We owe a huge apology to Jerry Ma of Epic Proportions, whose designs for our shirts have nearly become as big a draw as the films. In all the excitement of springing Angela Mao Ying on Sammo, we neglected to tell the crowd that the award incorporated Jerry’s original artwork for the shirt (see photo below).
Sammo was told backstage, once we realized our mistake, and he was clearly impressed. We love the design and value Jerry’s work highly, so we apologize and hope we can continue to work with him for many more years.
We encourage you to visit Jerry’s blog, and Epic Proportions web site, where you can get more of his great T-shirts (some of our favorites are “Super Fly,” “Golden Arms,” and “You Have Our Gratitude”). And if you like comic books, you should also check out Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology where Jerry was one of the key creative forces.
Tomorrow, the New York Asian Film Festival splits in two like some kind of hideous earthworm and continues to exist in two places at the same time!
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Like a horrible amoeba!
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One half of us will continue to wiggle away at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade theater, while the other half will be squirming around at Japan Society from July 1 – 4.
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We’ll look a little like this.
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You can find the full Japan Society schedule on the main schedule page, but here are some things you shouldn’t miss:
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- SAWAKO DECIDES (Thursday, 6:45pm) – it’s a one-time-only screening of this movie that the Twitch reviewer calls, “one of the best chick flicks I have ever seen, ever.” Later, someone seconds that emotion in the comments with “best of the fest.” And it’s true: Sawako really is something else.
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- CONFESSIONS (Thursday, July 1 @ 9pm; and Sunday, July 4 @ 2pm) – this is the movie from the director of MEMORIES OF MATSUKO that has been number one at the Japanese box office for weeks. The July 1 screening is SOLD OUT, but the July 4 screening still has some tickets left.
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Confessions
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- Sushi Typhoon Saturday - on Saturday, July 3, Sushi Typhoon is in the house! Starting with a 6pm screening of ALIEN VS NINJA, the chaos continues with the official Sushi Typhoon launch, an 8:30pm screening of the unbelievable MUTANT GIRLS SQUAD and a Sushi Typhoon Costume Party with free beer and food for all ticket holders.
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They are mutants. They are girls. They are squad.
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And throughout the entire weekend, you’ll be able to bathe in the mystical, healing waterfall in Japan Society’s lobby.
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All these screenings are co-presented with Japan Cuts: Festival of Contemporary Japanese Film (July 1 – 16) which is screening a “Best of the 2000’s” retrospective. You cannot miss HANGING GARDEN (Toshiaki Toyoda’s version of TOKYO SONATA that is far superior to Kurosawa’s twee, later version) and the glorious, monumental musical, MEMORIES OF MATSUKO, winner of the NYAFF Audience Award in 2007 by a country mile.
“The Japanese are coming! The Japanese are coming!”
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A veritable herd of filmmakers and actors like Yoshihiro Nishimura, Asami, POP Suzuki, Yu Irie, Kenta Maeno and more are descending on the NYAFF audience this week. You can taste the electricity in the air. You can feel them lurking in the darkness, waiting to pounce. You will see them at Q&A’s and intros all week long.
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But the big event hits like a hammer this Wednesday up at the Walter Reade theater.
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8000 MILES will screen at 3pm, then ANNYONG YUMIKA at 5:45. Then there’s going to be a one hour break to hang out in the gallery, meet the filmmakers and drink free Kirin beer before the screening of LIVE TAPE followed by a mini-concert from Kenta Maeno, the “Bob Dylan of Japan.” Tickets to 8000 MILES and ANNYONG YUMIKA are only $9 (matinee prices) and if you’ve got a ticket to any of the three films you can stroll into the gallery and drink for free.
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So if you like saving money, if you feel strongly about beer, if you’ve been known to enjoy movies and if your friends would describe you as someone who is often found listening to live music then this event is pretty much made for you.
It’s not officially part of the festival, but a special side event is happening on the evening of July 4th, aimed especially at fans of crazy-ass Japanese cinema in general, and people—like us—who love cherubic pervert Noboru Iguchi (THE MACHINE GIRL, ROBO-GEISHA) in particular.
What is THE ANCIENT DOGOO GIRL: MOVIE EDITION, you may well ask? That requires a bit more storytelling. For those of you who were hooked at “Noboru Iguchi,” or “crazy-ass Japanese cinema,” or even “cherubic pervert,” details are below. For anyone still undecided, read on…
Anthology Film Archives – special benefit screening
Second Street & Second Ave, East Village Sunday, July 4th at 6:00 pm
tickets are $9 general admission, available day-of-show at box office only
Now, for those of you still with me…check out the trailer for the movie edition here.
Does that tell you what you need to know? How about this?
Or this?
Or this?
