Over on Salon, Andrew O’Hehir not only sums up the depressing state of Asian movie distribution in America but he also recommends seven films from this year’s NYAFF:

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1) WRITTEN BY – “…a delirious supernatural melodrama with overtones of Charlie Kaufman-style meta-ness.” (No more screenings)

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2) LOVE EXPOSURE – “I really cannot explain to you how silly and great LOVE EXPOSURE is; one of the year’s biggest discoveries.” (The July 3rd screening is sold out! There is one more screening on Tuesday, July 7 @ 6:30pm at the Japan Society) (Buy tickets)

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3) FISH STORY – “A terrifically generous and enjoyable movie.” (Last screening: Thursday, July 2 @ 6:15pm at the Japan Society) (Buy tickets)

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4) DREAM – “Prolific Korean director Kim Ki-Duk defies all easy classification, and this combination of haunted, art-house love story with fatalistic, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET high concept captures that perfectly.” (Last screening: Wednesday, July 1 @ 7:30pm at the IFC Center) (Buy tickets)

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5) EXODUS – “If I tell you this is a Hong Kong movie about a secret plot by women to kill all men, it’s going to sound like over-the-top exploitation. Instead, Pang Ho-cheung’s film is a cool, modernist noir that depicts one of Asia’s most crowded cities as an emotionally drained and empty landscape, straight out of Antonioni or George Lucas’ THX 1138.” (No screenings left)

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6) BREATHLESS – “Hard to sit through, this masterfully directed and marvelously acted picture is impossible to forget.” (Last screening: Thursday, July 2 @ 2pm at the IFC Center) (Buy tickets)

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7) IP MAN – “I don’t think it’s literally true that Ip kicked the Imperial Japanese Army’s entire ass single-handed, but what the hell. It makes for a well-paced and satisfying piece of Chinese-nationalist pulp.” (No screenings left)

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Read the whole thing here.

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Comments (7) Jun 30 2009

Due to popular demand—and the holiday weekend—we’ve added two midnight shows to the night of Thursday, July 2nd! And they’re two of the best Japanese genres films we’ve screened this year.

Thursday, July 2nd @ 11:55 pm, IFC Center

HOUSE! Witness the psychedelic madness of director Nobuhiko Obayashi’s 1977 debut film. You will see a piano eat a schoolgirl! You will see a severed head bite a schoolgirl on the butt! You will see the nude bodies of girls who are a little bit too young to be comfortable! Last chance to see the gorgeous Janus Films HDCam master on the big screen in NY! Tickets available here.

Thursday, July 2nd @ 12:05 am (Friday morning), IFC Center

VAMPIRE GIRL VS. FRANKENSTEIN GIRL! High school love meets hard gore! Yoshihiro Nishimura and Naoyuki Tomomatsu’s latest film wowed NY audiences at its World Premiere last Friday, and tonight’s show is also sold out. See it for the first time, or the third. And wear a raincoat. Tickets available here.

Comments (0) Jun 29 2009

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Today was the first screening of FISH STORY (my personal favorite film in the festival). The house was packed and the audience cheered when it ended. The result of the audience poll? Almost every single person gave it a 5, across the board. That’s the highest possible score. There’s one more screening of FISH STORY up at Japan Society on Thursday, July 2 at 6:15pm. You can buy tickets here. And here’s the complete blurb about the movie – it’s short because we don’t want to ruin any of the surprises:

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“In 1975, the year before the Sex Pistols released their first album, a Japanese punk band called Gekirin recorded their single, “Fish Story” and then they broke up, never to record again. Thirty-seven years later, in 2012, their song saves the world. This is the tenth film from Yoshihiro Nakamura and we’re not saying any more about it.

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Because it really happened. A punk single from 1975 traveled to the future and saved us all. Any more information than that would deprive you of the surprises and the fun of watching one of the year’s best films. It’s a movie that reminds us of something we all forget from time to time: your life has a purpose. Even if you never understand it, you’re here for a reason.”

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Don’t miss it!

