New York Asian Film Festival 2024 (July 12-22 FLC) REVIEWS

[Chris Knipp]

LIN JIANJIE: BRIEF HISTORY OF A FAMILY (2023)

New York Premiere
Brief History of a Family
家庭简史
Lin Jianjie's gut-punch of a debut rips the Band-Aid off the wounds of post one-child policy China and exposes the scars and anxieties beneath. When Wei, an outgoing only son from a middle-class milieu, and Shuo, his taciturn but scarily sharp-eyed classmate, get tangled up in each other's lives after a mysterious incident at school, it sets off a chain reaction that turns Wei's picture-perfect existence inside out. As Shuo worms his way deeper into Wei's family and becomes the unofficial new member of the household, the cracks in the foundation start to show, and what was once a mutually beneficial friendship turns into a pressure cooker ready to blow. Lin's filmmaking style foregoes hand-holding in favor of pure, raw emotion, turning a simple family drama into a seductive, unsettling psycho-thriller that holds up a mirror to the absurdities and contradictions of modern life and makes you want to call the therapist.

Director: Lin Jianjie
Cast: Sun Xilun, Lin Muran, Zu Feng, Guo Keyu
Languages: Mandarin with English subtitles
2024; 99 min.

SCHEDULE:
Saturday July 20, 4:15pm
Film at Lincoln Center

[Chris Knipp]

PEMA TSEDEN: SNOW LEOPARD (2023)

Everyday problems and the eternal in Tibet

It's hard to know sometimes what is going on in Tibetan filmmaker Pema Tseden's posthumous film Snow Leopard. It awakens vivid feelings of place and presence, the beautiful, remote, snowy landscape and the eponymous snow leopard (or snow leopards) who are calmer, smarter, and infinitely more powerful, lithe and dangerous than humans. Tseden captures both ordinariness and magic here in a simple tale of a wild animal mauling livestock that resolves into something both messy and transcendent, with arguments and threats and an intervention by the law in between. I would say this is about mediation and transcendence. John Berra in his Venice SCreen Daily review says it's about "the tension between tradition and modernity," and there's that too. Director Tseden's mastery is in using simple elements to convey levels of meaning, bringing in multiple subjects without losing focus. He is the founder of Tibetan cinema, and his death at 53 of heart failure is a tragic, too early loss.

Between the trapped leopard who has come in the night and killed nine rams and their furious herder Kimba)(Jinpa), who, saying each ram is worth a thousand yuan and he wants both compensation and revenge, has trapped the great beast in his pen, is the young "snow leopard monk" or lama (Tseten Tashi) into whose gentleness and fantasy life the film compellingly escapes.

The most memorable sequence in the film is (spoiler alert) a dream filmed in chilly monochrome in which the monk, in extremis, lost and exhausted at the end of a pilgrimage, is rescued by the snow leopard he met as a cub. Metaphor morphs into personality in the character of the young monk, a quiet, gentle, mysterious, playful young man who becomes a magnet for the film's sympathy and affection, its desire to bond with nature and the Other. He promises that he recites sutras too, but capturing snow leopards on his cell phone camera months ago, a clip that went viral, has led to his being given a camera with a long lens. He carries it about with him to pursue his obsession. While the snow leopard is a predator for the rancher, a great subject for the TV crew, and a "a first-class protected animal" for the local official, for the monk it's something ineffable and essential, the goal he pursues.

Meanwhile this film is also more broadly about itself: the first, foreground, characters we meet are a TV team traveling out to this remote place like naturalists and ethnographers to film a show. The lead journalist, Wang-xu (Ziqi Xiong), is a friend of the young monk from junior high, and they rendez-vous on the road. The angry ram owner and the beautiful trapped beast are perfect subjects for the film crew. The ram owner seems like director Tseden laughing at reality TV with his mugging for the camera. But he also represents humans acting beastly and, from another angle, a local who rejects outsiders coming to lecture him about protected species. The police are called in by the furious local official, also on the scene, and even then things keep getting worse, but finally, with a lot of translating back and forth, an understanding and acceptance are reached. But what matters is the unexpected manner in which the snow leopard behaves when released.

