Subway Cinema News

Welcome to Subway Cinema News, your guide to all kinds of Asian shenanigans in New York City and sometimes - just sometimes - beyond.

THIS WEEK

Japanese Screen Classics, in Honor of Madame Kawakita will end next Thursday, August 14 at the Walter Reade Theater. It’s screening classic flicks from the likes of Oshima, Seijun and Kurosawa and the must see items are coming up this weekend: Suzuki Seijun’s brain-exploding crime movies BRANDED TO KILL and TOKYO DRIFTER.
(More info)

Anthology Film Archives will be hosting a screening of FIRST LOVE on August 21. This is Lee Myung-Se’s first movie to really be worshipped by critics and it’s ultra rare (there is no home video version). It’s a simple love story from 1992, but it’s the one that worshippers in his cult hold as one of the best. Don’t miss it.

At the ImaginAsian, August 7 sees the start of SINGH IS KINNG which stars Akshay Kumar and sounds like typical Bollywood fare. Here’s the plot description:

“Singh is Kinng is a story about Happy Singh, a Punjabi Sikh. He is very mischievous and gets involved in a number of disastrous situations, so the villagers plan to send him to Australia to bring back his fellow villager, Lucky Singh. It is then revealed that Lucky is an underworld Don in Australia. Then, in a accident, Happy saves Lucky but still Lucky becomes paralysed. Hence, Happy becomes the new King of the Australian Underworld.“

LOVE AND HONOR, the third film in Yoji Yamada’s Samurai trilogy is still playing at the Pioneer TwoBoots (ends August 7)

Welcome to Subway Cinema News – Flying to Asia for cheap: because it happens inside your brain.

This Week
On Wednesday, July 30 as the sun goes down, watch the gruesome Korean monster in Bong Joon-ho’s THE HOST at Socrates Sculpture Park. THE HOST will be screened outdoors in conjunction with the Museum of the Moving Image. Breaking box-office records in its domestic run, this film has repackaged the monster flick into a moving and satirical film about familial bonds and environmental hazards. To contrast the slime and horrors of the mutant creature, preceding the film will be a lovely performance by the Song Hee Lee Dance Company.
(More info)

At the ImaginAsian playing until July 31 is Akihiko Shiota’s CANARY.  The story spotlights 12-year-old Koichi who lives with his mother and li’l sister in a cult compound (the cult is based on Aum Shinrikyo).  When the cult disbands, their mother goes missing, and they are forced into a children’s center until their grandfather arrives, but he’s only there for the sister.  Koichi runs away from the center looking for his mother and sister.  On his search, he runs into a young girl who is also on the run, this time from an abusive father and from then on it’s a searing road trip to find his sister and escape the police. Painful, touching and unique.
(More info)

Also at the ImaginAsian, Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou’s TAKE OUT opens Friday, August 1st.  Ride the streets of New York with a Chinese take-out deliveryman, biking through the spires and mire of the city.  Ming Ding struggles to stay on top of his debt for being smuggled into the States, but the pressure is turned up when the collectors demand payment in full by the end of the day. Although it’s a feature film it’s shot with a clear-eyed, straight-forward documentary realism that makes it feel more than real. It’s a look at the guys who bring your bags of dripping, oily food up five flights of stairs in the pouring rain for a $1 tip.
(More info)

At Film Forum Masaki Kobayashi’s THE HUMAN CONDITION plays until August 7. This epic film is divided in three, and it was a life-long dream project for director Kobayashi, who wanted to capture the dehumanizing aspects of war during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. Played by an all-star cast that shines with a gritty charm, THE HUMAN CONDITION tracks the lives of several compelling characters who are embittered and hardened by warfare but who remain distinctly human. The silver screen can hardly hold the scope, length, and the horrible visual splendor of these movies.
(More info)

At the Walter Reade the Film Society of Lincoln Center presents Japanese Screen Classics: In Honor of Madame Kawakita from July 30 – August 14, 2008.  Madame Kashiko Kawakita and Nagamasa Kawakita put their incredible minds together to create the Japan Film Library Council and they’re responsible for placing Japanese film on the global map. In honor of her contributions to Japan’s film industry, a series featuring 24 films by internationally celebrated directors from Japan will be shown. Some of the winners of the prestigious Kawakita Award that will be screened are Akira Kurosawa, Nagisa Oshima, Suzuki Seijun and Sumiko Haneda.  Detailed screening schedule below.
(More info)

