GKIDs and IFC Center present a massive Studio Ghibli retro. Starting this weekend and continuing through January this exhuastive retro present everything you could ever want to see, including brand new 35mm prints of many titles. Full lineup and screening schedule can be found here

Comments (0) Dec 16 2011

Starting today and running through Oct 16th. Our good friends at the Film Society of Lincoln Center or doing a giant series celebrating the Centennial of seminal Japanese studio Nikkatsu. Long know for gritty gangster dramas and hard boiled police action, the studio’s films run the gamut of genres and contain not a few certified classics. Details on the full series and screening times can be found here.

Check our newsletter for ticket giveaways during the series run!

Comments (0) Sep 30 2011

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We’ve been busting our butts for ten months, and sweating blood for the last eight weeks, but the New York Asian Film Festival 2011 – our tenth anniversary! – is almost here. How do we know? Because the trailer is up online. We want this to be the biggest, baddest, most fun-loving, pinata-busting festival we’ve ever had so forward this link to your friends, your family, your enemies and your frenemies. We want ALL of you at our party on July 1st!!!!

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A huge thank you to Yasu Inoue, Matt Griffin and Alex Kuciw (and his Django Productions) for making what we think is the slickest trailer we’ve had yet.

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Spread the love!

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Comments (2) Jun 21 2011

New York Asian Film Festival 2011
July 1 – 14
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at Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater (July 1 – 14)
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and
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Japan Society (July 7 – 10)
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The New York Asian Film Festival is ten years old! So this year’s festival
is a no-holds-barred anniversary celebration of Asian pop cultural
masterpieces, erupting out of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Japan
Society like two raging volcanoes of molten fun.
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In 2001, the NYAFF held the first major retrospective of Hong Kong’s
greatest director, Tsui Hark, and so it’s with great pride that we bring
Tsui Hark himself to the festival ten years later to headline our special
focus, “Wu Xia: Hong Kong’s Flying Swordsmen.” Presented with the support of
the Hong Kong Economic Trade Office New York, we’ll be screening new and old
classics of the wu xia genre. Wu xia movies are swordplay films with a touch
of fantasy and they’re all visual marvels, teeming with flying swordsmen,
magical blades and glowering female steel-slingers. Our line-up includes
Tsui Hark’s mega-hit, DETECTIVE DEE AND THE MYSTERY OF THE PHANTOM FLAME,
and several retrospective titles like Tsui’s astonishing, feral masterpiece,
THE BLADE.
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From Korea comes “Sea of Revenge: New Korean Thrillers,” presented in
association with the Korean Cultural Service New York. The series will
feature the new school of hardcore action movies that have been setting the
Korean box office, and Cannes, on fire. Special guest, director Ryoo
Seung-wan (CITY OF VIOLENCE), will be here to present his film, THE UNJUST,
a sprawling corruption saga. and also screening will be THE YELLOW SEA from
director Na Hong-Jin whose previous thriller, THE CHASER, was Korea’s
word-of-mouth box office smash of 2008. THE YELLOW SEA will be screening at
the NYAFF fresh from its Cannes screening as part of Un Certain Regard
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From Japan, there¹s Takahisa Zeze’s HEAVEN’S STORY. Zeze is known as one of
Japan’s “Kings of Pink”, and he’s one of the most famous directors of pink
films, Japan’s unique softcore porn genre that gave directors like Kiyoshi
Kurosawa (TOKYO SONATA) their start. But HEAVEN’S STORY is no skin flick.
Instead it’s a four-and-a-half-hour epic that follows the grief, pain and
redemption that spill out over the decades from two random acts of violence.
Tak Sakaguchi, Japan’s number one stuntman/actor/director and all-around
two-fisted renaissance man will be here in person with his new film, YAKUZA
WEAPON, and we’ll also be screening Noboru Iguchi’s biggest-budgeted movie
to date, KARATE-ROBO ZABORGAR, a tongue-in-cheek feature film based on a
popular 70’s series about a robot that can turn into a motorcycleŠand it
knows karate!
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Exploitation cinema from the Philippines will get its due with a screening
of the festival fave documentary MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED, which will be
paired with the jaw-dropping 1980’s Filipino exploitation mind-blower, RAW
FORCE.
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There’ll be a special focus on Taiwan’s great genre director, writer and