Exactly how the snow leopard action sequences were shot may puzzle you, but the beasts themselves, in the awesome snowy landscape and mountain lake, linger in the mind as complex presences, wild, inexplicable, massive but featherlight, lumbering on tiptoe but lightening quick, sweet and deadly, friendly but wholly other. It's for the snow leopard that this film exists, and if it works for you, nothing else gets in the way. The closing credits music is wholly fresh, a remnant of a location that was strange yet real.

Snow Leopard. 雪豹 | གངས་གཟིག 109 min., debuted out of competition at Venice, presented as an official selection at Toronto and won the Grand Prix in Nov. 2023 at Tokyo; also shown at Warsaw, Paris, Lyon and Moscow. Screened for this review as part of the 2024 NYAFF (Jul. 12-28).
SCHEDULE:
Sunday July 21, 6:00pm
Film at Lincoln Center

[Chris Knipp]

AUDREY LIN, TERRENCE LAU CHUN-HIN IN TROUBLE GIRL

CHIN CHUA-HUA: TROUBLE GIRL (2023)

A disjointed movie about irresponsible adults and a neurodivergent 12-year-old

Despite festival blurb raves about this as being "a disquieting head-trip" and "a prickly, paradoxical but ultimately transcendent work," this study of a 12-year-old schoolgirl with ADHD, an absentee father, and a teacher and mother who are having an affair fails to jell beyond the "prickly" and "paradoxical." An interesting Chinese Letterboxd comment by Jay Wei about its surprising of expectations, its score that goes against the moods of scenes commends a lack of "melodrama." But one winds up longing for that, for tension, suspense, for the strong emotional payoffs of conventional drama that never come.

The opening sequence, returned to later, is of the lithe young Hong Kong-born teacher Mr. Chen, aka Paul (Terrance Lau Chun-him) giving the girl Xiao Xiao (the actual title of the film, Audrey Lin) a swimming lessen. The lessen goes well and it's the tenderest, happiest moment of the film. Another big moment, pulled through much of the film, is a typhoon. It causes school to be hastily dismissed: the excitement is in sympathy with Xiao Xiao's disruptive nature. Her neurodivergence is seen as a cause both of disruptiveness and bullying by her classmates that leads to further anger and acting out. Positive aspects of the disorder - creativity, intense focus - are not on view, though the girl has warm moments, as in her brief contacts with her father (Ming-Shuai Shih).

But the central drama, what there is of it, is in the triangle of mother, daughter, and overzealous teacher, along with the unruly class. Mr. Chen has set up a system of rewards to classmates for being kind to the girl, but they corrupt the system by provoking her so as to get points for interceding. A trouble here is that the class begins to seem too much like the "trouble girl" and the mother, though approaching forty while Chen is younger, is too girlish looking and acting.

One thing that's clear is the mutual jealousies. Xiao Xiao, in a rare grownup moment, jumps in a taxi follow her mother and her teacher in the rain to see where they are going. Her mother shows annoyance at the teacher when, in intimate moments, he starts talking about the girl's problems or progress. Understandably, she wants the affair to be about her. She used to be a piano teacher. There's a big piano in the living room to show it. And this is some kind of symbol, perhaps of lost potential, missed creativity, a better life.

There is no shortage of varied scenes. An episode is the unexpected return of the father, who has playful moments with the girl and quarrels with her mother. (What is it about all the binoculars?) There is a trip to a park of Mr. Chen, Xiao Xiao, and her mother. There is a surprising full-on bureaucratic conference of school officials and teachers and the mother about the girl, which the mother, inadvisably, brings the girl herself to. But these disjointed sequences of scenes are like the girls's jumpy, staccato behavior. It's hard to see where they are going. The viewer is continually jolted. What it all adds up to is hard to say.

It feels as if a lack here is in giving the complexity, even the maturity, that's needed to the affair. Its most memorable moment may be the childlike one where Paul jumps on top of the mother, playing like kids, and it becomes sensuous and sexy. But in her grumpiness she seems to be becoming like her daughter.

It would also have been nice to delve more into the neurodivergence of the girl, what ADHD is and what variety of it the girl has, and its potential positive aspects as well as the disruptive ones. One wishes the idea had come up not just of helping Xiao Xiao to conform but of finding ways for her to be different in positive, creative ways. Positive values of ADHD for example can be: hyperfocus, an ability to commit deeply to projects and tasks that interest them and be super efficient; and creativity, an imaginative and busy mind that can create original ideas and novel solutions to problems. We don't glimpse those potentials here.

