movie that not only keeps its feet on the ground, but it keeps them ankle-deep in blood-soaked mud. (Here’s the trailer)

On DVD
It’s a thin week for Asian DVDs coming out next Tuesday, but keep your eyes peeled for the following:

HIGH AND LOW (Akira Kurosawa’s kidnapping film gets a two-disc special edition from Criterion - full details)

(Taiwan’s HELP ME EROS is not a fun sex film, in fact it’s a somber, painful, grueling sex film directed by and starring Lee Kang-sheng, the Taiwanese actor who has appeared in pretty much all of arthouse favorite, Tsai Ming-liang’s, films) (More info on the disc) (read Variety’s review)

One of Johnnie To’s best recent movies, MAD DETECTIVE, got a screening at the New York Asian Film Festival and was then slated to move on to a theatrical run at the IFC Center as part of their First Take series. Then uncertainty reigned as it was announced for a full run, then for two midnight shows only. Now, however, it looks like IFC is giving it a full run and tickets are currently available. From 7/18 to 7/19, MAD DETECTIVE will have three screenings per day at 12:50pm, 8:25pm and Midnight. From 7/20 to 7/22 during 7/20-7/22 it will be screening twice a day at 12:50pm and 8:25pm. It’ll also be screening simultaneously on their Video-on-Demand service.

(Read more about the movie and see the trailer)

(UPDATE: here’s the official screening schedule now up at IFC website)

(Buy tickets)

MOMA is having daily screenings of MUKHSIN until June 2nd. This film, directed by Malaysian female director Yasmin Ahmad, has been a huge favorite on the film festival circuit garnering numerous awards. MUKHSIN is the final part of a trilogy sometimes referred to as the “Orked Trilogy” as it depicts the life of a young girl/woman in Malaysia over a period of years. Don’t let the fact that you haven’t seen the first two films in the trilogy put you off though because MUKHSIN is a prequel to the first two films as it goes back to Orked’s life as a child growing up in the countryside and her first crush on a neighborhood boy named Mukhsin.

The Malaysian film industry is slowly reviving after decades in the doldrums, but it is very much fractured along the same lines as its distinctive multi-cultural society in which there is always tension simmering between the majority Malays and the two largest minority groups, the Chinese and the Indians. Malaysian films reflect this division. The Chinese Malays tend to make very minimalist static films using almost all Chinese actors with the dialogue in Cantonese and Hokkien, while the native Malays go overboard with low brow populist comedies and action films utilizing the Malay language. The Indians simply import their films from the homeland. Audiences in Malaysia generally fall out in the same way – Malays go to their own films while the Chinese go to Chinese films (though generally ones from Hong Kong or China since their local Chinese productions rarely get a theatrical release and instead survive on the film festival circuit, international sales and VCDs.)

Yasmin Ahmad is the first director to truly break through these cultural walls with films that appeal to all sections of Malaysian society. Her films are touching dramas interspersed with comedy and romance that try to gently examine what it means today to be Malaysian. The underlying message in her films is an optimistic call to embrace differences, to thrive in a society that offers so much diversity. In the first film in the trilogy, SEPET, a young Chinese man is reading a poem to his mother from an Indian author, Rabindranath Tagore, and she responds “Strange. A different culture, a different language. And yet we can feel what was in his heart”. In the second film, GUBRA, Yasmin’s multi-cultural message is even more pointed when two characters exchange this back and forth “Can you imagine if there was only one language here. Or only one kind of food. Or maybe one race. It would be total crap.” In a country very much separated by its ethnic and religious differences, Yasmin puts forth a vision of collective embrace. Her multi-cultural vision isn’t only a local one, but global as well as the three films are full of references from Jean Genet to Annie Hall and the soundtrack contains music from Sam Hui to Beethoven to Nina Simone to Bollywood’s classic Kabhie Kabhie. The languages in her films often jump in mid-sentence from Malay to Cantonese to English and Yasmin (who speaks all three languages) clearly relishes doing so.

In SEPET (2005) Orked (played by the effervescent Sharifah Amani in the first two films and who is the niece of director Bade Haji Azmi, whose film, GANGSTER, the NYAFF showed in 2006) is a middle class girl on the verge of university and adulthood. Her teenage crush on Hong Kong actor Takeshi Kaneshiro leads her to cross paths with Jason, a Chinese teenager who sells VCDs and who gives her a copy of Kaneshiro’s CHUNGKING EXPRESS as a gift. It is very much love at first sight, but as in all love stories things do not go according to plan. But in truth it is not so much the romance that makes this such a memorable, joyous film but instead the world that Yasmin invites the viewer into – one of smart dialogue, cultural distinctions, religious observance, realistic locales and Orked’s home life with her loving funny parents and their boisterous maid. GUBRA (2006) begins a few years after SEPET and Orked is now married to a somewhat older Malay man who has a wandering eye. Though still having moments of humor, there is a melancholic mood that overlays the film – one of innocence lost and sad memories stored. Contrasted against Orked’s crumbling marriage is the blissful one of her parents, the caustic one of Jason’s (from SEPET) parents and the pious loving one of an Islamic cleric. The film is a bit too unfocused at times as it brings in characters more to make cultural and moralistic points than to further the story, but it is all part of a humanistic canvass that Yasmin is painting of her country.

