Just wanted to let everyone know that the savage Korean independent movie, ANIMAL TOWN, has been pulled from the line-up by its producer who claims that he has some kind of major American distribution deal in the works and that our festival might mess it up for him. We’re replacing it with a second screening of SECRET REUNION.

.

We’re sad to lose the film but seeing that it wasn’t about happy, talking animals who live in a bright, colorful town and was instead about angry, numb pedophiles who live in a crumbling patch of urban blight, we don’t think the audience is going to be too upset.

.

Comments (3) May 29 2010

IFC, we can’t quit you! So this year we’re going to be screening midnight shows on Friday and Saturday nights at the IFC Center. But what movies could possibly be worthy of these slots? Only the dirtiest, weirdest, most child abusive movies ever!

.

IFC @ Midnight Line-Up

.

.

DEATH KAPPA (Japan, 2010, World Premiere) – the internet, cell phones, satellites. True. But also, the Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster, the Chupacabra. Science, but also monsters. Progress, but also monsters. We can destroy the germs that cause bad breath, yes, but still: monsters. A double-barreled blast of 80’s VHS nostalgia, DEATH KAPPA is the ultimate in ridonkulous, lo-fi giant monster  mayhem! The kappa is a frisky folk spirit but a fight with weaponized fishmen turns this kappa into a kaiju and soon Tokyo is nothing more than toe jam. Brought to you by an over-qualified cast and crew who really should know better, DEATH KAPPA is adorable and horrible, all at the same time. (watch the trailer)

.

.

L.A. STREETFIGHTERS (USA, 1985) – a longtime favorite of the Subway Cinema crew, we finally found a 35mm print of this unseen 80’s exploitation gem from Woo-Sang “Richard” Park, a Korean director who was also a wannabe tae kwon do screen star. As if Ed Wood directed a Korean-American martial arts film set in totally tubular 1980’s Los Angeles it will shock you, it will shake you and it will leave you quoting the immortal dialogue. Bill “Superfoot” Wallace, Philip Rhee, Thomas Wilson (Biff from BACK TO THE FUTURE), James Lew (cast as “Asian Gangster” 40 times and counting), Jun Chong (BRUCE LEE FIGHTS BACK FROM THE GRAVE) and a host of other exploitation actors appear in this retro classic that lives up to the legacy of last year’s HOUSE. Only instead of being a deconstruction of the haunted house movie, it’s a bizarre, inadvertent takedown of the 80’s action film. (watch the trailer)

.

A movie so good it deserves two pictures.

.

PINK POWER STRIKES BACK – pink films are the uniquely Japanese genre of 60 minute, softcore movies shot entirely analog: 35mm, flatbed editing, no digital mixing. After last year’s PINK POWER double feature climaxed with a happy ending and a full release…of audience satisfaction…we decided we had to screen two of these softcore people pleasers again in 2010. This year’s pink film double feature will consist of GROPER TRAIN: SCHOOL UNIFORM HUNTER and JAPANESE WIFE NEXT DOOR, PART 2, the sequel to last year’s JAPANESE WIFE NEXT DOOR. Totally smutty and a little bit kooky, these are the most sweetly perverted, highly empowered nudie films you’ll ever meet. (read about last year’s line-up)
*** Asami, star of GROPER TRAIN: SCHOOL UNIFORM HUNTER will be at the screening.

.

.

.

POWER KIDS (2009) – do you like to see children thrown face-first through plate glass windows? We do! Johnny Nguyen (THE REBEL) plays a terrorist who takes over a hospital. The only people who can stop him? A team of tikes with killer muay thai skills. But it’s not just about beating up terrorists, because this time, for these tweens, it’s personal. Their little buddy needs a new heart and his donated ticker is stuck in the hopital that Nguyen has occupied. Somebody’s butt has got to be beaten, stat! Like a Hong Kong movie from 1988, it’s totally reckless, the action is breathless and all child labor laws are made to be broken. (watch the trailer)

.

Comments (2) May 25 2010

This year we’re working with the Hong Kong Economic Trade Office New York to do a special focus on Hong Kong and its new wave of old school action movies, so thank them (and Hong Kong’s film industry) for the biggest HK line-up we’ve had in years. In fact, let’s thank them right now!

.

.

The Hong Kong Line-Up

.

.

BODYGUARDS AND ASSASSINS (2009, New York Premiere) – the story of a ragtag team of bodyguards who gave their lives to protect Dr. Sun Yat-sen on his trip to Hong Kong, it made a ton of loot at the box office, features an all-star cast (Donnie Yen! Simon Yam! Nic Tse! Tony Leung! Li Yuchun! Wang Xueqi! Leon Lai! Fan Bingbing!) and was nominated for more Hong Kong Film Awards than any other movie in history. Plus, Donnie Yen fights a horse. (watch the trailer)
***Actor Simon Yam will introduce the screening on Sunday, June 27. This is the screening to see. Not only will Simon Yam be there, but it’ll be preceded by the uncut, uncensored version of Hiroshi Fukazawa’s DEVELOPMENT HELL (approx. 50 minutes) which is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of B&A, the most cursed Hong Kong production of all time. Suicide, death, financial shenanigans and SARS!)

.