This film lacks the complexity of recent French films like Mia Hansen-Løve's One Fine Morning/Un beau matin, which deals with similar themes. However, in fairness, Hansen-Løve is a mature artist in her prime, while Chin Chia-hua is just starting out, as is the obviously very promising young actress who played the lead, and won a Golden Horse acting award at an unprecedentedly early age for this performance. We can look with interest for what they do in future. Terrance Lau Chun-him, the fresh and appealing Hong Kong actor who plays the teacher-lover, who has won his own best actor award for Beyond the Dream, may also be one to watch.

Trouble Girl 小曉 ("Xiao Xiao"), 103 mins., Debuted at Taipei Golden Horse Festival Nov. 2023, opened theatrically in Taiwan and Hong Kong Dec. and Jan.; showed at Udine and Taipei Apr. and Jun. 2024. It was screened for this review as part of the 2024 NYAFF (July. 12-28).
SCHEDULE:
Saturday July 27, 3:30pm
SVA Theatre
Intro and Q&A with director Chin Chia-Hua

[Chris Knipp]

YANG SHUPENG: PATTAYA HEAT (2023

Pattaya Heat
ปิดเมืองล่า
A glorious ensemble of Thai stars Ananda Everingham (Shutter), Thaneth Warakulnukroh (Bad Genius, among others) bring their A-game to this bodacious postmodern crime-action opus set in the country's notorious "sin city" destination. At the center of the madness is an ex-con-assassin-turned-drug-dealing pizza maker, a corrupt cop with a twinkle in his eye and a rumble in his belly, a tarot card-dealing femme fatale, and a megalomaniacal crime king who makes Scarface look like a choir boy. These ne'er-do-wells cross and double-cross paths in an elaborate quest for riches in gold, leaving in their wake a trail of ultra-violence, rampant sexuality, with a sprinkle of Thai-flavored dark humor into the bargain. With a little help from movie friends Yang Kil-Yong, action director from the legendary Oldboy and producer Shang Na, of Detective Chinatown 3, and Sheep Without a Shepherd fame, seasoned Chinese director Yang Shupeng, a NYAFF 2017 guest, has whipped up a plethora of pulpy influences into a furious cinematic cocktail that's equal parts Tarantino, Woo, and something entirely its own.

Director: Yang Shupeng
Cast: Ananda Everingham, Jirayu Tantrakul, Krissada Sukosol, Laila Boonyasak, Thaneth Warakulnukroh, Gulasatree Michalsky, Gigi Velicitat
Languages: Thai with English subtitles
2024; 117 min.

SCHEDULE:
Sunday July 14, 1:00pm
Film at Lincoln Center
Intro with actor Ananda Everingham


Ananda Everingham
Working primarily in Thai films, Ananda Everingham broke through internationally with his lead role in the 2004 hit Shutter, and began working not only in Thailand, but in Singapore and Laos. After anchoring Me... Myself (2007) and having a featured role in Pen-ek Ratanaruang's 2007 Cannes film Ploy, he starred in the Singaporean romance The Leap Years (2008). He went on to the fantasy Queen of Langkasuka, then starred in Sabaidee Luang Prabang, the first commercial film produced since Laos adopted communism in 1975. In 2017, he starred as Maj. Gen. Khun Pantharak Ratchadet in the first episode of the ongoing Khun Pan series. As the NYAFF 2024 Actor in Focus, Ananda is presenting three dazzlingly diverse films: Supposed, Pattaya Heat, and The Cursed Land.

[Chris Knipp]

LOUIS KOO IN TWILIGHT OF THE WARRIORS:WALLED IN

SOI CHEANG: TWILIGHT OF THE WARRIORS: WALLED IN (2024)

Artfully cluttered everyman epic in a long-gone Hong Kong gangster enclave

Kowloon Walled City was an incredibly dense, decrepit, and busy, rickety, multitiered and dark underworld until it was demolished in the nineties with the takeover of Hong Kong by China. It is at once the incredibly rich reconstructed setting and the real star of this enjoyable, if self-undermining film, whose reconstructed location is better than its somewhat slow and perfunctory plot line, which probably works better in its source comic book. As the Variety review's title says, here, "Blazing Action Delights Get Marred by Languid Soap Opera." One of two Guardian reviews summarizes: "The choreography is impressive as people are hurled through walls, thrown off rooftops and otherwise beaten to a pulp, but the editing is frenetic and the characters cartoonish." These are unkind, and mislead if they suggest this won't be at all a pleasant experience, but are correct in suggesting there are flaws.