THE ANCIENT DOGOO GIRL: MOVIE EDITION began its life as a TV series, created by Iguchi, that aired on late-night Kansai (western Japan) television beginning last fall. It’s about a 10,000 year old “yokai / monster hunter” who is resurrected from the earth by a bumbling archaeologist and his high schooler son. In each episode, the hunter, or “Dogoo Girl”, sniffs out monsters in the modern world and, at the same time, copes with being a 21st-century high school gal with big boobs who runs around in a stone bikini.
The first season of the series (a second is in the works) ran 13-some episodes, and all along, the creators had planned to turn it into a movie edition for overseas sales, as well as for viewers in the rest of Japan to see. Iguchi, along with TOKYO GORE POLICE director Yoshihiro Nishimura, cut down the full series into a 90 minute movie, and Nishimura directed a half-hour “pilot episode” gore version that was added at the end. Fans in Tokyo were not disappointed, and we thought you’d like it, too, which is why we’re showing it here.
The problem, however, is that the movie doesn’t exist in a film festival-screenable form (with English subtitles) except on DVD. So if you’re a bit forgiving regarding the technical format, we promise that the presence of Iguchi, Nishimura, Nikkatsu producer Yoshinori Chiba, and actresses Asami (who plays Dogoo Girl in the pilot version) and Cay Izumi (who plays a liver-sucking vampire pole dancer), will more than make up for it.
Come celebrate America’s independence with breasts, monsters and Noboru Iguchi—that’s the true meaning of freedom!
I don’t have any photos of it yet, and the videos aren’t up, but last night’s Star Asia Awards were awesome. Years ago, we wanted to bring Angela Mao to the NYAFF. She lives in NYC, and we talked about doing it with she and her son but it never came together.
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This year, when we knew we were presenting a Lifetime Achievement Award to Sammo Hung, we called her and asked if she’d present it. Immediately, she said, “Yes.” But we wanted it to be a secret. So began weeks of secret stress. On Friday when Sammo and his wife, Joyce Mina Godenzi, said they were going to see a few friends for dinner, we all thought, “Oh, crap,” positive that they were going to call Angela Mao and she’d say, “But I’m giving you an award first.”
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Then, last night, we got Angela there, a volunteer took her through a back entrance and hid her, then when the time was right she was snuck into the back of the house. And onstage, the intro was, “Let’s talk about Sammo Hung and women…” and a big wind-up about all the women he’s worked with. “And the only person qualified to give him this award…Ms. Angela Mao Ying.” And up she came. His face froze, his mouth dropped open. I’ve never seen a human being look so stunned.
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The theater went ballistic and were up on their feet. And then the two of them took the mic like they’d just been shooting a movie the week before. It was absolutely perfect. I don’t care what else happens. We surprised Sammo Hung and got he and Angela Mao on stage together again. That’s worth everything.
After telling us to get lost this year, the New York Times has come through and run a piece on the festival just when all of us were despairing that for the first time in years the Grey Lady would ignore us, just when we’d crept into a bastion of Upper West Side respectability. Credit for this one goes to Emilie Spiegel over at the Film Society of Lincoln Center who pitched woo to the Times long after we’d given up hope and taken to our daybeds in a state of nervous exhaustion.
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Actresses.
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Writer Mike Hale singles out a bunch of movies as “ones to watch” but the two he goes gaga over the most are ACTRESSES and ANNYONG YUMIKA. He writes about them at length, calling them two of the most adventurous movies in the festival, and while he wallows in the backstage, meta- antics and over-the-top diva-licious performances in ACTRESSES, he saves his highest praise for ANNYONG YUMIKA:
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“…a lark of a film with a serious, and moving, undercurrent, one that builds as Mr. Matsue single-mindedly burrows into Ms. Hayashi’s life. It’s about Korean perceptions of Japanese women and about the price of being a free spirit in Japanese society, at the same time that it celebrates a profoundly Japanese idea: the rippling effects, through many lives, of something as ephemeral, and even perhaps ugly, as “Junko: The Tokyo Housewife.”
Howard Feinstein weighs in on the festival over at Indiewire, doing three better than Time Out New York and one better than the Village Voice with “Eight to Watch at the Upcoming New York Asian Film Festival.”
Bless the Village Voice. I know they’ve gone national, and they’re franchised, and they’re not what they used to be, etc. But every year they cover the New York Asian Film Festival in high style, usually via Michael Atkinson who digs deep into our line-up and emerges with takes on movies that even we never expected. This year’s article is up, and here’re some excerpts:
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GOLDEN SLUMBER: “a kind of reinvention of the JFK shooting from Oswald’s perspective…Stirring and sweet.” (info and tickets)
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CRAZY RACER: “…a shitstorm of ludicrous crime bosses, switched identities, assassins, evil pharma charlatans, doubling coincidences, digital wipes, and “Triad-style” funeral catering: “Cool like gangster!” (info and tickets)
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SYMBOL: “If you thought 2005’s Funky Forest: The First Contact left Earth for ether-realms unknown, you were right, and Hitoshi Matsumoto’s preposterous spiritual odyssey gives it a run to the chalk line…Exhilarating, as only an unprompted slap in the face can be.” (info and tickets)
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He also gives some praise, a lot of it actually, to A LITTLE POND. We all love this movie for its audacity and have already received some international hate mail for screening it. However, it’s a low profile picture and so we thought that it would struggle to find an audience. Michael Atkinson let’s us know that we might be wrong – and that would be great.