DEVELOPMENT HELL (2010, North American Premiere) – B&A was first shot by Peter Chan’s dad back in the 70’s, but the film slipped into obscurity after a dispute with one of the investors. Peter Chan tried to remake it for years, but it finally began picking up steam in 1999 when Teddy Chen came on board. What followed were ten years of disasters that kept B&A off the screens. Originally made as a four-minute souvenir film after yet another failed attempt at making B&A, DEVELOPMENT HELL eventually turned into a full on documentary with its own curse: director Fukazawa was hit by a car while shooting it, and was later hospitalized for a mysterious lung condition.
(Development Hell will screen in conjunction with BODYGUARDS & ASSASSINS)

.

EASTERN CONDORS (1987) – a once-in-a-lifetime screening of Sammo Hung’s Vietnam War blow-out. A true masterpiece, and one of his own personal favorite films. It will be screened on a 35mm print that was loaned to us by a private collector and my guess is that there will never be another chance to see it in theaters. (watch the trailer)
***Director, action choreographer and star Sammo Hung will be at the screening. It will be followed by an in-depth Q&A about his career.
.

.

.

ECHOES OF THE RAINBOW (2010, North American Premiere) – a bittersweet eulogy to 1960’s Hong Kong, it won a special award at the Berlin International Film Festival, it saved the street on which it was shot from demolition, it heralds a return to filmmaking for 80’s New Wave filmmaker, Alex Law, and it won Simon Yam his first “Best Actor” trophy at the Hong Kong Film Awards. And that’s as it should be, because ECHOES OF THE RAINBOW is the Hong Kong movie in excelsis, a celebration of the city and its film industry and of the scrappy, no-nonsense, deeply nostalgic but ridiculously hardheaded people who turned Hong Kong from a fishing village into one of the world’s greatest metropolises. (watch the trailer)
***Actor Simon Yam will be at the screening.

.

.

GALLANTS (2010, North American Premiere) – like COCOON but with kung fu, this rocking action comedy features a cast of martial arts legends from the 70’s, now in their 60’s including Chen Kuan-tai, Bruce Leung and Teddy Robin. These old timers own the screen and Teddy Robin even wrote the music for this film. When the directors were trying to raise the financing for their movie they were constantly told, “Who wants to see a bunch of washed-up has-beens onscreen?” We do! It’ll be released around June 5 in Hong Kong and it’s already being talked up as the surprise hit of the year – even people we know who only like Apichatpong Weerasethakul films love GALLANTS. (watch the trailer)
***The lengendary Bruce Leung will be at the screenings.

.

IP MAN (2008) – starring Donnie Yen, it’s the first movie about Bruce Lee’s master and, minting money across Asia, it launched the “Ip Man wave” which now includes projects by Wong Kar-wai (GRANDMASTER IP MAN, coming in 2011), prequels (THE LEGEND IS BORN: IP MAN with Sammo Hung and Bruce Leung in summer 2010) and a sequel (IP MAN 2). We wanted to make sure that people who missed it had a chance to see IP MAN on the big screen because we are a kind and considerate film festival. (watch the trailer)

.

.

IP MAN 2 (2010, North American Premiere) – this is the summer blockbuster you’ve been waiting for. Everything that was good about IP MAN, is better in IP MAN 2. Everything that was big, is bigger. It’s a career highlight for all three of the creative forces involved: star Donnie Yen, co-star and action choreographer, Sammo Hung, and director Wilson Yip. It’s a rousing Canto-fable, a Hong Kong empowerment movie, a return to old school martial arts filmmaking with AVATAR era production values, and on its opening weekend it beat IRON MAN 2 at the box office like a redheaded stepchild. (watch the trailer)
***Actor and action choreographer Sammo Hung will be at the screenings.
*** Well Go USA will release IP MAN 2 theatrically in February 2011.

.

KUNG FU CHEFS (2009, North American Premiere) – Sammo Hung likes to do two things: cook food and kick ass. Finally, here’s a movie that lets him do both. The kind of cracked, casual B-movie classic that Hong Kong used to crank out in the early 90’s, full of butt-kicking action and mouth-watering cooking. The script feels like it was written by drunk monkeys and the comedy is bizarre (to say the least) but with action choreography by the Yuen Clan (MIRACLE FIGHTERS), beatdowns between Sammo Hung, Bruce Leung and Fan Siu-wong and even a long scene in which Sammo beats up his real-life son, this is the kind of guilty summertime pleasure that we need more of. Come hungry. (watch the trailer)
***Actor Sammo Hung will be present.

.

.

LITTLE BIG SOLDIER (2010, New York Premiere) – Jackie’s back! His best movie since DRUNKEN MASTER II from way back in 1994, LITTLE BIG SOLDIER is a sly send-up of the endless stream of period epics that are pouring out of China. Jackie plays a conscripted farmer during the Warring States period who has survived every battle with one unbeatable tactic: the fighting begins and he lies down and plays dead. But now he’s taken a wounded enemy general prisoner (Wang Lee-hom) and all he has to do is get him across hundreds of miles of wilderness to turn him in to his king and finally retire. It’s the performance of his career and this flick deserves a place in any list of his top ten films. Rejecting the crutch of large scale stunts in favor of actual acting and close-up acrobatics, it’s a movie whose message is “Change or die.” Fortunately for us, at 56 years old, Jackie has chosen “change.” (watch the trailer)

.

