When: June 19 through July 5, 2009
Where: IFC Center, 323 Sixth Avenue, between 3rd and 4th Streets and Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street, between 1st and 2nd Avenues
If you think film festivals are strictly for art house films or under-represented communities trying to showcase their causes, think again. The New York Asian Film Festival (http://www.subwaycinema.com) has something altogether different on its mind. Just consider the titles of two of their films -- Vampire Girl Versus Frankenstein Girl and Yoroi Samurai Zombie. Their trailer proclaims that they are "providing hypnotic escapism," and based on this year's selection it's no idle boast.
NYAFF was launched in 2002 by Subway Cinema, a New York-based film programming, exhibition, and marketing collective dedicated to increasing exposure and appreciation of Asian pop cinema. And the festival has done just that, bringing audacious new films and filmmakers into the public eye here in the U.S. and celebrating a brand of cinema that can sometimes send people running for the exits. This year, the selection is once again diverse, featuring the delightful as well as the extreme, sweetness as well as horror. Here are some highlights.
On opening night Friday June 19, you can get your fill of Hong Kong action with two period martial arts films that kick ass. First there's Ching Siu-tung's An Empress and the Warriors. Ching won a devoted cult following for Swordsman II and A Chinese Ghost Story. His latest showcases a trio of Hong Kong celebrities: pop star Kelly Chen; singer Leon Lai; and action legend Donnie Yen. Chen's character finds herself in an odd situation when her dad dies. She's next in line to become king but she's a girl. This brings on all sorts of complications and bloodshed. It's wildly over-the-top and endearingly silly.
Then if you haven't had enough period swordplay and fighting there's Warlords (repeat screening on June 23). The festival program aptly describes it this way: "As big, meaty and satisfying as a flame-roasted leg of wild boar, Warlords is the kind of movie you tear into with relish, wiping its bloody juices off your chin with the back of your hand as you sit on a throne made of the bones of your enemies." Mmm! Tasty. The film stars three Asian superstars: Jet Li, Andy Lau, and Takeshi Kaneshiro. Director Peter Chan brings in Ching Siu-tung to choreograph the spectacular action and then Chan invests the story with an epic sense of tragedy. The story's inspired by the 1870 assassination of General Ma by his friend. This is an action buddy film martial arts style and with a most definite old school flavor. There's some romance, a heavy dose of betrayal, and enough action to fill a half dozen Hollywood films.
But if you want something a little more contemporary there's Yau Nai-hoi's Eye in the Sky (repeat screening on June 22), a twisting and turning crime tale involving the Hong Kong Police Department’s Surveillance Unit and starring Hong Kong veterans Simon Yam and Tony Leung Kar-fai. Yam's a cop and Leung is a clever crook with some dimwitted co-horts. This one's loads of fun.
But the showpiece of opening night is the world premiere of Written By (repeats on June 21 and 29) starring Lau Ching-wan and directed by Wai Ka-fai (who is scheduled to attend). Wai Ka-fai has successfully collaborated on dozens of movies with Johnnie To. Now he's soloing as writer and director for a film that could best be described as Charlie Kaufman meets Harry Potter in Hong Kong. The story concerns a man who dies in a car crash, leaving his wife and daughter coping with grief and loss. But the daughter decides to write a book in which the family died but her father lived. And in the book the father decides to write a book as well. Pretty soon you can't tell when reality ends and fantasy begins as the story keeps turning in on itself with characters dying and coming back to life. The film is filled with both darkness and light, humor and tragedy.
On opening night and on June 26 you can also sample some Japanese "Pink" cinema. The listing for the films states: "There is no Western equivalent to a pink film, Japan’s long lived softcore sexploitation films that walk a line between bawdy comedies and straight-forward erotica, while occasionally veering wildly to one side or the other in order to satisfy any number of erotic fixations. Despite the American taboo against porn as a genre, Japan’s pink films are considered legitimate cinema." Maybe that's why people such as director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure, Pulse) and Academy Award-winner Yojiro Takita (Departures) have been able to move from pink to mainstream filmmaking. The New York Asian Film Festival has teamed up with the American distribution company, Pink Eiga, to present two programs for this year's festival.
Closing out opening night at midnight is a film I was unable to screen but eager to see, Yoroi Samurai Zombie. A group of loony criminals kidnaps a family and then stumbles on the old the stomping grounds of an undead samurai warrior who doesn't take kindly to intruders.
On June 20, you can catch a new film by South Korea's brilliant and provocative Kim Ki-Duk, Dream. The film stars Japan's Joe Odagiri (who can also be seen at the festival in Plastic City) as a man whose dreams start to infiltrate his ex-girlfriend's sleepwalking state. Things get a bit Nightmarish on Elm Street but because Kim Ki-duk is at the helm they also get smartly twisted and perverse. For more conventional fare there's the police actioner Tactical Unit: Comrades in Arms. It's part of a successful franchise of films produced by Johnnie To. Simon Yam reprises his role as Brother Sam, a sometimes brutal career cop. You might not expect to see a film partially set in the sweaty Brazilian jungle but that's where Plastic City opens. The film serves up the tasty pairing of Hong Kong veteran Anthony Wong (Infernal Affairs, Hard-Boiled) and Japan superstar, Joe Odagiri as father and son. Plastic City mixes Asian mob thriller with family drama and gives it all a kind of hypnotic rotting glow. Great performances anchor this film.
