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Thread: ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL Lincoln Center JUNE 29 - JULY 15, 2018

  1. #16
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    THE RETURN (Marlene Choi 2017)

    Debuted at Rotterdam and Göteborg, this partly documentary, partly fiction film about a man and woman raised in Denmark who go back to their native Korea for the first time is one of the most subtly powerful evocations I've ever seen of the pain and confusion of being adopted and seeking one's roots. The filmmaker was herself an adopted Korean baby raised in Denmark.

    Showing at the Walter Reade Theater July 7 at 12:30.

    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-04-2018 at 12:18 AM.

  2. #17
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    THE AGE OF BLOOD (Kim Hong-sun 2017)

    From the time of the 18th-century Korean ruler Yeongjo King of Joseon, this is historical action eye candy. It's about putting down a conspiracy, I guess, but it exists largely to display new Korean heartthrob Jung Hae-in, as Kim Ho, an ace swordsman who's demoted to prison guard, just in time to fight an uprising. It's fun, but probably best not taken too seriously.

    Showing at the Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Center July 4 at 12:30.

    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-04-2018 at 12:19 AM.

  3. #18
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    THE SCYTHIAN LAMB (Daihachi Yoshida 2017)

    An amusing and suspenseful blend of noir, romance, and thriller comes about when half a dozen murderers, released early from prison, are sent to a small Japanese seacoast town to make up for a dwindling population. Nobody's to know, least of all them. Murderers come in many different flavors. A young pop idol plays the city bureaucrat assigned to make this work. A manga adaptation, and a happy one.

    Showing in the NYAFF at the Walter Reade Theater July 5 at 9:15 p.m.


  4. #19
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    THE BOLD, THE CORRUPT, AND THE BEAUTIFUL (Yang Ya-che 2017)

    Gangsterish ladies - three generations of a single corrupt land-grabbing family - in Taiwan in the Eighties fill this lurid and lush mini-epic. Juicy eye candy.

    Showing in the NYAFF tomorrow July 5 in the Walter Reade Theater at 2:15 p.m.


  5. #20
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    ON THE JOB (Erik Matti 2013)

    Filipino multi-genre master Erik Matti gained international recognition when this film showed in Directors' Fortnight at Cannes in 2013. It's a gritty, authentic tale about assassinations by hit men who're prisoners on temporary furlough and a police investigation of their activity that leads to corruption at high levels of government. Matti's new film, reportedly his first pure actioner, BoyBust, is included in the NYAFF and this provides background on his style and achievement.

    On the Job shows in the NYAFF at Lincoln Center July 14 at 12:30 p.m.

    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-05-2018 at 03:12 AM.

  6. #21
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    INUYASHIKI (Shinsuke Sato 2018)

    First film in a sci-fi fantasy manga franchise, and it's in manga and anime with English subtitles someplace if you're interested. It concerns two guys transformed at one time into cyborgs, one a mousy Japanese salaryman whose family looks down on and abuses him, who will use his powers to try to do good; the other a teenager with divorced parents and poor impulse control ready to become a psychopathic murderer once provoked. Plenty of human moments keep the titanic CGI battles from seeming totally empty.

    This shows at the Walter Reade Theater July 15 at 1 p.m.


  7. #22
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    SMOKIN' ON THE MOON (Kanata Wolf 2017)

    Osaka-based musician and filmmaker Wolf (aka Yuichiro Tanaka) tells the story of a slacker bromance of Tokyo bar stoner pot dealers whose run-in with brutal yakuza gangsters leads to a change of heart - and many changes of mood and format from punk buddy picture to crime actiioner to sentimental medical melodrama, holding onto the punk visual aesthetic through shifts of mood and genre. Engaging leads anchor the piece, for the committed viewer, at least.

    Showing at the Walter Reade Theater tonight, July 10, 2018 at 9:15 p.m.