RED CLIFF UNCUT (2008/2009) – when John Woo’s massive, thundering return to form, RED CLIFF, was originally released it came out as two massive movies, each running well over two hours. Everywhere but in the US of A, that is. Here in the land of the free, the two movies were cut into a two-and-a-half hour Franken-film. But now, on the Fourth of July, the day when we celebrate our freedom, we liberate RED CLIFF from motion picture bondage and present it to you the way God – and John Woo – intended: as one massive, uncut five-hour motion picture experience. God bless America! (watch the trailer)

.

.

.

THE STORM WARRIORS (2009, US Premiere) – this is the closest cinema has ever come to putting Chinese martial arts comic books, with all of their surreal techniques and freaky superpowers, on the big screen. From the very first frame the choirs are wailing like a death metal concept album times infinity, and every shot is a blast-beat drum solo, every edit is a power chord and when the characters fight it’s like two planets smashing into each another. It’s a special effects extravaganza that is either a sequel to the first STORM RIDERS, a standalone adaptation of Ma Wing-shing’s 90’s comic book or the ultimate power fantasy for teenage boys and the girls who love them, where swords are so powerful they cut the weather in half and ultimate weapons are made from the spinal columns of dead gods. (watch the trailer)
***Main bad guy Simon Yam will be at the screening.

.

The Mainland China Line-Up

.

COW (2009, North American Premiere) – hick farmer, Huang Bo, tries to survive WW II with his best buddy: a cow. Funny, tragic, gorgeous and, in the end, deeply moving, COW took ten million in its opening weekend and a wagon load of Golden Horse Awards in its mammoth jaws, including “Best Actor” for Huang Bo, whose lead performance is a tragicomic high-wire act. But he’s upstaged by the cow itself, who is one of cinema’s great natural actors. By the end of this movie, you’ll believe a cow can cry. (watch the trailer)
*** Actor Huang Bo will be at the screening.

.

.

CRAZY RACER (2009, New York Premiere) – Ning Hao (CRAZY STONE) has made a movie that’s like a Warner Brothers cartoon on crystal meth. After rocketing to the top with their comedy CRAZY STONE, Ning Hao and Huang Bo reunite to make a faster, funnier, more visually freaky, 5000 horse power speed demon of a film. Huang Bo plays a disgraced Olympic bicyclist reduced to being a delivery man, and director Ning Hao sends him scrambling after his dignity in a modern-day China full of con men, creeps, hustlers, scam artists, assassins, gangsters, drug dealers, murder-for-hire morons and all the other joys of modern day capitalism. (watch the trailer)
*** Actor Huang Bo will be at the screening.

.

.

SOPHIE’S REVENGE (2009, New York Premiere) – Zhang Ziyi stars in this madcap romantic comedy with Mainland diva, Fan Bingbing, and Korean stud muffin, So Ji-Sub. A kind of Beijing Jones’ Diary jazzed up with animated interludes, ridiculous hallucinations, dreams, fantasies, low brow slapstick and high brow verbal sparring. This is the first movie produced by Zhang Ziyi, and there aren’t many producers who would allow themselves to spend so much screen time throwing up, getting peed on, tumbling down stairs, falling out windows, getting drunk and generally making a complete ass of themselves. It’s equally unlikely that another romantic comedy this light, this fizzy and this fast on its feet is going to come along anytime soon, from Hollywood, from China or from anywhere else. (watch the trailer)

.

.

TIAN AN MEN (2009, International Premiere) – 2009 marked the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, and the film industry released a slew of celebratory films. The best known was FOUNDING OF THE REPUBLIC, featuring every Hong Kong and Chinese star alive, but it’s the lower profile special effects extravaganza, TIAN AN MEN, that’s actually worth watching. Set in 1949, it’s an earnest, unironic epic motion picture that immortalizes the struggles and sacrifices of the men and women who…cleaned up and re-decorated Tiananmen Square? A lavish special effects spectacle that recreates 1949 Beijing in crazy detail, it’s like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition done Communist style.

.

Comments (0) May 24 2010

The NYAFF 2010 official hotel sponsor is the Kitano Hotel (66 Park Avenue, at 38th Street), a slick Japanese palace over on the East Side (it’s a $9 cab ride or one subway transfer away from Lincoln Center). They’ve been good to us over the years, and this year they’re offering discounted rates to anyone attending the New York Asian Film Festival. There are certainly cheaper hotels in town, but they all jack up their rates in the summer and you won’t find a place as nice as this for these prices.

.

Oooo, pretty. The lobby of the Kitano.

.

From June 22 – July 11 they’re offering the following per night rates to anyone who enters the promotional code “NYAFF” when making an online reservation:

.

You can make your reservations here if you’re so inclined.

Now for the fine print:

- you have to make these reservations before June 14

- the discount is based on availability, some room types may get booked up early.

-  Cancellation policy is 4pm (EST) three days prior to the arrival.

Contact the Kitano directly for any questions.

.

Go away, we’re talking about a different Kitano.

.

Comments (0) May 21 2010

Korea, it’s your turn!

.

Korean Line-Up is Go!

.