Comments (0) Jun 27 2009

Giant Robot came by yesterday to do a photo shoot with Yoshihiro Nishimura, Noboru Iguchi, Tak Sakaguchi, Isao Karasawa and Tsuyoshi Kazuno. And they took to the streets, horrifying all New Yorkers who saw them. (Who are these people? Read about them here)

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Mr. Tak Sakaguchi, captured forever on

Kazuno’s cell phone.

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Iguchi is down. Nishimura is in the bone hat. Tak

delivers the killing blow.

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Comments (0) Jun 27 2009

We’re busy as little beavers here, hosting a psychedelic sold-out show for Nobuhiko Obayashi’s 1977 schoolgirls-get-eaten-by-a-haunted-witch-house movie HOUSE and generally running ourselves ragged.

(If you missed it, we also added an encore show of HOUSE at almost-midnight on July 2nd. Buy tickets here.)

In the meantime, feast your hungry eyes on our newly-uploaded YouTube links below.

Wai Ka-fai talks about 1998’s THE LONGEST NITE, and his long and influential career as a member of Johnnie To’s Milkyway team with festival programmer, co-director, and animated mascot Grady Hendrix:

Converation with Wai Ka-Fai continues… [PART 2] [PART 3] [PART 4] [PART 5] [PART 6]

Filmmaker Nicholas Chin speaks about his impressive feature film debut, the HK indie flick MAGAZINE GAP ROAD:

Nicholas Chin speaks… [PART 2] [PART 3]

Korean superstar So Ji-sub introduces ROUGH CUT while crowds of enthusiastic fans squeal at his every word:

Come back for continued updates, or subscribe to our YouTube channel here!

Comments (0) Jun 26 2009

A little late, but someone needs to talk about the screenings we had with So Ji-Sub because they were nuts. Never before have so many fans descended on the IFC Center is such huge numbers. So Ji-Sub is the star of ROUGH CUT and we had no idea this film would sell out both screenings within a few days of going on sale. There were long lines outside the theater, and after he got his “Rising Star of Asia” award they mobbed the back gate and kept his car from leaving until security could clear them away. That’s exactly the kind of thing that makes having a star to the festival a huge amount of fun. We don’t want anyone to get hurt, but this kind of crazy enthusiasm is a lot of fun to be around and it’s as contagious as swine flu.

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Fans: the folks who make the world go round!

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It was great to have so many people here who were so genuinely delighted and excited. Having an actor to the festival takes a lot of work on our part and it’s the kind of thing we can’t pull off on a regular basis, but it’s fun to do it every now and then. After the amazing YATTERMAN world premiere earlier this year with Takashi Miike and Sho Sakruai as our guests, we sort of knew what to expect but the huge number of So Ji-Sub fans took us by surprise. So an enormous “Thank you,” to all of you who showed up.

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Magic Marker Rembrandt interprets the

timeless beauty of So Ji-Sub.

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I did want to point out, though, that the folks in the front row at the second screening of ROUGH CUT who won a disproportinate number of prizes suck hard. When we went through the prize box later we discovered that they’d stuffed the box with multiple ballots. While onstage it didn’t occur to me that someone in our audience would be so incredibly rude and inconsiderate of the rest of the fans who were there to see So Ji-Sub, and who also wanted a fair chance to win one of his autographs. Our audience has always been the best: considerate, polite and completely awesome. These four or five individuals were rude brats, and I hope I never catch them at another one of our screenings.

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When you stuff the ballot box,

So Ji-Sub cries.

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Comments (4) Jun 26 2009

It took us by surprise, but our Thursday, June 25 screening of HOUSE has totally sold out and we’ve had people calling the IFC Center non-stop looking for tickets. And so, in the spirit of kindness (and, we want your money), we have added one more screening of HOUSE.

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Buy tickets to the second screening here!

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This magic extra screening will take place on Thursday, July 2 at 11:55pm. It will not feature an introduction by Yoshihiro Nishimura or Noboru Iguchi, but it will feature a video introduction by the director (and his daughter, who wrote the film when she was eleven), and selected commercials from director Nobuhiko Obayashi’s career (including some previously unseen “Mandom” commercials – trust us, his commercials are amazing) (check out some of them here).