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A LITTLE POND: “Coming out of left field for us, this historical 2009 Korean scorcher, starring a phalanx of Korean stars, chronicles in grueling detail the notorious No Gun Ri Massacre, in which American forces in 1950 simply mowed down 300 villager refugees in South Korea. The incident was covered up…but director Lee Sang-woo doesn’t fuck around…genuinely upsetting…” (info and tickets)
If you’re curious, there’s a digital version of this year’s program book up on the internets. It was designed by Jason Powell and Goran Topalovic and we’ve got a couple thousand of them in a truck rumbling towards Lincoln Center tomorrow morning.
What happened? Suddenly, Hong Kong movies are rocking again. They’ve given up on making bloated, flavorless international action oatmeal and they’re making hard-hitting, deeply local kung fu congee once more. Was it a miracle? Divine intervention? The phases of the moon?
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This sleek, hard-hitting 2008 movie about Bruce Lee’s master, Ip Man, starred Donnie Yen, it was directed by Wilson Yip (SPL) and the action was by Sammo Hung. It made a mint and launched a craze for old school martial arts movies as well as an “Ip Man Wave” which has given birth to a sequel, a prequel, the currently-shooting Wong Kar-wai Ip Man movie and a TV series coming soon.
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This year’s festival had an embarrassment of riches to choose from in terms of Hong Kong movies, and with the support of the Hong Kong Economic Trade Office, New York, we launched…
The sequel, co-starring Sammo Hung in the performance of his career. And don’t worry, you don’t need to have seen IP MAN to enjoy this film. That “2″ in the title just means it’s twice as good as the original.
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(Read more and get tickets – the June 25 screening is SOLD OUT, and the June 27 screening only has about 70 tickets left!)
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EASTERN CONDORS
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And speaking of Sammo Hung, this is his jaw-dropping 1987 masterpiece, set in Vietnam and full of more action heroes than there are stars in the heavens. A once-in-a-lifetime chance to see a rare 35mm print of the movie with Sammo Hung (and his wife and co-star, Joyce Mina Godenzi) in the house. Followed by an onstage chat with Sammo Hung.
COCOON with kung fu, this flick about old school martial arts heroes making their comeback is the discovery of the festival. Just check out the trailer if you don’t believe me.
The best Jackie Chan movie since 1994’s DRUNKEN MASTER II. If you’ve been a Jackie Chan fan lost in the wilderness, here’s the film you can finally drag your friends to so they can see why this man is great. This one goes in his top ten for proving that he’s more than just a stuntman.
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(Read more, check out a special message from Jackie, and buy your tickets!)
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BODYGUARDS & ASSASSINS
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Nominated for more Hong Kong Film Awards than any other movie in history, this is a massive, all-star spectacle about a ragtag gang of volunteer bodyguards protecting Dr. Sun Yat-sen on a trip to Hong Kong.
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On Sunday, June 27, one $15 ticket gets you admission to DEVELOPMENT HELL, which tells the tale behind the making of this “cursed” Hong Kong production, and to BODYGUARDS & ASSASSINS. Hiroshi Fukazawa, director of DEVELOPMENT HELL, will be there, and so will Simon Yam, one of the stars of B&A.
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(Read more, and get your tickets – note, the 6/27 double feature is 60% sold out and every day about 20 more tickets for it disappear. Get yours now!)
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STORM WARRIORS
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Hong Kong has always made two kinds of martial arts movies: hardcore, hand-to-hand flicks, and fantasy swordplay films. This one is the fantasy film cranked up to the max. Swords cut the weather in half and weapons are forged from the spinal columns of dead gods. Truly ridiculous and over-the-top, it’s a movie where too much is never enough.
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(Read more, and note: Simon Yam, one of the movie’s stars, will be at the Sunday, June 27 @ noon screening. Be there or face his wrath!)
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RED CLIFF UNCUT
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Celebrate freedom on the Fourth of July with this massive, mega-screening. When John Woo’s return to greatness was released in the US, it came out as a two-and-a-half hour, chopped up FrankenFilm. But see it now the way the rest of the world saw it: as two movies lasting almost FIVE HOURS!!! Screened back-to-back for the price of one ticket. Happy Birthday, America!
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(Read more and get those tickets – it’s a war, it’s an epic, it’s a movie and it’s a bargain. The perfect way to celebrate the Fourth of July!)
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Jun 30 2010
Actresses.
