Check our newsletter for ticket giveaways during the series run!

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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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!

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(Full list of Hong Kong Film Award winners)

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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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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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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.