ACTRESSES (2009, New York Premiere) – six of Korea’s biggest actresses play cockeyed versions of themselves in this real-time chronicle of a Vogue photo shoot gone wrong. Endlessly self-referential, it speaks the international language of celebrity and looks like the kind of project Andy Warhol would have come up with if he edited US Weekly. (watch the trailer)
***Director E J-Yong (DASEPO NAUGHTY GIRLS) will be at the screenings.

.

.

BLADES OF BLOOD (2010, International Premiere) – from the director of KING & CLOWN (one of Korea’s most successful films of all time) comes this massive swordplay flick about a hero leading a coup against the king and the blind swordsman who sets out to stop him. Based on an award-winning manga, Like the Moon Escaping from the Clouds, it’s a posh swordplay epic that turns sword-fights into muscular beatdowns. Hwang Jung-Min is at his capering, gerning, unpredictable best as the blind swordsman, Hwang, but it’s Cha Seung-Won (KICK THE MOON, BLOOD RAIN) as Lee Mong-Hak, the revolutionary who’s drunk on power and killing everyone that gets in his way, who turns in the performance of his career. (watch the trailer)
***Official Closing Night Film
***Director Lee Joon-Ik will be at the screening.

.

.

CASTAWAY ON THE MOON (2009, New York Premiere) – WHEN HARRY MET SALLY meets LOST by way of a J.G. Ballard novel…and it’s a romantic comedy! A businessman tries to kill himself by jumping off a bridge and instead winds up stranded on a deserted island in the middle of the Han River. Unable to swim, he might as well be stuck thousands of miles from civilization instead of a few hundred meters from downtown Seoul. His only hope of rescue? An OCD agoraphobe spying on him from her apartment. We all had reservations about this movie based on the description, but when we finally got around to watching it we were all blown away. If you let this one slip by you, you’re missing one of the freshest and most original movies in this year’s line-up. (watch the trailer)
***Director Lee Hey-Jun will be at the screening.

.

.

CHAW (2009, North American Premiere) – a box office hit back in Korea, this bacon-flavored version of THE HOST is a send-up of JAWS only with a giant killer pig instead of a giant killer shark and, probably, a lot more pot got smoked while the script was being written. Simultaneously celebrating and satirizing the giant monster genre, it feels more like a movie from Joe Dante (GREMLINS, SMALL SOLDIERS) than from Steven Spielberg, but that’s a good thing. (watch the trailer)

.

A LITTLE POND (2010, International Premiere) – one of the most controversial movies of the year, this all-star flick about the American massacre of Korean civillians at No Gun Ri in 1950 is a quiet, underplayed, life-goes-on account of the bloody incident, that unspools as gently as a Hou Hsiao-hsien film. Director Lee Sang-Woo avoids the easy cliches and instead makes a movie in which the main character is the Korean countryside itself, and when its face is spattered with blood it almost feels like blasphemy. (watch the trailer)

.

MISE EN SCENE SHORT FILM PROGRAM – two 90 minute programs of short films from the genre film festival curated by E J-Yong, Park Chan-Wook, Kim Ji-Woon and Bong Joon-Ho. These short flicks pack more of a punch than many longer features, and it’s your chance to see Korea’s future filmmakers trying their hands at weird little romances, gore and animated films. The MSFF has become a bit of a talent farm for these directors, with many of the short filmmakers going on to bigger jobs on bigger productions, and it’s easy to see why: at their worst these short films are technically slick and well-made, at the very least. This year’s line-up is heavier on horror and comedy than it has been in past years and it has an unhealthy obsession with children and four-inch-tall women.
*** one of the directors will be here for the screening (we’re waiting to see which one)

.

THE SCANDAL MAKERS (2008, New York Premiere) – why on earth are we showing a movie from 2008 in this year’s festival. Because it’s really funny. The highest grossing comedy of all time at the Korean box office (8.3 million admissions) this is crowd-pleasing mainstream entertainment at its best. A celebrity DJ (the radio kind, not the nightclub kind) has it all figured out, but then a woman shows up on his doorstep claiming to be his daughter. Worse, she’s got an alleged grandchild in tow. It’s already been optioned for a Hollywood remake with Barry Sonnenfeld (MEN IN BLACK) attached to direct, but the original gets this delicate formula right. (watch the trailer)

.

.

SECRET REUNION (2009) – the director of ROUGH CUT returns with this two-hander for Song Kang-Ho (THE HOST) and Gang Dong-Won (THE DUELIST) playing retired spies battling it out long after their missions are over. It’s a throwback to 80’s style buddy movies (LETHAL WEAPON, 48 HOURS) set against the backdrop of the Cold War between North and South Korea. (watch the trailer)

.

That’s it for Korea, but while we’re at it, here’s what we’re showing from Thailand and Indonesia (and watch for the IFC @ Midnights line-up on Tuesday, since there’re more Thai films there, as well).

.

Indonesian Line-Up

.

.

MERANTAU (2009, New York Premiere) – if you thought Tony Jaa was awesome, then check out this rocking slab of exploitation b-movie action starring Iko Uwais, an ace practicioner of Silat, Indonesia’s martial art. Better at taking on big crowds of baddies than Jaa, and with the ability to crack a smile from time to time, Iko Uwais is the reason to see this flick which is a giant excuse for him to put evil Eurotrash slave traders in traction and to jump off of buildings. (watch the trailer)

.

Thai Line-Up

.

.