At MoMA on Thursday, August 7, 2008, Geoffrey Selden’s BLUES FOR TRUMPET AND KOTO, his 50 minute short film, will be screening with two other short flicks about jazz. Using the backdrop of Japan and New York, this trancelike narrative film features jazz that will keep you humming and strumming your air bass as you get lost in two cities.  Full of sounds and tunes from big names in jazz such as Quincy Jones and Nobuo Hara.
(More info)

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)

Welcome to Subway Cinema News – Chopping rice noodles in one blow, while expanding your mind. Newsworthy Asian events in New York City delivered every week.

THIS WEEK
At MoMA on Wednesday, July 9 at 5:30 pm, Deepa Mehta’s FIRE is heating up theatres with a romantic drama about two women caught between conservative traditions and modern freedoms. What happens when lust unfolds from once innocent minds and virginal passions?  The answer: controversy, courage, and erotic synergy all around.
(More info)

Also at MoMA on Wednesday, July 9 at 8 pm and Friday, July 11 at 5:30 pm, Jia Zhangke’s HIJIE (THE WORLD) depicts the economic and social transitions transforming the modern Chinese landscape.  Enter the John Water’s-esque setting within the bizarre world of the Beijing World Park and gaze upon the characters that make up this film as they take you on a visual adventure.
(More info)

On Friday, July 11 at 8:15 pm and Saturday, July 12 at 4 pm at MoMA, Olivier Assayas’ IRMA VEP features Asian superstar Maggie Cheung playing herself.  Romance, drama, and comedy go hand in hand as Assayas explores and exploits the hilarious nuances of the film industry.  Refreshing and odd, the film mirrors the antics of the confused and often misdirected director played by Jean-Pierre Léaud.  Cheung portrays the iconic hot Asian chick in her slick latex costumes and makes you think twice about the representation of Asian women in Western films.
(More info)

At BAM  Sergei Bodrov’s epic MONGOL is still thundering in all its surround sound splendor.  While humanizing and glorifying Genghis Khan, the film awes its audience with heart wrenching passion and hair-raising triumphs.  Cheer for the little bad boy who had to survive his tortuous childhood to become a legendary and often misunderstood hero.  FYI, my son was born with a red birthmark on his head, a purported sign of the reincarnation of Genghis.  We are seeing this one together for sure, with our Mongolian (Koreans are Mongolian descendants) pride on, but leaving the spears at home.  This Lord of the Rings meets Asian man god thriller is even lovelier because it is told in Mongolian with English subtitles.
(More details)

Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film wraps up at Japan Society this weekend. It kicked off last weekend with a few days of co-presentations with the New York Asian Film Festival and now it comes to an end with screenings of new Japanese films like MOURNING FOREST, GUMMI CHOCOLATE PINE and SAKURAN. And don’t miss the closing film, KISARAGI, about five fans who meet after the death of their idol only to discover that one of them is responsible for her suicide. Black fanboy comedy at its best.
(More info)

The Asia Society and Asian Cinevision presents the 2008 Asian Film Festival at the Asia Society and Museum, Auditorium, 725 Park Avenue starting July 10th - July 19th.  This year’s selection of Asian American filmmakers includes 13 features, 9 documentaries, and 10 shorts.  Get a buffet sampling and heaping portions of the hottest directors and newbies on the Eastern film scene.
(More info)

At ImaginAsian on July 9th, and ongoing, Harry Baweja’s LOVE STORY 2050 is an action adventure love story that happens in different time zones of the present and future worlds.  The story of opposites attracting gets complicated as they travel forward in time, to the land of flying cars, robot friends and pets, and height-defying sky-scrapers.  Luck would have it that the soul mates get separated, leaving the brave young man to fight the villains of the future without his love by his side.
(More info)

At Lincoln Center on July 8 – July 9 at 7 pm, see the moving stories as they were seen before films with THE MAGIC LANTERN.  This un-film is a super-sized lantern show performed by Tokyo’s renowned Minwa-za Company that will hold you captive with dazzling shapes, sounds, and music.  A historical lecture is included.
(More info)

To subscribe to get Subway Cinema News delivered piping hot into your emailbox every week, just sign up here.