Things begin with a prolonged street fight, straight wuxia stuff except almost invisible because staged in very dark surroundings, with many wince-inducing, bone-crushing encounters, designed to show that the underdog protagonist, Chan Lok-kwan (Raymond Lam) is tough and invincible. But he's an illegal from the Mainland, and his struggle to buy an ID card from the local triad bosses is doomed. And still he refuses to join them, and winds up escaping from the remorseless triad leader Mr. Big (legendary actor-director Sammo Hung) and retaliating by grabbing a bag stuffed with drugs and making a run for it through long dark streets, onto a bus, and into - the Kowloon Walled City, where he's safe because it's ruled by another boss, a different jurisdiction.

Gone is the realm of the odious Mr. Big, to be replaced by "enigmatic crime boss Cyclone (an aged-up Louis Koo), an effortlessly cool [and chain-smoking] barbershop owner," (quoting again from the Variety review ). This world is decrepit, but in its scuzzy way rich, familial, and cozy. That Guardian reviewer calls it "a Piranesian labyrinth" - I like that - "of squalid high rises and dark, cramped alleys, teeming with crooks, lowlifes, addicts and impoverished families running small businesses, legit and otherwise." It's some time in the eighties. People dance to disco. Karaoke seems to be a new thing. Welcome to Kowloon Walled City, in glorious decline (and gloriously recreated by the production crew of this movie). And to what all acknowledge to be the true star of this teeming, dark, somewhat lumbering movie: what the festival blurb calls "the true star, the "delirious production design," "a ramshackle metropolis fused into one fetid super-organism of exposed wires, makeshift shanties, and human desperation–teeming with triads, refugees, and wuxia-powered henchmen sporting rat-tail hair." Very much a throwback to certain glory days of Hong Kong cinema; a kind of hypertrophied version of the movies Wong Kar-wai was making before he became Wong Kar-wai.

Here begins an even more intense and prolonged struggle by our undocumented but tireless hero (a kind of parody of the over-motivated immigrant), who sleeps on eaves to save up cash and becomes known to the local, shall we say, 'administration.' By a third of the way through the two-hour film, Chan starts to smile sometimes. He starts to play Mahjong (or some tile game) with pals, and tells the boss of it all, Cyclone, that he wants to stay here. He was orphaned as a child, he says, brought up in foster care, never had a real home. Now he can sleep all night, he says. But remember, says Cyclone, you sleep well because of the people, not the place. Around Cyclone is a klatch of attractive young men, each with his own shtick.

Like a traditional epic poem, Soi Cheang's movie digresses when a detail of background becomes interesting and jumps into a flashback history. Eventually people tell Chan the story of how the Walled City became the way it is now ruled by who rules it now and what fell by the wayside on the way. This includes the "ruthless goon, the King of Killers, Jim," one of the chorus of youngsters recounts. "Sooner or later this place will be torn down," Cyclone warns, and in fact there are glimmers on a TV broadcast of the tentative plan to do so when the Mainland assumes administration of Hong Kong. But will this genre of movie ever go out of style?

Featured here (an all-male cast): Raymond Lam, Terrance Lau, Philip Ng, Richie Jen. For fans of Chinese fight genre and traditional Hong Kong gangster films, despite the warned-of soap-opera languor of the hero's trajectory, this is potentially a delight, depending on individual tastes, of course.

Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In 九龍城寨·圍城 ("Kowloon Walled City Beseiged City"), 125 mins., opened in China and Hong Kong May 1, 2024; other releases, and inclded at Cannes, Buncheon, Montreal. Screened for this review as part of the 2024 NYAFF.
Sunday July 28, 7:00pm
SVA Theatre
Q&A with producer John Chong and actor Philip Ng
(SOLD OUT)