RAGING PHOENIX (2009, New York Premiere) – Jeeja Yanin, Thailand’s only female action star, burst onto the scene with CHOCOLATE and now she’s back in this flick where she learns how to combine muay thai beatdowns with sick B-boy moves. Truly jaw-dropping, and completely weird (the plot centers on a gang of kidnappers who steal women for their scent) it’s full of high impact kicks, lethal breakdancing and the discovery that the greatest martial art of all is “Drunken Muay Thai.” Come drunk, leave happy! (watch the trailer)

.

On Monday, the Hong Kong and Chinese line-up is revealed, and on Tuesday we finish things off with our Midnights at IFC line-up featuring one world premiere and a movie you’ll never see anywhere else because no one else would dare show it. Plus, pink films!

Comments (29) May 21 2010

This year’s Japanese line-up is stuffed with more guests than Hostess cup cakes are stuffed with delicious chocolaty flavor!

.

.

We’re at Lincoln Center from June 25 – July 8, presenting the festival with the Film Society of Lincoln Center, but from July 1 – 4 we’ll simultaneously be at Japan Society, co-presenting a bunch of Japanese titles that are also part of their festival, Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film. But don’t worry, we promise it won’t be confusing at all.

.

Japanese Movies Ahoy!

.

.

8000 MILES (2009, North American Premiere) – a funnier version of Eminem’s 8 MILE about rappers dying on the vine in the boring suburbs. This was Japan’s surprise sleeper hit of 2009. (watch the trailer)
Director Yu Irie will be at the screenings.

.

8000 MILES 2: GIRL RAPPERS (2010, North American Premiere) – the same premise (rappers in the sticks, dreaming of Tokyo) only this time they’re all women, and the result is a movie that’s not quite as laugh-out-loud funny as 8000 MILES, but it hits harder. By the time Ayumu is clenching her fists and spitting out rhyme in the finale’ you’ll either be crying your eyes out, or you’re a robot. (watch the trailer)
Director Yu Irie will be at the screening.

.

ALIEN VS NINJA (2010, World Premiere) – the first movie from Nikkatsu’s Sushi Typhoon label, it’s about an alien that comes to Earth to hunt humans. It is unstoppable. Unkillable. Insatiable. But it made one mistake: it forgot to make itself ninja–proof.
Lead actor Masanori Mimoto will be at the Japan Society screening. (watch the trailer)
Presented with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film

.

ANNYONG YUMIKA (2009, North American Premiere) – part documentary, part personal odyssey, part porn movie, this flick’s about the late, legendary adult film actress Yumika Hayashi’s career in Korea. Far stranger and more moving than it has any right to be, but that’s to be expected from director Matsue, who also made LIVE TAPE. (watch the trailer)
Director Tetsuaki Matsue will be at the screenings.

.

.

THE BLOOD OF REBIRTH (2009, New York Premiere) – director Toshiaki Toyoda (BLUE SPRING, HANGING GARDEN) makes a triumphant return to filmmaking with this trippy revenge saga that sticks its throbbing soundtrack deep inside your ears, while its shimmering visuals fry your eyes. (watch the trailer)
Director Toshiaki Toyoda will be at the screenings.
Presented with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film

.

BOYS ON THE RUN (2010, North American Premiere) – a movie that will warm the heart of the serial mastrubator inside everyone, this sex comedy starts with the borrowing of a bestiality DVD and ends with a Travis Bickle-style fist fight and in between it’s humiliating and hilarious in equal measures. (watch the trailer)
Presented with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film

.

.

CONFESSIONS (2010, US Premiere) – Tetsuya Nakashima (MEMORIES OF MATSUKO, KAMIKAZE GIRLS) returns to the NYAFF with his brand new movie about a school teacher who is convinced that her daughter was murdered by two of her seventh-grade students. (watch the trailer)
Presented with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film

.

DEAR DOCTOR (2009, New York Premiere) – Miwa Nishikawa’s (SWAY) deceptively simple movie about a small town doctor who is both more and less than he appears, won every major Japanese film award (21 of them and counting) and it’s one of the smartest, and most twisted movies in our line-up. (watch the trailer)
Presented with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film

.

.

DOMAN SEMAN (2010, World Premiere) – Go Shibata (LATE BLOOMER) has made a rocking thrash anthem about pretty boys bashing the homeless, occult conspiracies, mental emissions, magic mushrooms and massive zombie attacks. It’ll kick down your doors of perception like a psychedelic SWAT team. Imagine a Richard Lester movie, reconfigured as a magikal ritual to stave off the apocalypse. (A version of this movie already screened one time in Japan, but this will be the world premiere of a brand new cut of the film)
(watch the trailer)
Director Go Shibata will be at the screenings.

.

.

GOLDEN SLUMBER (2009, New York Premiere) – Yoshihiro Nakamura, the director of last year’s festival favorite, FISH STORY, returns with this twisty riff on NORTH BY NORTHWEST that takes Hitchcock’s “wrong man” movies and makes them bigger, deeper and more. It’s a conspiracy thriller about a simple delivery man who’s framed for the assassination of the Prime Minister, and the only way to save him lies with a counter-conspiracy that seems to stretch all the way back to his college days. (watch the trailer)
Presented with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film

.