Welcome to Subway Cinema News, your one-stop shopping center for Asian film events in NYC.

Angelica Film Center
MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS (2008, Hong Kong/USA)
Daily
Wong Kar-wai’s latest movie stars Norah Jones, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and a bunch of other folks and, frankly, you should save your money. Interminable and screechy it’s one of WKW’s only true misfires. It looks good, though, but you’ve seen all these visual tics and tricks in his other movies, and done better, too. Hey, look: reviews!

Wow! A lamp shaped like Natalie Portman!

IFC Center
THE FILMS OF KENJI MIZOGUCHI
Friday, Saturday and Sunday @ 11AM
Japan’s master director has been largely relegated to lurk in the shadow of Akira Kurosawa, but over the past five years a number of retrospectives have hauled him back into the light. He’s one of Japan’s best, most subtle and most heart-breaking directors, like the Lubitsch of tragedy: making gorgeous women’s pictures that are delicate, understated and poignantly softspoken.

THE LIFE OF OHARU (Japan, 1952)
May 30-Jun 1
This is the Mizoguchi movie most fans see one time only. Oharu is a lady of the court and this film is a greased pole that sends her sliding on the fast road to hell, winding up a broken-down beggar. Every inch she falls hurts, hurts, hurts. Cinematic suffering at its most acute.

SANSHO THE BAILIFF (Japan, 1954)
Jun 13-15
This is Mizoguchi’s masterpiece, and if you haven’t seen it I don’t have anything to say but, “Go!” And maybe I’ll add, “Now!” Lots of critics cite it as the movie that opened their eyes to what film is capable of, this is one of the great Japanese classic movies, based on a great Japanese classic story. Action, romance, slavery, mothers, sons, mistaken identities…if Kurosawa whispered instead of shouted he’d have made it.

The ImaginAsian
MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS (2008, Hong Kong/USA)
Daily
Wong Kar-wai’s latest movie stars Norah Jones, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and a bunch of other folks and, frankly, you should save your money. Interminable and screechy it’s one of WKW’s only true misfires. It looks good, though, but you’ve seen all these visual tics and tricks in his other movies, and done better, too. Hey, look: reviews!

HOLLYWOOD CHINESE (2008, USA)
Daily
A documentary on the portrayal of Chinese people in Hollywood movies doesn’t sound like much fun, but HOLLYWOOD CHINESE has been garnering raves and returns to NYC for this encore engagement. Directed by Oscar nominee, Arthur Dong, it features Ang Lee, Joan Chen, Wayne Wang, Nancy Kwan, James Hong, Lisa Lu, B.D. Wong, Tsai Chin and writers Amy Tan and David Henry Hwang among others.

Read the NY Times review.

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
MUKSHIN (Malaysia, 2006, 94 minutes)

Wednesday, May 28 @ 6pm
Thursday, May 29 @ 8:30pm
Friday, May 30 @ 8pm
Saturday, May 31 @ 7:30pm
Sunday, June 1 @ 2pm
Monday, June 2 @ 6pm
Yasmin Ahmad is Malaysia’s most exciting filmmaker and one of that country’s most popular, although she drives the government nuts by making their censors work overtime even though her movies are mostly romances, romantic comedies, and gently observed dramas about how people get along (or don’t) in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society like Malaysia. MUKSHIN is the story of first love, and it’s a flick people absolutely love.

Read a review

SUBWAY CINEMA NEWS: May 15 - 22, 2008

NOW PLAYING

AMC Loews Village Seven (3rd Ave and 11th Street)
BHOOTHNATH (India, 2008, 137 minutes)
Screens daily
Kooky Bollywood kiddie movie that turns into a tear-jerker melodrama somewhere around the 2 hour mark. The two biggest stars in Bollywood, Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, star. The Big B plays a ghost living in an abandoned mansion, and SRK plays the father of a family that moves in whose 9 year old kid can see the ghost but thinks he’s an angel. Hilarity ensues. Or does it? You be the judge.
Read reviews

See the trailer

Tickets and showtimes

Angelica Film Center
MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS (2008, Hong Kong/USA)
Daily
Wong Kar-wai’s latest movie stars Norah Jones, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and a bunch of other folks and, frankly, you should save your money. Interminable and screechy it’s one of WKW’s only true misfires. It looks good, though, but you’ve seen all these visual tics and tricks in his other movies, and done better, too. Hey, look: reviews!