  8. #23
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    SAD BEAUTY (Bongkod Bencharongkul 2018)

    This interesting, original Thai film is by a famous actress in her second outing as a director and first as independent producer-writer-director. This is a sensuous, beautiful film about a spoiled, failing actress-model and her devoted best friend. It's also a neo-noir about a killing and novel disposal of a body, and a medical drama, and it makes the shifts and transitions work. I like.

    Showing in the NYAFF at the Walter Reade Theater on Sat., July 14 at 5 p.m.


  9. #24
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    BUYBUST (Erik Matti 2018)

    Erik Matti's insanely ultra-violent non-stop actioner set in Manila has its world premiere at the festival tomorrow at 8:30 p.m. at Lincoln Center in the Walter Reade Theater. Click above for my review, which will be published after that opening.


  10. #25
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    New York Asian Film Festival 2018 Roundup



    Critic's Picks.

    This is the seventeenth year of a New York Asian Film Festival that has grown a lot and now is at two venues, Lincoln Center and Chelsea, has become one of the notable celebrations of Asian films around the world. This year the NYAFF included an impressive 58 films, nearly all features, a few documentaries. It is only my second year of it and the honeymoon is scarcely over. I can see the genres often dominated, lots of gangsters and martial arts battles: but it's also impressive what original, sometimes almost unrecognizable, spins individual filmmakers put on them. And it remains dazzling how varied a world this "Asia" is as represented here: Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia. The NYAFF ended yesterday 15 July 2018 and I don't know if I'll provide any more reviews, though that wasn't all I saw. We got zombies, yakuza, samurai, murderers, druggies, young obsessive lovers and teen bullies in manga from Japan, crooked real estate dealers, warriors, lovers, teenagers, rappers, politicians, cops, and robbers from South Korea, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong and Malaysia and Thailand and Indonesia. I liked much of what I have reviewed. But I'll highlight some below that stand out from the others and show what riches and surprises Asia has to offer.

    The Looming Storm (Doug Yue) - China. A humorous, or make that clueless, chap who's in charge of security at a (huge, gloomy, doomed) China factory in 1997 imagines himself involved in the local investigation of a serial killer. First timer Yue approaches a series of themes and genres in an original way, all the time retaining the gloomy, rain-soaked mise-en-scène.

    One Cut of the Dead/Kamera o tomeru no! (Shin'ichirô Ueda 2017)- Japan. The filmmakers are constantly at several removes from their zombie theme in three different "facets" presented as live film for TV, an about-the-filmmakers, and a making-of. It's funny but ingenious and informative. And for zombie fans it's still pleasingly gorily gruesome in spite of all the self-reflectiveness - with the shock of the fakers encountering the real thing right in their faces. Within the layers of the "real" perhaps there is the real.

    Respeto (Treb Monteras 2017) - Philippines. A young would-be rapper confronts his limitations and meets a learned elder and the new regime seems to be reliving the worst excesses of the old one. Every frame almost of this exudes a sense of caring about its themes, the fate of the nation, and its recent history. You have the feeling that in the Philippines they care more and there's more immediately at stake. This shows even also in the violent and skillfully over-the-top genre films of Erik Matti featured this year.

    Hit the Night (Geong Ga-young) - Korea. I did not like this, but its dogged pursuit of themes of drinking, seduction, and nonstop conversation found differently treated by Hong Sang-soo, but this time by a woman, is worthy of note. I'm sure as a man I'm not supposed to enjoy it.

    The Empty Hands (Chapman To)
    - Hong Kong. "One of the strangest martial arts dramas ever made", said Hollywood Reporter. This drolly weaves martial arts into a story about paternal oppression, female liberation, inheritance, and real estate. "Drolly" is what I meant. Witty editing and witty set design make this lively and visceral even if it may be tongue in cheek. None of these films are quite what they seem. That's the beauty of it.

    The Age of Blood/Yeoekmo - banranui sidae (Kim Hong-sun 2018) - Korea. It is fun just seeing how the filmmakers take a cute teen idol and mold him into a gnarly historical martial arts hero. They pull it off, and he's unrecognizable!