LIVE TAPE (2010, North American Premiere) – on New Year’s Day, 2009, director Tetsuaki Matsue (ANNYONG YUMIKA) and singer/songwriter Kenta Maeno made this amazing concert film: a single 74 minute shot of Kenta performing in the streets of Tokyo before joining up with his band to give a down and dirty concert in a park. More than the sum of its parts, it is raw and liberating, a small, lo-fi miracle. (watch the trailer)
Director Matsue Tetsuaki will be present.
Singer/songwriter Kenta Maeno and his drummer POP Suzuki will perform live after each screening.

.

.

MUTANT GIRLS SQUAD (2010, International Premiere) – at last year’s NYAFF, directors Tak Sakaguchi, Yoshihiro Nishimura and Noboru Iguchi got drunk and vowed to make a movie together. Now they have, and their twisted take on the X-Men is here to upset pretty much everyone. (watch the trailer)
Directors Yoshihiro Nishimura and Noboru Iguchi will be at the screenings.
Presented with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film

.

.

SAWAKO DECIDES (2010, New York Premiere) – Sawako (Hikari Mitsushima, LOVE EXPOSURE) is on her fifth job, her fifth boyfriend and her fifth year in Tokyo. But it’s not until she returns to her family’s freshwater clam-packing plant that she learns it’s okay to be a loser. A rousing anthem to mediocrity, it’s a chick flick on acid that trades SEX & THE CITY vapidity for deadpan hilarity.  Musical numbers, horrible toys and the world’s worst boyfriend (he knits and is committed to a green lifestyle) all come together to teach you that you should always save a seat on the bus for the watermelon of hope. (watch the trailer)
Presented with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film

.

.

SYMBOL (2009, New York Premiere) – Japan’s #1 comedian, Hitoshi Matsumoto (director and star of DAI NIPPONJIN, aka BIG MAN JAPAN) directs and stars in this flick that’s the 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY of J-quirk cinema. The only movie you’ll see this year that features President Obama, Mexican wrestlers and five million angel penises. (marvel at the trailer)

.

.

YATTERMAN (2009) – Takashi Miike’s biggest box office hit of all time, this slyly hilarious send-up of kiddie show, Yatterman, is like a self-aware, satirical update of “Scooby-Doo” only with giant robots, leather-bondage-clad femme fatales and a pile of all the schoolgirls in Japan. Hilariously stupid, but insanely smart, it’s exactly the giant robot movie you thought Miike would make. We hosted the world premiere of it last year, but we wanted to make sure everyone got a chance to see this on the big screen, where it belongs. (watch the trailer)

.

Tomorrow….we’ll reveal our Korean, Thai and Indonesian line-ups!

.

Comments (18) May 20 2010

All this week and into next we’re announcing the New York Asian Film Festival 2010 line-up. Today we’re telling you about our Opening, Closing and Centerpiece Presentations. Tomorrow, we’ll reveal our entire Japanese line-up. And on Friday we’ll tell you all about our Korean films. Then on Monday it’s China and Hong Kong, and on Tuesday it’s our Midnight @ IFC selections.

.

OPENING NIGHT MOVIE

.

.

IP MAN 2 (Hong Kong, 2010) – co-star and action choreographer Sammo Hung will be here on opening night to host the North American Premiere of IP MAN 2! This is the summer blockbuster you’ve been waiting for. Everything that was good about IP MAN, is better in IP MAN 2. Everything that was big, is bigger. Everything that was butt-kicking, is now butt-kicking on a scale so cosmic that the second you buy a ticket to this flick, your own tailbone will start to ache. It’s a career highlight for all three of the creative forces involved: star Donnie Yen, co-star and action choreographer, Sammo Hung, and director Wilson Yip. It’s a rousing Canto-fable, a Hong Kong empowerment movie, a return to old school martial arts filmmaking with AVATAR-era production values, and on its opening weekend it beat IRON MAN 2 at the box office like a redheaded stepchild. (watch the trailer)

(Also, IP MAN is coming out on DVD this July from Well Go USA, the same people who will release IP MAN 2 theatrically across America in February 2011.)

.

CENTERPIECE PRESENTATION

.

.

CONFESSIONS (Japan, 2010) – the US premiere of the most buzzed about movie at Cannes this year, it’s the latest motion picture experience from Tetsuya Nakashima, director of MEMORIES OF MATSUKO and KAMIKAZE GIRLS. A middle school teacher (played by Takako Matsu) is devastated when her four-year-old daughter is found murdered. Deciding that two of her students must be responsible she vows to take revenge…and that’s just the first 20 minutes of this tour de force that’s like an endless fall off a tall building. Reports out of Cannes were that the market screening audience (some of the most jaded cynics on the planet) were reduced to stunned silence by CONFESSIONS, which is shaping up to be the most powerful movie of the year. (watch gorgeous the trailer)

Presented in association with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film (July 1 – 16, 2010)

.

CLOSING NIGHT MOVIE

.

.

BLADES OF BLOOD (Korea, 2010) – the international premiere of the latest movie from director Lee Joon-Ik (KING AND CLOWN) who will be here to introduce the screening. It’s a powerhouse three-way team-up. Lee Joon-Ik, director of KING & CLOWN, the top grossing Korean movie of all time, returns to the Joseon Dynasty for the first time since K&C. Cha Seoung-Won, an actor who was originally told he was too ugly to be in movies, but who has gone on to become one of the most respected actors in Korea, taking home eight “Best Actor” awards in nine years, is cast as the movie’s hero, a blind swordsman. And then there’s the source material, the Korean manga, Like the Moon Escaping from the Clouds which was awarded the Republic of Korea Cartoon Culture Literary Prize in 1996. The result? A posh blockbuster with impeccable style. (watch the trailer)

.