producer, Su Chao-pin, presented with the support of the Taipei Economic and
Cultural Office in New York. We’ll be screening his new movie, the wu xia
blockbuster, REIGN OF ASSASSINS, starring Michelle Yeoh and Korean star Jung
Woo-Sung, and co-directed by John Woo. We’ll also be screening some of Su’s
classic films like BETTER THAN SEX an adrenaline-propelled comedy about
first love, hand amputations and porn.
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From movies about punk rock Buddhist monks (Yuji Sadai’s ABRAXAS) to
bone-breaking, stuntman-destroying Thai action extravaganzas (Panna
Rittikrai’s BANGKOK KNOCKOUT), to brain-frying Japanese whatzits (Yoshimasa
Ishibashi’s MILOCRORZE: A LOVE STORY), this tenth anniversary edition of the
New York Asian Film Festival has enough marvels to turn your mind into a
blazing inferno of fun.
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The full line-up and Star Asia Awards recipients will be announced May 26.
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We’re still booking and confirming major films and massive guests so keep
your eyes on www.subwaycinemanews.com for details as we get them.
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And prepare yourselves for the best New York Asian Film Festival yet!!!
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About the Film Society of Lincoln Center
Under the leadership of Rose Kuo, Executive Director, and Richard Peña,
Program Director, The Film Society of Lincoln Center offers the best in
international, classic and cutting-edge independent cinema. The Film Society
presents two film festivals that attract global attention: the New York Film
Festival, currently planning its 49th edition, and New Directors/New Films
which, since its founding in 1972, has been produced in collaboration with
MoMA. The Film Society also publishes the award-winning Film Comment
Magazine, and for over three decades has given an annual award‹now named
³The Chaplin Award² ‹to a major figure in world cinema. Past recipients of
this award include Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Meryl
Streep, and Tom Hanks. The Film Society presents a year-round calendar of
programming, panels, lectures, educational programs and specialty film
releases at its Walter Reade Theater and the new state-of-the-art Elinor
Bunin Munroe Film Center, opening June 2011. The Film Society
receives generous, year-round support from 42BELOW, American Airlines, The
New York Times, Stella Artois, the National Endowment for the Arts, WNET New
York Public Media, Royal Bank of Canada and the New York State Council on
the Arts. For more information, visit: www.FilmLinc.com
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ABOUT NYAFF
Subway Cinema is a New York-based film programming, exhibition, and
marketing collective, committed to increasing exposure and appreciation for
Asia’s popular cinema with year-round events and screenings. Its flagship
event is the New York Asian Film Festival (July 1 – 14) which the New
York Times has called “…one of the city’s most valuable events…”
Launched in 2002, the NYAFF is America’s leading and most influential
showcase for popular Asian cinema. Each year, the Festival selects over 40
feature films, and only the best, the strangest, and the most entertaining
make the cut.
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The NYAFF was the first North American film festival to put a spotlight on
Johnnie To, Bong Joon-Ho and Park Chan-Wook and it also held the largest
retrospective of Tsui Hark’s work outside of Hong Kong.  It is widely
considered invincible.
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The NYAFF is made possible through the support of the Hong Kong Economic and
Trade Office New York, the Korean Cultural Service New York, Taipei Economic
and Cultural Office in New York, Japan Foundation and the Kitano Hotel.

Comments (6) May 05 2011

Zombies come to New York City tomorrow night, Thursday the 28th, at 7:30 pm at Japan Society on E. 47th Street. Join us for a co-presentation of HELLDRIVER, Yoshihiro Nishimura’s latest film—in a rarely-screened, longer Director’s Cut version—plus guests, party, and general mayhem.

Here’s how it’s all going to work.

The show starts at 7:30 with announcements and a preview of this summer’s New York Asian Film Festival and Japan Cuts lineups. Just a taste for you die-hards who show up that night, but we’ll be making a major Hong Kong guest announcement, though, so don’t miss it.

Then Nishimura and actress Eihi Shiina (AUDITION, TOKYO GORE POLICE) will take the stage and say hello, then we’ll show the film, which runs about 117 minutes.

Eihi!

After the movie, you’ll be treated to Nishimura’s usual stage show and Q&A, along with Shiina. You’ll also get to take a look at some of the items that we’ll be making available for sale during the after-party. All proceeds from these sales will benefit Japan Society’s earthquake relief fund. We’re not exactly sure what Nishimura’s bringing—possibly some props and makeup effects from the movie—but we do know that he’ll have stills from the film signed by the lead actress and actor.