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A wise man once told us, “Program it, and they will come.” We’ve programmed a second screening of HOUSE due to popular demand. Now we want you to come.

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And one more time…you can buy your tickets to the magical second screening of HOUSE here!

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(Note: broken “purchase ticket” link fixed on 6/26)

Comments (2) Jun 25 2009

Gore! Sex! Action!

Japanese genre filmmakers are the best in the world at providing what fans of extreme and wild cinema really crave, often in the same film and sometimes even in the same act! Arriving today are a half-dozen of the most talented and influential filmmakers working in the Japanese genre scene today, and they’ll be appearing at NYAFF screenings at IFC Center from tonight into early next week.

Come join us and you might just meet some people who are even more depraved than you are! And there’s a party with free beer involved! Read on…

Gore!

Yoshihiro Nishimura, director of last year’s TOKYO GORE POLICE, introduces tonight’s show of the 1977 psychedelic masterpiece HOUSE, plus his own new film VAMPIRE GIRL VS. FRANKENSTEIN GIRL tomorrow and on Monday. Tomorrow’s show of VAMPIRE GIRL is sold out, but tickets are still available for the Monday encore. Nishimura will also intro a midnight Friday show of HARD REVENGE, MILLY and a Monday afternoon show of SAMURAI PRINCESS (the encore of MILLY screens on Monday, as well). Joining him will be fellow travelers Noboru Iguchi (director of MACHINE GIRL) and Tsuyoshi Kazuno (CG director of most of Nishimura’s and Iguchi’s films).

Nishimura and crew will also be in full effect during Saturday’s TOKYO GORE NIGHT, which will showcase a selection of short film set in the TOKYO GORE POLICE universe, as well as much other madness. Tickets are going fast for this one-time-only show, so get yours now.

Sex!

Award-winning pink film director Daisuke Goto just took home another trophy at last weekend’s Pink Film Awards, this time for the screenplay for a movie called THE NEXT. He also directed the impossible-to-believe-it-really-exists A LONELY COW WEEPS AT DAWN, now available on DVD from our sponsor Pink Eiga, and about an elderly farmer who confuses his daughter-in-law with a prize milk cow. Mr. Goto will be introducing his film BLIND LOVE at the top half of Friday night’s PINK POWER DOUBLE FEATURE #2. He will be joined by BLIND LOVE cinematographer Masahide Iioka.

Action!

Director / screenwriter / actor / action choreographer Tak Sakaguchi is practically an industry unto himself, and he’ll be introducing Friday night’s show of his second directorial effort, YOROI SAMURAI ZOMBIE, as well as Saturday night’s BE A MAN! SAMURAI SCHOOL, his more-than-manly directorial debut, which he also stars in. BE A MAN! encores on Monday afternoon, as well. Joining him wil be tough-as-nails stunt director Isao Karasawa, who holds two world records for being hit by cars.

Party!

All of our Japanese guests will also be hanging out at our Friday night JAPANESE GENRE PARTY, which is free to anyone holding a ticket stub to any of the Friday night shows (VAMPIRE GIRL, YOROI, PINK POWER #2 or HARD REVENGE MILLY). Just show your ticket stub at the door and we’ll let you in, where you can chat about exploding heads while drinking FREE Japanese beer from our kind sponsors at Kirin Beer. The party starts at 10:00 pm at a bar nearby IFC Center, and we’ll tell you the specific details during each film’s introduction. It’ll keep going until the beer runs out, or we do, whichever is first.

Comments (2) Jun 25 2009

Sorry for the late notice, but due to the overwhelming press response and number of VIPs who are coming to cover today’s award ceremony we won’t be letting in regular ticket holders to the ceremony. Trust us, it’s going to be chaos and you won’t be too sad you missed it. However, as soon as the ceremony is over (at 6:55pm) we will let in the entire audience and So Ji-Sub will stay to give all of them a personal greeting before the show, so all you’ll be missing are some silly speeches.

Comments (1) Jun 24 2009

The starting time for tonight’s screening of ROUGH CUT has been changed from 6:30pm to 7:00pm. The screening will be introduced by So Ji-Sub.

Comments (0) Jun 24 2009