This year’s New York Asian Film Festival will be co-presented with the Film Society of Lincoln Center over at the Walter Reade theater (June 25 – July 8 ) it will be presented with our programming partner, Japan Society, from July 1 – 4, and we’ll even have midnight shows on Friday and Saturday nights down at the IFC Center.

.

Comments (16) May 19 2010

There are three big events coming up that you need to know about.

.

First off, Hrithik Roshan is in town! Bollywood’s biggest star, the world’s most famous dancing fool, and the only celebrity with three thumbs, Hrithik will be here at 3:30pm on May 15 at the Big Cinemas, Manhattan, for an onstage interview and a screening of his film, KAHO NA PYAR HAI. You can win tickets here!

.

It’s all a big promo push for his new movie KITES.

.

Some tickets are still available for the ROBOGEISHA party and screening on Tuesday, May 18 at 7:30pm up at Japan Society. A special, pre-New York Asian Film Festival event, tickets are only $12 and you’ll get: ROBOGEISHA, the world’s weirdest movie; a party afterwards; special screenings of never-before-seen shorts and, hopefully, a live Skype Q&A with the director, Noboru Iguchi. Also, the New York Asian Film Festival Japanese line-up and guests will be revealed! Tickets are selling like ice water in Hell…hot, fast and furious. (more info) (the amazing ROBOGEISHA trailer) (buy tickets)

.

RoboGeisha loves to kill with shrimp.

.

Also at Japan Society, on Friday, May 14, is a double feature of samurai films that you won’t see anywhere else. At 6:30pm is THE LONE STALKER (aka LONE WOLF ISAZO) starring Raizo Ichikawa in a moody death spiral as he becomes a vengeance-obsessed swordsman in this 1968 classic. Then, at 8:30, is THE DEVIL’S TEMPLE, about a Buddhist monk and a fallen samurai (Shintaro Kagu) who encounter each other at a remote temple and lose their immortal souls! You wont get a chance to see these anywhere else, ever again!

.

The Devil’s Temple. It doesn’t look that bad.

.

Also playing: at the IFC Center, THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD is still paying tribute to the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone. Bong Joon-Ho’s grim, gothic thriller, MOTHER, is back for some encore screenings, and HOUSE, the 1977 Japanese cult classic is still playing midnights!

.

MY NAME IS KHAN is playing at the Angelika Film Center, oddly enough.

.

And Hrithik isn’t just in NYC at random. He’s here promoting his new movie, KITES, which opens at the Big Cinemas on 5/21 (tickets are on sale now). A week later, on 5/28, Brett “Rush Hour” Ratner’s re-edit of KITES will open in theaters across America. I strongly advise you to check out the original if you’re interested in seeing this movie – romance isn’t one of Ratner’s strong suites (AFTER THE SUNSET, anyone?) In the meantime, Big Cinemas are showing the non-Bollywood movie LBS. which was shot in 2004.

.

Comments (0) May 13 2010

Three big events this week.

.

Frozen Flower is fabulous!

.

First off, coming up at 7pm on Tuesday, May 11 there’s a free screening (sponsored by the Korean Cultural Service) at the Tribeca Cinemas of FROZEN FLOWER. We wanted to screen this flick in last year’s New York Asian Film Festival but we couldn’t book it in time, and it’s a bloody, swoony, sexy ball of fun. The King is in love with his bodyguard and the two dudes are doing just fine, but someone has to sire an heir with the Queen. Naturally, everyone makes all the wrong decisions and decapitations, castrations, torture, battles, secret love affairs, betrayals and palace invasions ensue. (more info) (read a review)

.

RoboGeisha is dangerous!

.

Tickets are still available for the ROBOGEISHA party and screening on Tuesday, May 18 at 7:30pm up at Japan Society. A special, pre-New York Asian Film Festival event, tickets are only $12 and you’ll get: ROBOGEISHA, the world’s weirdest movie, a party afterwards, special screenings of never-before-seen shorts and, hopefully, a live Skype Q&A with the director, Noboru Iguchi. Also, the New York Asian Film Festival Japanese line-up and guests will be revealed! There aren’t too many tickets available, and this is on its way to selling out, so if you want to go, you should buy now. (more info) (the amazing ROBOGEISHA trailer) (buy tickets)

.

Yasmin Ahmad’s MUKHSIN

will break your heart.

.

As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one Malay filmmaker who matters: Yasmin Ahmad. Sadly, she passed away in 2009. One of my biggest regrets is that we were never able to get any of her movies into the New York Asian Film Festival. Ahmad made deceptively simple family dramas that were full of heart, silver bullets of sincerity in a world that’s gradually being choked to death by irony.  The government gave her a hard time on a regular basis since many of her films involved relationships between Muslim and non-Muslim Malays, and they did their best to keep her movies out of theaters. But her fans, and Malays in general, had an enormous amount of love for her – all the more remarkable when you realize that it was widely known that she was transgendered. Most people in Malaysia? They just didn’t care. She was a national treasure, much-loved for her humility and compassion and you can catch a full retrospective of her films at MOMA from May 5 – 12, and all of them are worth your time. (full info)

.