Chelsea Cinema (260 W.23rd Street)
DEATH NOTE 1 & DEATH NOTE 2

Tuesday and Wednesday, May 20 & 21 @ 7:30pm
The two live action DEATH NOTE movies are coming to NYC for two screenings only: DEATH NOTE 1 will be on May 20 and DEATH NOTE 2 will screen on May 21. If you don’t know the DEATH NOTE series, then forget about it - this ain’t for you. But if you’re familiar with the mega-hit franchise then you’re probably already trembling with an unhealthy level of excitement. These twisty, goth thrillers were massive hits in Japan in 2006 and they feature some serious, pedal-to-the-metal narrative gusto.

Read more about DEATH NOTE.

Get your tickets!

IFC Center
UP THE YANGTZE (China/Canada, 2008)
Daily – with director at screenings 4/26 and 4/27
A Canadian/Chinese documentary charting the part of the country that Jia Zhangke’s STILL LIFE took place in: the Yangtze River where the Three Gorges Dam will soon flood the recently evacuated cities. The doc focuses on a tour boat that sails through these deserted, soon-to-be-submerged towns, and lots of time is given to the bizarrely trained Chinese staff (who are told never to mention Quebec Independence to Western tourists).
There’s more reviews!

There’s a trailer!

And you can buy tickets here!

THE FILMS OF KENJI MIZOGUCHI
Friday, Saturday and Sunday @ 11AM
Japan’s master director has been largely relegated to lurk in the shadow of Akira Kurosawa, but over the past five years a number of retrospectives have hauled him back into the light. He’s one of Japan’s best, most subtle and most heart-breaking directors, like the Lubitsch of tragedy: making gorgeous women’s pictures that are delicate, understated and poignantly softspoken.

UTAMARO AND HIS FIVE WOMEN (Japan, 1946)
May 16-18
A feminist manifesto by Mizoguchi that was made under the American occupation and is generally considered one of his lesser films. But still, essential if you’ve fallen under his spell.

UGETSU (Japan, 1953)
May 23-26:
Mizoguchi’s ghost story is about as far away from THE RING as you can get. Richard Corliss says it contains one of cinema’s great tracking shots. You can bet that it’s a quiet scream of desperation.

THE LIFE OF OHARU (Japan, 1952)
May 30-Jun 1
This is the Mizoguchi movie most fans see one time only. Oharu is a lady of the court and this film is a greased pole that sends her sliding on the fast road to hell, winding up a broken-down beggar. Every inch she falls hurts, hurts, hurts. Cinematic suffering at its most acute.

SANSHO THE BAILIFF (Japan, 1954)
Jun 13-15
This is Mizoguchi’s masterpiece, and if you haven’t seen it I don’t have anything to say but, “Go!” And maybe I’ll add, “Now!” Lots of critics cite it as the movie that opened their eyes to what film is capable of, this is one of the great Japanese classic movies, based on a great Japanese classic story. Action, romance, slavery, mothers, sons, mistaken identities…if Kurosawa whispered instead of shouted he’d have made it.

The ImaginAsian
BHOOTHNATH (India, 2008, 137 minutes)
Screens daily
Kooky Bollywood kiddie movie that turns into a tear-jerker melodrama somewhere around the 2 hour mark. The two biggest stars in Bollywood, Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, star. The Big B plays a ghost living in an abandoned mansion, and SRK plays the father of a family that moves in whose 9 year old kid can see the ghost but thinks he’s an angel. Hilarity ensues. Or does it? You be the judge.
Read reviews

See the trailer

Tickets and showtimes

PLANET B-BOY (US, 2008, 101 minutes)
Screens daily
Benson Lee’s documentary about b-boy dancers and breakdancing, popping and locking, crunking and a million other things we’ve all seen on “So You Think You Can Dance?” is one of the - if I may - freshest, illest and sickest docs I’ve ever seen. If you want to freebase pure dancing joy and see b-boys and b-girls from all over the US, Europe and Asia bring it, then you need to see this movie. Plus, the critics like it and it’s nice to see movies they like from time to time. It makes them feel good.

