NY ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL July 15-28, 2022

[Chris Knipp]

One and Four一个和四个 (Jigme Trinley, China, 2021)

A double-cross mystery in a gnarly far-north setting with shades of THE HATEFUL EIGHT, this is the debut of the son of Tibet's best known director, Pema Tseden. Humorous, atmospheric, and able, it made me think of another famous son's debut, Panah Panahi's HIT THE ROAD. But Trinley's humor doesn't have that kind of resonance. It is entertaining, though.

[Chris Knipp]

Angry Son 世界は僕らに気づかない (Kasho Iizuka, Japan, 2022)

Not sure how much of this is autobiographical but the director is a trans person and a passionate spokesperson for minorities. The protagonist is half Japanese, half Filipino growing up with Japanese prejudice and on top of that is gay. He fights all the time with his Filipina bar hostess mother. There is some crudeness here, but also passion and conviction. This is a director giving voice to the unheard in Japanese cinema.

[Chris Knipp]

Broken Commandment 破戒 (Kazuo Maeda, Japan, 2022)

This is about minorities too, the "eta" or outcast people whose ostracism was supposed to end in the nineteenth century. The stigma had remained, as treated in the famous 1906 novel of which this is a third screen adaptation. This has a stolid, proper TV-costume-drama-series quality but is polished and serious. Much to be learned here.

[Chris Knipp]

Grown-Upsわたし達はおとな (Takuya Kato, Japan 2022)


Another big change of pace, this is a sophisticated, minimalist, elegant vérité film set in the present day. Two slouchy, good-looking art students living together find their Gen-X cool disrupted when the girl unexpectedly gets pregnant. In his screen debut director Kato shows his theatrical and playwrighting background in a command of hip, vernacular dialogue and a precise sense of how people sound when they argue.

[Chris Knipp]

Intimate Stranger 親密な他人 (Mayu Nakamura, Japan 2021)

Still another change of pace and genre, this is a suave little psychological horror mystery film. Mayu Nakamura, who studied film at NYU, has been making documentaries for fifteen years but returns for her second feature. She wanted an over-thirty female protagonist and features the excellent Asuka Kurosawa. She plays a strange, lonely woman during COVID whose young son has gone missing who bonds with a pretty young man who's a runner for scammers. A strange relationship develops.

[Chris Knipp]

Lesson in Murder 死刑にいたる病 (Kazuya Shiraishi, Japan, 2022)

Shiraishi is a veteran director and his BLOOD OF THE WOLVES was featured in the 2018 NYAFF. This closely follows the format of Demme's SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, with somewhat less exciting results. Warning: there are scenes of torture that are disturbing. Viewers may find revelations about the handsome young investigator (the Jodie Foster figure) exciting, but this is no Hannibal Lecter.

[Chris Knipp]

Ox-Head Village 牛首村 (Takashi Shimizu, Japan, 2022)

The third in a popular horror trilogy from a very prolific director whose JU-UN GRUDGE series has been a big success and been remade in the US. Acting and writing are below par, though.