This Saturday and Sunday, the IFC Center is screening Hayao Miyazaki’s SPIRITED AWAY, what a lot of fans think is his last truly great movie. (buy tickets) Kim Ji-Woon’s THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD, a massive, popcorn-munching western, is still playing at the IFC (buy tickets) and, incredibly, HOUSE, the 1977 Japanese cult hit, is still playing midnight shows, months after it was first released! (buy tickets to HOUSE)

.

Comments (0) May 07 2010

KOREAN MOVIE NIGHT

from May 11, 2010 – June 29, 2010

courtesy of the Korean Cultural Service

.

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)

.

Price? Free.

All seating is first-come, first served.

Doors open at 6:30pm.

.

UPCOMING MOVIES

.

Series Three: Epic Action

Just in time for summer, the Korean Cultural Service presents its third series of films: big, fat, epic action movies – perfect blockbusters that’ll air condition your brain.

.

TUESDAY, MAY 11 @ 7pm

FROZEN FLOWER (2008, 131 minutes, New York Premiere)

.

.

Based on a true story, FROZEN FLOWER is sexy, bloody fun, anchored by three ferociously committed performances and powered by subversive sexual politics. Set in the Goryeo Dynasty, it opens with the King (Ju Jin-Mo, who won “Best Actor” for his performance here) peacefully in love with his bodyguard, Hong Lim (Jo In-Sung, currently serving in the Army). The two men are happy together, and the court turns a blind eye to their romance, but someone’s got to father an heir and so Hong-Lim is assigned the task of impregnating the Queen (Song Ji-Hyo). Complications ensue. So do revolutions, assassinations attempts, castrations, decapitations and intense sexiness.

.

Goryeo Dynasty man date.

.

Read a review that calls it “…a big juicy steak of a movie.” And watch the trailer.

.

TUESDAY, MAY 25 @ 7pm

THE ACCIDENTAL GANGSTER (2008, 103 minutes, New York Premiere)

.

The poster is boring,

the movie is not.

.

Its other title tells you all you need to know: GIBANG RIOT OF 1724. A head-banging action comedy it’s a frenetic blend of modern filmmaking style and period storytelling polish. A ghetto street brawler falls for a high priced courtesan (Kim Ok-Bin, THIRST) and winds up fighting for her affections with the local gang boss. Scored to a mix of hip hop and rock, edited by monkeys jacked up on crack, and featuring wall-to-wall nutso action, it’s the kind of movie that has no pretensions: it’s out to do nothing more than make your head explode.

.

Read a review that claims this movie is proof “…there is still life left in the genre, at least for directors brave enough to shake things up.” And watch the bizarre trailer.

.

TUESDAY, JUNE 15 @ 7pm

THE SWORD WITH NO NAME (2009, 124 minutes, New York Premiere)

.

.

Holy blockbusters! A big hit at the box office last year, SWORD is the epitome of posh, luscious, decadent period filmmaking. Based on the real life Empress Myeongseong, it tells her story through the eyes of a bounty hunter who becomes her bodyguard (Cho Seung-Woo, now doing his mandatory military service). She tries to stand up to Russian and Japanese intervention in 19th Century Korea and the results are a series of luxurious, CGI-enhanced action scenes alternating with carefully calibrated and eye-meltingly colorful court life pageants, making this movie feel like an unholy mix of Merchant-Ivory and THE MATRIX.

.

Read a review that calls the movie, “…heartfelt and passionate…” and watch the lush trailer.

.

TUESDAY, JUNE 29 @ 7pm

JSA: JOINT SECURITY AREA (2000, 110 minutes)

.

.

A special screening to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Korean War, Park Chan-Wook’s JSA: JOINT SECURITY AREA is one of the most moving Korean films ever made, and the hit that put Director Park (OLDBOY) on the map. Starring Song Kang-Ho (THE HOST), Lee Young-Ae (LADY VENGEANCE), Lee Byung-Hun (GI JOE; THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD) and Shin Ha-Kyun (SAVE THE GREEN PLANET, THIRST) it is the APOCALYPSE NOW of the Korean War, a shimmering, hyper-real epic that charts the spiritual fallout of international politics.

.

.

JSA uses the partition, the arbitrary line drawn through the middle of Korea and manned by international oversight, as a door into the psychological wreckage of the Korean War. It starts with a present-day incident on the border that leaves a group of North and South Korean soldiers alternately wounded or dead. The Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC) swoops in to investigate, led by Korean-Swiss Major Sophie Jean (Lee Young-Ae) and the stark, technocratic investigation becomes the frame for a series of extended flashbacks that depict the events leading up to the shooting.

.

.

In every sense of the word, JSA is a tragedy, but at the same time, it’s a testament to human nature. Not the cheap, sentimental Hallmark card version of human nature, but the human nature where, in the teeth of global politics, even in the face of extinction, like reaches out to like, and friendships are formed because we’re humans, not ideologues. One of the most popular Korean movies of all time, both at home and overseas, JSA is a movie that takes Korea’s national tragedy of partition and manages to find within it something as fragile and precious as hope.

.

.

Watch the trailer.

.

Comments (6) May 04 2010