Read reviews

See the trailer (which pretty much rocks)

Breaking battle between North and South Korean color guards at the DMZ

Tickets and showtimes

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
MUKSHIN (Malaysia, 2006, 94 minutes)

Wednesday, May 28 @ 6pm
Thursday, May 29 @ 8:30pm
Friday, May 30 @ 8pm
Saturday, May 31 @ 7:30pm
Sunday, June 1 @ 2pm
Monday, June 2 @ 6pm
Yasmin Ahmad is Malaysia’s most exciting filmmaker and one of that country’s most popular, although she drives the government nuts by making their censors work overtime even though her movies are mostly romances, romantic comedies, and gently observed dramas about how people get along (or don’t) in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society like Malaysia. MUKSHIN is the story of first love, and it’s a flick people absolutely love.

Read a review

Union Square Stadium (corner of 14th Street and Broadway)
DEATH NOTE 1 & DEATH NOTE 2
Tuesday and Wednesday, May 20 & 21 @ 7:30pm
The two live action DEATH NOTE movies are coming to NYC for two screenings only: DEATH NOTE 1 will be on May 20 and DEATH NOTE 2 will screen on May 21. If you don’t know the DEATH NOTE series, then forget about it - this ain’t for you. But if you’re familiar with the mega-hit franchise then you’re probably already trembling with an unhealthy level of excitement. These twisty, goth thrillers were massive hits in Japan in 2006 and they feature some serious, pedal-to-the-metal narrative gusto.

Read more about DEATH NOTE.

Get your tickets!

This Week: First part of this broadcast is devoted to “don’t miss opportunities” that will be leaving theaters soon. Second half belongs to just starting and ongoing series.

Catch the tail end of Kim Ki-Duk’s retrospective at the MoMA with the final screening on May 8th. Kim is a prolific control freak and visionary who writes and directs his films to perfection. His main characters traverse on the edge of society, insanity, or death while thrown into a plot of toe-curling eroticism and glorious violence.

Also at the MoMA on May 8th, director Peter Hutton unfolds Asia through his seaman perspective in two films. IMAGES OF ASIAN MUSIC is a short montage of prosaic images recorded in Southeast Asia. TWO RIVERS plays with the polarities of modern industry and nature’s irrevocable presence through the backdrop of the Hudson and the Yangtze Rivers.

The blockbuster scriptwriter, Vijay Krishna Acharya, tries on his director’s shoes for the first time in TASHAN. This Bollywood sensation has its last show on May 8th at ImaginAsian.

Wong Kar Wai directs his first English language film, MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS, starring a hot cast of Norah Jones, Jude Law, and Natalie Portman. Elizabeth (Jones) leaves New York to travel cross-country after a breakup and meets people along the way who remind her that a hopeful, open heart is better than a cynical lump of flesh.

Wong Kar-wai’s debut film AS TEARS GO BY, a gangster film meets his usual compulsions of modern angst and beauty will be going going gone after May 8 at BAM.

* * * *

Hot off the communist press: 3 films from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. DPRK’s nationalistic film ensemble will be screened at the Korea Society May 12-14. The films, HONG GIL DONG, BELLFLOWER, and MY LOOK IN THE DISTANT FUTURE were created as tributes to the republic’s social and political agenda but the unsung heroes shine in these moving portrayals.

A retrospective series of the rebellious Korean director, Lee Chang-dong, will screen May 5-12 at the Asia Society. His earliest films, GREEN FISH and PEPPERMINT CANDY criticized Korean society and politics with haunting images. OASIS, with its earnest depiction of human disability won him five awards at the Venice Film Festival. SECRET SUNSHINE, a realistic drama of a single mother filmed in an intrusive yet inviting style, won Best Actress at Cannes in 2007. He is a hotshot in Europe. Go see what all the fuss is about!

Kenji Mizoguchi’s THE STORY OF THE LAST CHRYSANTHEMUMS will start the Weekend Classic series of his films at the IFC May 9-11. The film is about the son of a famous Kabuki performer who rejects his family after he falls tragically in love with a woman. The consequences of his actions raise archetypal conflicts between art and real life.