    The Scythian Lamb (Daihachi Yoshida 2017) - Japan. What in real estate is "location, location, location," in movies is "premise, premise, premise." The premise here, six convicted murderers get relocated to the same small rural town, is impossible to go wrong with if you just don't mess it up, and they don't. The air is full of promise, and threat, like in Chabrol.

    Sad Beauty (Bongkod Bencharongkul 2018) - Thailand. Two pretty women have to get rid of a corpse in this film, but that is only the beginning, and this is also a medical melodrama and the story of a passionate friendship of two women that somehow the more narcissistic of the two has trouble living up to. The writer-producer-director, though an experienced actress and a star, had to fight to get this made. It shifts gears repeatedly and that's fully intentional. This has the kind of excitingly unparsable quality that marked the early Wong Kar-wai.


    Florence Faivre in Sad Beauty

    NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL at Lincoln Center JUNE 29 - JULY 15, 2018

    NYAFF website

    GENERAL FILM FORUM THREAD

    LINKS TO REVIEWS:
    Age of Blood, The (Kim Hong-sun 2017)
    Blood of Wolves, The (Shiraishi Kazuya, 2018)
    Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful, The (Yang Ya-che 2017)
    BuyBust (Erik Matti 2018)
    Crossroads: One Two Jaga (Nam Ron, 2018)
    Empty Hands, The (Chapman To 2017)
    Hit the Night (Jeong Ga-young 2017)
    Inuyashiki (Shinsuke Sato 2018)
    Looking for Lucky (Jiang Jiachen 2018)
    Looming Storm, The (Doug Yue 2017)
    Microhabitat (Jeon Go-woon, 2017)
    Old Beast (Zhou Zihang 2017)
    On the Job (Erik Matti 2013)
    One Cut of the Dead (Shin'ichirô Ueda 2017)
    Paradox (Wilson Yip 2017)
    Respeto (Treb Monteras, 2017)
    Return, The (Malene Choi 2018)
    River's Edge (Isao Yukisada 2018)
    Sad Beauty (Bongkod Bencharongkul 2018)
    Scythian Lamb, The (Daihachi Yoshida 2017)
    Smokin' on the Moon (Kanata Wolf 2017)
    Wrath of Silence (Xin Yukun 2017)

    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-25-2018 at 10:32 AM.

  11. #26
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    17th New York Asian Film Festival 2018: the Awards

    Kim Yoon-seok - NYAFF 2018 Star Asia Award
    Dante Lam - Daniel A. Craft Award for Excellence in Action Cinema
    Harada Masato, - the Star Asia Lifetime Achievement Award
    Jiang Wu - NYAFF 2018 Star Asia Award
    Stephy Tang - Screen International Rising Star Award
    RESPETO - Silver Tiger Uncaged Award (2nd place for Jury competition)
    MICROHABITAT - TIger Uncaged Award for Best Feature (1st place for Jury competition)


    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-17-2018 at 12:30 PM.

  12. #27
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    THE LOOMING STORM (Doug Yue 2017)

    Its French theatrical release was today (25 July 2018) and it got some excellent reviews: see AlloCiné. Les Inrocks mentions David Fincher, Hitchcock, and Jia Zhang-ke. Le Nouvel Observateur says it's a "breathtaking" first feature that gains Yue immediate entry into the big league. Télérama points out home much is going on, history, politics, a portrait of a lost soul, a love story.


  13. #28
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    Now available in the US on streaming
    ONE CUT OF THE DEAD/KAMERA O TOMERU NO! (Shin'ichirô Ueda 2017)

    This amusing low budget tour de force is now streaming on Shudder and it's a NYTimes "Critics Pick." See Elizabeth Vincentelli's description of it in today's Times HERE.

    SHE SAYS IT'S "a lot less grim than in Sam Mendes’s 1917, which aims for the same breathless effect on a much larger scale and in a much somber way." It's "an uproarious backstage farce about the perils of live television rather than a mere zombie spoof." It has a wonderfully tight script," so much so that she "rewatched it as soon as the movie ended."
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 01-03-2020 at 10:35 AM.

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