Something like this.

Nishimura is also bringing some exclusive “tenegui” or utility handkerchiefs from his new company Pabaan, emblazoned with the logos for Nishi-Eizo (his film planning group), Studio Buckhorn (Tsuyoshi Kazuno’s CGI f/x company) and Hige-Megane, the makeup effects company he founded.

You can own one of these. Chubby ninja and old guy in diaper not included.

For the limited items, however, we’re conducting a kind of “silent auction”. You’ll see the items up for sale during the post-film Q&A. During the party, find either one of the Subway Cinema guys or Nishimura himself and tell him what you want, and how much you’ll pay (low bid, high bid). At the end of the night, we’ll announce the winners. Bring CASH, please, as we need payment on the spot and can’t take cards.

Also feel free to bring posters, DVDs and other memorabilia for both Nishimura and Shiina to sign. Shiina will be doing an autograph session immediately after the screening, and Nishimura will be floating around and available to sign stuff all night.

And what a night! We’ve got a death metal band performance, free beer, zombies, guys in diapers, sexy killers and more. If you feel like dressing up as a zombie or as a zombie-killer, that’ll only enhance the atmosphere and make your photos with the guests look that much cooler.

See you tomorrow night!

Comments (0) Apr 27 2011

The Hong Kong Film Awards just happened and last year’s Audience Award winner from the NYAFF, GALLANTS, has scored big. This low budget film (about US$1.2 million), shot in 14 days, took home Best Film, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Film Score. Go GALLANTS!!! Amazingly – not a single US distributor has picked this movie up. In fact, several of them told us to our faces that it “wasn’t our thing.” Really? An award-winning martial arts comedy starring a cast of new actors, hip hoppers and old school martial artists? Oh, right. Fun probably isn’t their thing, either.

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(Full list of Hong Kong Film Award winners)

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Comments (0) Apr 20 2011

Okay, it’s not an Asian movie, but on Tuesday, April 12 at 8pm, there will be a free screening of STAKE LAND at the School of Visual Arts Theater at 333 W 23rd St between 8th and 9th Avenues. And we’re always happy to help a vampire movie with this much stake-through-the-heart action where vampires are used as biological high altitude bombs.

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STAKE LAND is a fully-loaded, bloody-knuckled, post-apocalyptic, non-sparkle vampire movie getting a theatrical release later this month and you can read our review here.

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All you have to do is get drunk, bring a guest, say “Subway Cinema” at the door and then go inside and raise hell. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Jim Mickle and stars Nick Damici and Connor Paolo (Gossip Girl). Unfortunately, Kelly McGillis of TOP GUN fame won’t be at the Q&A but she does play a badass nun in the movie.

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Kelly McGillis – not in TOP GUN anymore.

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The trailer is short on gore but 100% effective. This really is a straight-up, no BS slice of hillbilly horror.

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Comments (0) Apr 08 2011

Korean Movie Night continues with free screenings of animated films!

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Every other Tuesday @ 7pm
Tribeca Cinemas
(54 Varick Street, on the corner of Canal Street, one block from the A, C, E and 1 train Canal Street stops)
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Price? Free.
All seating is first-come, first served. Doors
open at 6:30pm

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Series 2: Korean Animation Explodes!

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Everyone knows all about Japanese animation, but what do we know about Korean? There are stories about North Korean animation sweatshops employed to work on The Lion King and The Simpsons and there’s the fact that most television animation in the 90’s was drawn in Korea, but since 1967, South Korea has been releasing its own animated films that are almost never shown in the United States. After the glut of Korean animation in the 90’s things died down but recently there has been a new explosion of talent and experimental techniques that are once again putting Korean animation on the world stage.

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Tuesday, March 1 @ 7pm
THE STORY OF MR. SORRY (New York Premiere, 2009)
Gaining a cult reputation on the film festival circuit, THE STORY OF MR. SORRY started life as a graduation project from the Korean Academy of Film Arts and it’s one weird slab of surrealism. Animated in a simple, 70’s style, it’s a trip down the ear hole as a sad sack ear cleaner discovers a doorway to the human subconscious and is put on a path that includes political assassination, a game show called To Kill or Not to Kill and incest.

