New York Asian Film Festival 2011
Prepare yourself for awesome sauce! It’s the 10th anniversary of the film festival that The New York Times calls “one of the city’s most valuable events.” A two-week orgy of popular Asian cinema, this year’s line-up features new sci-fi blockbusters from Japan, a celebration of Hong Kong fantasy swordplay movies (both new and ultra-rare classics), sprawling crime sagas from Korea, mind-boggling midnight madness from Thailand, and more.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The New York Asian Film Festival is made possible through the generosity of The Kitano Hotel, Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office New York, Korean Cultural Service in New York, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office New York, Japan Foundation, Funimation, Asian Media Rights, Vertical, Manhattan Portage , Epic Proportions, Caravan Interactive, Well Go USA Entertainment, Indomina Media, Kirin Beer, Izze Sparkling Juice, Film Business Asia, and Giant Robot.
Lineup
Milocrorze: A Love Story
North American Premiere
Yoshimasa Ishibashi and Takayuki Yamada will attend the screening.
This freaked out slab of solid psychedelia is what movies will look like in the year 23,000 AD! Makes Matthew Barney look tame.
The Yellow Sea
New York Premiere
Na Hong-Jin will attend the screening.
Fresh from Cannes, Na Hong-Jin’s ultra-tense thriller about a hit man on the run just won’t quit until everyone in Seoul is bleeding.
The film is a 20th Century Fox release.
13 Assassins: Director’s Cut
New York Premiere
Actor Takayuki Yamada will attend the screening.
The complete uncut version of Takashi Miike’s samurai masterpiece. With 17 minutes of original footage restored!
Abraxas
New York Premiere
A punk rock Buddhist monk wants to achieve nirvana but he can’t leave the hardcore headbanging behind. An official selection of the Sundance Film Festival.
Battlefield Heroes
With special guest, director Lee Joon-Ik
The director of Korea’s top-grossing movie of all time directs this absurdist, Terry Gilliam-esque satire of Korea’s endless medieval wars.
Bedevilled
New York Premiere
Like Thelma & Louise crossed with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, this is the saddest, bloodiest ode to female friendship ever made.
BKO: Bangkok Knockout
New York Premiere
This brawling stunt-tacular features Thailand’s best stuntmen and -women unleashing dirt bike fu, shovel beatdowns, fights on fire and fights under speeding trucks.
The Blade
Director Tsui Hark in person!
Tsui Hark’s feral masterpiece is one of the most important Chinese movies ever made. Rarely screened, it’s unlike any movie you’ve ever seen. Trust us.
A Boy and His Samurai
North American Premiere
A tale of a boy, a samurai, time travel, pastries, chef vs. yakuza battles, absent fathers and single mothers.
BTS: Better Than Sex
Su Chao-pin will attend the screening.
Taiwan’s crowd-pleasing blockbuster king delivers a hyperactive comedy about a porn-addicted kid who’s desperate to move on to true love.
Buddha Mountain
North American Premiere
A beautifully observed, funny, and deeply moving film from one of China’s only female directors (Li Yu, Lost in Beijing).
The Cabbie
Writer Su Chao-pin will attend the screening.
Taiwan’s box-office king based this black comedy, about a cab driver in love with a traffic cop, on his day job as a cabbie.
The Chaser
Director Na Hong-jin will attend the screening.
The thriller that saved the Korean film industry, this mega-hit is what you’d get if you cross-bred Alfred Hitchcock with a pit bull.
City of Violence
Ryoo Seung-Wan will attend the screening.
An encore presentation of the best all-out action film from Ryoo Seung-Wan (The Unjust). Like a less ironic version of Kill Bill.
Detective Dee: The Mystery of the Phantom Flame
With special guest, legendary director Tsui Hark!
Tsui Hark returns to greatness in this “Sherlock Holmes in imperial China” feminist phantasmagoria. Part of The Wu Xia Focus. Screening preceded by Star Asia Award ceremony at 8:30pm. Ticketholders welcome!
Dragon Inn
Tsui Hark will attend the screening!
A brand-new print of Tsui Hark’s classic female swordswoman riff on Casablanca.
Duel to the Death
Ching Siu-tung’s sword-slashing debut features bizarre images ripped raw from his brain: hang-gliding killers, lethal puppets, exploding ninjas.
Part of The Wu Xia Focus.
Foxy Festival
North American Premiere
In this sweet’n’raunchy celebration of kink, vice cops are trying to suppress a suburban neighborhood where everyone is getting in touch with their fetishes.
