NY ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL July 15-28, 2022

[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.

[Chris Knipp]

Ribbon (Non - Japan 2022)

Non (actress, writer, model Rena Nonen), a multitalented young woman who might be a Japanese Miranda July, and has made a feature about the early days of COVID and the suddenly shrunken world of an art student (played by Non herself) who becomes confined to her little apartment when her school shuts down.

[Chris Knipp]

Offbeat Cops- 異動辞令は音楽隊！(Eiji Uchida, Japan 2022)

Well known actor Hiroshi Abe dominates this film about a macho cop with an out-of-control zeal who finds his bliss as a drummer when demoted to the police band. Director Uchida got the idea watching a video of a flash mob of a police band. Might have worked better as a TV series where the lack of coherence of the story would show less. Probably doesn't work much as a comedy for Western viewers.

[Chris Knipp]

Shin Ultraman シン・ウルトラマン (Shinji Higuchi, Japan 2022)

A heady mixture of pop cultural references from the Sixties with up-to-date CGI about extraterrestrials and campy monsters that frankly bored me, but fans of Godzilla movies/TV will perhaps be satisfied by this full-dress, updated version.