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MR. LONG ミスター・ロン (Sabu 2017)
This charismatic Taiwanese hitman so convincingly embodied by Chang Chen (who's worked for Edward Yang, Hou Hsieu-hsien, and Wong Kar-wai), who's so confident he uses only a short knife to wipe out a whole gang of baddies, gets marooned when a single hit goes wrong on the slummy outskirts of Tokyo with an adorable kid and his addict mom. At that unpromising venue, he displays his exceptional culinary skills for a while to satisfied neighbors. The movie is becalmed for a long middle section, and we almost like it. Sabu (Hiroyuki Tanaka) is a Japanese actor turned filmmaker. He has a second film included in the 2019 NYAFF, the omnibus film Jam.
See it at the Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Center in three days. I'd go. As Mark Shilling of the Japan Times says, "Have fun."
NYAFF Showtime:
Monday, July 8
9:15 PM
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-06-2019 at 12:26 AM.
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ANOTHER CHILD 미성년 (Kim Yoon-seok 2019)
The noted Korean actor directs, and costars in, a vivid, sometimes odd, film on adultery, unplanned parenthood, & their effect on daughters of the separate parties. WRT the 11th.
NYAFF Showtime:
Thursday, July 11
8:30 PM
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-09-2019 at 05:24 PM.
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FIRST FAREWELL 第一次的离 (Wang Lina 2018)
An award-winning film, with top notch cinematography, editing, and score, about Uyghur people in XinjiangProvince where the filmmaker's own hometown is, and there is an elegiac note signaled in the title. They raise cotton and herd sheep, and the focus is on the children, who're under pressure to learn Mandarin. The film avoids overt political content about China's cultural persecution of this minority, but it's clear through the threat of going away to school. The scenes of young Isa and his best girl friend Kalbinur and their pet lamb are adorable. The mix of ethnography and humanism reminded me of Honeyland (2019 ND/NF).
NYAFF Showtime:
Thursday, July 11
6:00 PM
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-09-2019 at 05:28 PM.
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Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-24-2019 at 11:54 AM.
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THE CROSSING 过春天 (Bai Xue 2018)
In this striking debut, the dangerously driven Peipei, just turned sixteen, is a 'danfei' with remote parents split between Hong Kong and China, and she goes back and forth between the mainland and Hong Kong to school every day in school uniform. This makes her perfect to smuggle new iPhones to China. She becomes the mascot of a wild crew of older boys headed by Mrs Hua, who's like a potentially treacherous den mother overseeing dangerous fun. The key figure to her in this new life becomes Hao, her best gf's bf, who draws her into a bolder maneuver. An original, vivid and intense film of teenage obsession that never lets up.
It showed in the NYAFF July 12.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-14-2019 at 09:35 AM.
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MAGGIE 메기 (Yi Ok-seop 2018)
This Korean debut feature focuses on a nurse and slacker boyfriend and the insidiousness of doubt. Director Yi makes a fetish of arbitrary plot-shifts. Her interest is ideas. Played at aBusan, Rotterdam and Osaka and won some prizes.
It showed at the NYAFF July 13
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FIVE MILLION DOLLAR LIFE (Moon Sung-ho 2019
Picaresque coming-of-ager about a suicidal heart transplant kid that blends saccharine-ness and lively adventures. Ayumu Mochizuki is the indestructible kindness-magnet kid. The young director is from Hiroshima but went to film school in Korea after high school, exploring his roots.
Five Million Dollar Life 五億円のじんせい ("500 million yen"), 112 mins., releases July 20, 2019 in Japan. It was previewed as part of the NYAFF for this review, where it showed July 11.
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