Haunters
New York Premiere
This dark summer superhero blockbuster is about a creep who can control minds and the simple guy who’s out to stop him.
Horny House of Horror
North American Premiere
Japan does the violent porno horror thing better than anyone else and this oddity features butt-walls, weiner-eating and demon hookers.
screening with
International Premiere
Dark on Dark
Makooto Ohtake, 2011, Japan; 17m
This short film is the directorial debut from Makoto Ohtake, a well-known Japanese comedian and actor since the 80’s (he’s worked extensively with Takeshi Kitano and the popular City Boys troupe).
Karate-Robo Zaborgar
New York Premiere
Presenting happy 70’s crimefighters: a boy and his motorcycle-transforming, karate-fighting robot… only the kid’s grown up now and is pushing 50.
The Last Days of the World
World Premiere
When a kid believes the world is ending, he abducts his classmate in this throwback to the loopy, revolutionary, pro-sex films of the 60s.
Love and Loathing and Lulu and Ayano
North American Premiere
A pro-sex movie about the porno industry and the actress who discovers freedom by becoming a nerdy porn star.
Machete Maidens Unleashed!
New York Premiere
A rip-roaring, gonzo documentary about the Filipino exploitation films that erupted in the 70s and 80s.
The Man From Nowhere
One part Bourne, one part Batman, this award-winning flick about a retired spy rescuing a girl from kidnappers was Korea’s biggest blockbuster of 2010.
Ninja Kids!!!
World Premiere
Takashi Miike returns to form with this gut-busting, bizarro flick that’s Harry Potter meets ninjas. The weirdest, wildest comedy of the year.
Presented with Japan Cuts: Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema.
Ocean Heaven
New York Premiere
In a beautiful, underplayed and truly powerful film, Jet Li does drama as a father trying to teach his autistic son how to live on his own.
Ocean Heaven
In a beautiful, underplayed and truly powerful film, Jet Li does drama as a father trying to teach his autistic son how to live on his own.
Punished
International Premiere
This fractured, austere, mournful revenge thriller is about a father’s love for his daughter and just how many people he’ll kill for her.
Raw Force
A freaky-deaky Filipino/US co-production from the roaring 80s, this rarely-screened exploitation movie is better known as Kung Fu Cannibals.
The Recipe
New York Premiere
The best food movie of 2010 (and one of the best romances) is about a dish of stew so good that it changes lives.
Reign of Assassins
With special guest, writer and director Su Chao-pin.
This super-romantic box office champ gives Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon a run for its money. Co-directed by John Woo.
Riki-Oh: The Story Of Ricky
The classic Hong Kong midnight action movie about prison privatization and monsters who strangle you with their guts. Rarely seen on the big screen!
Ringing in Their Ears
International Premiere
If Robert Altman’s Nashville were about rock ’n’ roll instead of country music, it would be this hilarious, touching flick about rock music saving souls.
Sell Out!
New York Premiere
Yeo Joon Han and Peter Davis will attend the screening.
Brace yourselves for a musical comedy from Malaysia about suicide reality shows, corporate culture and selling out. Way ahead of its time.
Shaolin
North American Premiere
An all-star cast (plus Jackie Chan!) in a massive summer blockbuster retelling the primal kung fu myth: the destruction of Shaolin temple.
Troubleshooter
Director, Kwok Hyeok-Jae, and Producer, Ryoo Seung-Wan, will attend the screening.
New York Premiere
A perfect popcorn movie, this is Bourne with a sense of humor as a private eye has to crack heads to escape a frame-up.
The Unjust
New York Premiere
Director Ryoo Seung-Wan will attend.
This sprawling corruption epic is the kind of movie Sidney Lumet would have made if he was Korean.
The Unjust
This sprawling corruption epic is the kind of movie Sidney Lumet would have made if he had been Korean.
Versus
Tak Sakaguchi, and writer, Yudai Yamaguchi, will attend the screening.
Tenth-anniversary screening of the yakuza vs. zombies action classic that cracked open Japan’s indie-film business like a can of cheap beer.
Yakuza Weapon
New York Premiere
Tak Sakaguchi, Yudai Yamaguchi, Arata Yamanaka, and producer Yoshinori Chiba will attend the screening.
Ten years after starring in Versus, former pit fighter-turned stuntman/actor/director Tak Sakaguchi is back with this mondo trasho exploitation flick.
Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain
Tsui Hark will attend the screening.
A new print of the surreal and truly astonishing fantasy film that re-invented HK moviemaking. Still trippy after all these years.
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