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Tuesday, March 15 @ 7pm
YOBI, THE FIVE-TAILED FOX (New York Premiere, 2007)
On the other end of the spectrum is this lush, gorgeously animated film from the director that people call “Korea’s Hayao Miyazaki,” Lee Seong-Gang. His previous film was the lush MY BEAUTIFUL GIRL MARI, and he spent years making this follow-up, a big budget animated epic. Exquisitely detailed and shimmering with eye-popping colors, it tells the tale of one of Korea’s mythical, shape-shifting five-tailed foxes and its encounter with an alien.

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Tuesday, April 5 @ 7pm
WHAT IS NOT ROMANCE (US Premiere, 2009)
A surprisingly moving animated film, WHAT IS NOT ROMANCE is all about a middle aged couple approaching their anniversary and it’s as tender, delicate and subtle as the best arthouse movie. Tensions are rising, dinner table conversation is nonexistent and all their romance seems dead. Leaping backwards in time it returns to the beginning of their marriage when they were head over heels in love with each other and traces it to the present when they barely talk and tries to see if there’s any way for a couple married for years to get back to the way things were. (watch the trailer)

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Tuesday, April 19 @ 7pm
AUDITION (North American Premiere, 2008)
What line-up of Korean animation would be complete without a glitzy, gaudy, crowd-pleasing anime-style manhwa (Korean manga) adaptation? Based on the most popular manhwa of the late 90’s, AUDITION is a teen-girl-ready romance about four dudes, all misfits, who form a rock band. All the main characters are already licensed products in Korea and this feature film version of their well-known story took 8 years to make. It’s pure pop culture cream cheese: smooth and delicious.

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Comments (1) Feb 24 2011

David Bordwell, one of the first American academics to take Hong Kong cinema seriously, is going to be in town on Saturday, February 19 at the Museum of the Chinese in Americas @ 2:30pm. He’s here to promote the new, souped-up edition of his book, PLANET HONG KONG, the essential film studies guide to Hong Kong cinema. He’ll be doing an onstage discussion about Hong Kong and Asian cinema. Here’s full info on the book, which is a must-buy. (event details)

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Comments (1) Feb 10 2011

In what is getting practically no attention, the Japan Society is bringing Japanese director, Sabu, and a retrospective of six of his movies (including one international premiere) to NYC from January 26 – Feb. 5. I haven’t seen news of this really anywhere in the press, so here’s their entire press release. (buy tickets here)

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Of special note….DRIVE, one of Subway Cinema’s favorite Japanese movies ever! (read our write-up)

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Monday
Wednesday, January 26, 7:30 PM
**Introduction and Q&A with director Sabu
**Opening screening followed by an afterparty
2000, 100 min., 35 mm, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. Directed by Sabu. With Shinichi Tsutsumi, Yasuko Matsuyuki, Ren Osugi, Susumu Terajima, Tomorowo Taguchi. Print courtesy of The Japan Foundation.
It is the mother of all Mondays for salaryman Takagi (Shinichi Tsutsumi), who wakes up fully clothed in a unfamiliar hotel room, with a massive hangover and no recollection of the past 48 hours and how he got there. As an envelope of purification salt (used in Japan to ward off evil spirits during a funeral) falls out of his pocket, memories blood back. From a funeral wake that literally ended with a bang, to a deplorable date with his girlfriend, and a drunken descent into a nocturnal world of scowling yakuza and hostess clubs, the increasingly consternated salaryman wonders exactly how wrong things went during his lost and found weekend. Winner: FIPRESCI Prize at the 2000 Berlin Film Festival, “for its austere, dark wit and keen eye for human foibles.”

Postman Blues
Friday, January 28, 7:30 PM
**Introduction and Q&A with director Sabu
1997, 110 min., 35 mm, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. Directed by Sabu. With Shinichi Tsutsumi, Keisuke Horibe, Ren Osugi, Keiko Toyama. Print courtesy of The Japan Foundation.
In this wacky comedic thrill ride, both a superb parody of the gangster genre and a masterful exercise in style and storytelling, Sawaki (Shinichi Tsutsumi) is an ordinary postman whose unassuming life takes a strange turn when he crosses paths with his old high school buddy Noguchi (Keisuke Horibe), now a low-level yakuza drug mule, just as he finishes cutting off his finger as an apology to his boss. Unbeknownst to both men, Noguchi’s freshly chopped-off pinky rolls off the table and into Sawaki’s mailbag. The chance encounter and missing pinky land the postman in hot water when the police mistakenly identify him as a schizophrenic-paranoid drug dealer, sadistic murderer and terrorist working for the yakuza. Things get more problematic when the unwitting postman befriends two terminal cancer patients: a lone hitman called Joe (Ren Osugi) and a pretty woman named Sayoko (Keiko Toyama).