MUKHSIN (2007) goes back in time to 1993 when Orked (now Sharifah Aryana) was 10 years old and living in a small village with her parents trying to fend off the debt collectors. This is the story of her first crush. Orked is a no nonsense little tom boy who prefers playing rough and tumble with the boys to being with the girls. Her mom (Sharifah Aleya – real life sister of Aryana) and dad (Irwan Iskandar) are extremely indulgent of their little girl and the family along with their maid (Adibah Noor) are as close knit and lovable as a nest of chirpy chipmunks. During a school holiday, the 12-year old Mukhsin (Mohd Syafie Naswip) comes to the village to stay with his old housekeeper after his parents have split up. After Orked passes his test of toughness, Mukhsin allows her to join the boy’s games and the two become fast friends over the lazy warm days and cicada filled nights that follow. Scenes slowly melt into one another with poetic flashes of home life, friendship and faith – dancing, riding a bike, reciting the Koran and flying a kite are lovely moments of harmony and beauty. Very little of any dramatic purpose takes place in the film – it is just a nostalgic look back at innocence when somehow the world seemed so much simpler and kinder.

Interwoven into all three films, but most evident in MUKHSIN is a very positive humane portrayal of Islam and its values. At a time when conservative Muslims in Malaysia are advocating a return to Sharia law, Yasmin appears to be quietly crying out for a return to their liberal tradition of tolerance in which a girl and her mother can dance together in the rain, women can attend a soccer game (something which a recent Iranian film pointed out can not happen there) and a boy and girl can fly a kite together. In a world gone crazy over the past seven years, this film is a welcome respite from all the anger and hatemongering that too many indulge in. It will actually give you some hope for the future.

Unfortunately, none of these three films have been picked up a U.S. distributor and so you can only buy the DVDs on the Internet – but be warned – they are Region 3 coded and will not play on a typical U.S. manufactured DVD player. You need to have an All-Region one. The only other film that Yasmin had directed before the trilogy was a TV production called RABUN in 2003 and that is not available.

(MUKHSIN screening info at MOMA)

Tomorrow night - Thursday, May 22 - will be a historic occasion in olde Manhattan. It’s a one-night-only engagement of MACHINE GIRL at the ImaginAsian Theater (239 E59th Street, btwn 2nd & 3rd Avenues).

What is this MACHINE GIRL, you ask? It is the touching tale of a young schoolgirl whose arm is amputated by yakuza ninjas. The very same yakuza ninjas who then kill her family. Fortunately, a buddy builds her a machine gun to replace her missing limb and giant, high pressure blood fountains arc across the screen as she takes her revenge.

Here, try the trailer.

Totally stupid? Yes. But totally entertaining, too. And don’t forget, you get $1 off your ticket to MACHINE GIRL at the ImaginAsian if you print out our Subway Cinema Newsletter and flash it at the box office. Or you can buy an advance ticket here.

The producers of MACHINE GIRL then put MG’s gore effects supervisor in the director’s seat and he turned out TOKYO GORE POLICE, sporting the year’s most unhinged promo trailer which you can flip out to, here.

This year, the big buzz at Cannes is that its golden boy director, Wong Kar-wai, will be premiering a remixed, rescored and re-edited version of his 1994 martial arts masterpiece, Ashes of Time. Exactly twenty years ago, in a Hong Kong movie theater, Andy Lau kissed Maggie Cheung and Wong Kar-wai took the first step down the road that leads to where we find ourselves now. It wasn’t an auspicious start. The kiss took place in a Hong Kong version of Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets called As Tears Go By, a low budget movie that was Wong’s directorial debut. Previously he was a lowly freelance screenwriter, author of films like Haunted Cop Shop 2: Electric Boogaloo. Andy Lau took the Harvey Keitel part - it was only one of the hardworking pop star’s ten screen performances that year. Jacky Cheung had been discovered four years previously in an amateur singing contest and his career had been all flops ever since. His first album had done well but his other albums had bombed and the babyfaced young actor was hitting the bottle hard. He was cast in the Robert DeNiro role, a big step up from taking the second banana role in both Haunted Cop Shop flicks. Maggie Cheung, a beauty pageant winner then best known as a bit of fluff who played Jackie Chan’s onscreen girlfriends, was cast as Andy’s love interest.

Maggie plays a good girl from the outlying islands, Andy plays a street thug, and they’re both too emotionally constipated to admit their growing attraction. Then, about halfway through the movie, he goes to catch the ferry back to Hong Kong and she has a change of heart and races back to the pier only to find his ship has sailed. She turns to go, but out of nowhere he races up, grabs her arm, and pulls her into a phone booth. As Sandy Lam’s Cantonese cover of Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” swells on the soundtrack they practically tear each others’ clothes off. They kiss hungrily, the music swells and the phone booth’s fluorescent lights burn brighter and brighter until the entire screen sears white. It was the world’s first Wong Kar-wai moment.

There would be many more to come in the six movies he made over the next ten years, from 1988 until Hong Kong’s handover in 1997. In Chungking Express Faye Wong sang a cover of the Cranberries’ “Dreams” as a lovelorn cop sipped coffee in slow motion while the world hurled itself around him in fast forward (this moment has been altered on the Miramax DVD available in the US and the scene plays in silence). In Days of Being Wild Tony Leung slicks back his hair and dresses for a long night of breaking hearts to a Xavier Cugat cha cha beat. Frank Zappa’s satirical “I Have Been in You” is transformed into the world’s saddest break-up song as a slaughterhouse is hosed down in Happy Together. And Fallen Angels ends with two previously unconnected characters sharing a motorcycle ride home after an all-night session of brawling and instant noodles. As the Flying Picket’s cover of “Only You” swells on the soundtrack the bike emerges from the Cross Harbor Tunnel, a puff of cigarette smoke rises up to meet the Hong Kong skyline and the two tortured souls enjoy one blissful moment at 65 mph.

These perfect pop moments were precious because they were so fragile. Wong’s movies reminded us that pop songs let us escape the world for a place where emotions are stronger, colors are brighter and everyone can say exactly how they feel, for three minutes at a time.

Don’t miss the last three days of As Tears Go By playing at Cinema Village until Thursday, May 15.

(Showtimes here)