Non-Stop a.k.a. Dangan Runner (Dangan Ranna)
Saturday, January 29, 7:30 PM
**Introduction and Q&A with director Sabu
1996, 82 min., 35mm, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. Directed by Sabu. With Tomorowo Taguchi, Diamond Yukai, Shinichi Tsutsumi, Akaji Maro, Ren Osugi. Print courtesy of The Japan Foundation.
Sabu’s 1996 debut feature, a wild forerunner to the German arthouse smash hit Run Lola Run, by Tom Tykwers, features Tetsuo star Tomorowo Taguchi as a down-on-his-luck would-be bank robber, whose desperate plan to retrieve cash and a semblance of dignity quickly go south. Caught red-handed stealing a gauze face mask to conceal his identity, he is given chase by a strung-out convenience store clerk (played by real life rocker Diamond Yukai), who happens to be a washed-up drug-addled rock singer. In turn, the irate employee is chased by his drug supplier, Takeda, a third-rate yakuza (Shinichi Tsutsumi). As they run for their lives and each other, their stories flash back and forth, continuing a strange chain of events that only gets stranger while the three-man race continues at full speed into the night and through the streets of Tokyo. “Effortlessly clever.”–Scott Tobias, The A.V. Onion Club

Drive
Wednesday, February 2, 7:30 PM
2002, 102 min., 35 mm, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. Directed by Sabu. With Shinichi Tsutsumi, Ren Osugi, Kou Shibasaki, Susumu Terajima, Masanobu Ando.
Salaryman Asakura (Shinichi Tsutsumi) is having a rather ordinary day, parking in the same spot from where he watches every day, at the same time, the fantasy figure of Kou Shibasaki as she walks around the corner, when an unwanted trio of bank robbers barges into his car, interrupting his reverie. Doubled-crossed and left stranded by one of their own, they hijack the unfortunate salaryman and order him to drive after the stolen loot. As it turns out, they didn’t quite pick up the ideal joyrider for the lam: the stressed white collar Asakura, first seen being diagnosed for hypertension, refuses to go over the speed limit. The gang quickly grows frustrated and decides to stop at a café to formulate a plan. More bad luck ensues, involving an edifying run-in with a punk rock band, more twists and turns, and angry ghosts.

The Blessing Bell (Kofuku no Kane)
Friday, February 4, 7:30 PM
2002, 87 min., 35 mm, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. Directed by Sabu. With Susumu Terajima, Naomi Nishida, Seijun Suzuki, Reila Aphrodite.
A lyrical and meditative tale that is often reminiscent of both Mike Leigh’s Naked (1993) and Takeshi Kitano’s early yakuza films, The Blessing Bell follows the wanderings of its blue-collar protagonist, Igarashi (Susumu Terajima) through the 24 hours that follow the closing of the factory he works for. After a fruitless job hunt, the newly unemployed man walks into other lost souls: a yakuza boss who has literally been stabbed in the back, a man who murdered his wife’s lover (but not his wife), a hopeless single mother, the ghost of an elderly man in a hospital (played by director Seijun Suzuki) and a suicidal salaryman. Coincidentally, he also runs into a burning building, gets hit by a car and wins the lottery. Winner: Netpac Award, 2003 Berlin International Film Festival; and Grand Jury Prize, 2003 Cinemanila International Film Festival.

Troubleman (Toraburuman)
Saturday, February 5, 5 PM
**International Premiere
2010, 180 min., HD Cam, color, in Japanese. Directed by Sabu. With Shigeaki Kato, Terunosuke Takezai, Mayuko Iwasa, Riju Go, Susumu Terajima.
Sabu’s latest work, written for TV and presented for the first time outside Japan, stars Shigeaki Kato as Kazuo Tokuda, an insurance agent whose life is turned topsy-turvy when he gets thrust into a web of mystery and intrigue involving murderers, would-be rapists and a gang of angry yakuza! As things turn out, trouble is nothing new for this man, who might just be the very embodiment of bad luck.

Comments (1) Jan 21 2011