New York Asian Film Festival 2015

Port of Call

Opening Night | North American Premiere

Preceded by Star Asia Award presentation to Aaron Kwok on June 26, Q&A with Kwok on June 27

A police detective (Aaron Kwok, in a career-defining role) tracks down the murderer of a young prostitute in this brutal thriller directed by Philip Yung and shot by master cinematographer Christopher Doyle.

Chasuke’s Journey

Centerpiece Presentation | North American Premiere

Q&A with Sabu

An angel descends to Okinawa in order to save a young girl, falls in with a gang of losers, enjoys ramen, finds a bit of celebrity, and fights against predestination written by heavenly hacks who steal from Hollywood blockbusters.

Abashiri Prison

The first entry in Toei’s hugely successful Abashiri Prison yakuza film series, directed by Teruo Ishii, established Ken Takakura’s superstar status. If you want to understand Ken's enormous popularity, this is the film that started it all. In many ways, this is the invention of the Japanese man.

Battles Without Honor and Humanity

Quite possibly the ultimate yakuza movie, Kinji Fukasaku’s dark, gritty classic stars Bunta Sugawara (in the role that made his career) as a former soldier who turns to organized crime and claws his way up the yakuza underworld in postwar Japan.

Cart

Q&A with Boo Ji-young and producer Shim Jae-myung

In this pro-union flick, the 99% rise up after a bunch of female employees at a chain retail giant (think Wal-Mart) get laid off via text message. When they decide to go on strike, management calls in the thugs...

City on Fire

Preceded by the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award presentation to Ringo Lam; Q&A following the film

Ringo Lam’s classic heist-gone-bad flick is the movie that made Chow Yun-fat (playing an undercover cop) a star and provided Quentin Tarantino with the basis for Reservoir Dogs. The film features heartbreak to spare for the little people trying to eke out a living at the end of a gun.

Cold War

Winner of nine Hong Kong Film Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best New Performer, Cold War  was Hong Kong’s 2012 box-office sensation. This cop thriller stars Aaron Kwok and Tony Leung Kar-Fai as two high-ranking officers whose rivalry leads to an intense power struggle over an explosive rescue operation.

Cops vs. Thugs

Bunta Sugawara plays a cop so corrupt he’s basically a member of the yakuza—delivering witnesses to his criminal buddies and looking the other way when they murder rivals. But now a war is breaking out and this bad lieutenant is going to have to choose sides.

Empire of Lust

International Premiere

A gorgeous period actioner set during the founding days of Joseon Dynasty in the early 14th century, Empire of Lust follows three men who engage in a power struggle within the palace walls, caught in the whirlwind of love, lust, greed, betrayal, and revenge.

A Fool

North American Premiere

Chen Jianbin’s directorial debut is a harsh noir about an honest farmer’s efforts to help a young homeless man that instead set off a chain of disasters, serving as a reminder of man’s inhumanity when faced with greed.

Full Alert

Introduction by Ringo Lam

Ringo Lam’s last great movie before his 12-year retirement is a dark, glittering gem of a police procedural that works both as a heist flick and as a tombstone for both pre-handover Hong Kong and the action genre.

Full Strike

U.S. Premiere

Racquet sport becomes martial art when a down-and-out gang of has-beens form a badminton team to win back their self-respect in this hyperactive, totally surreal comedy from Derek Kwok, the co-director of Stephen Chow’s Journey to the West.

Funuke, Show Some Love You Losers!

Introduction by Daihachi Yoshida

Seduction, persecution, prostitution, suicide, and more greet the Wago family’s three siblings who return home for their parent’s funeral after they’re killed while trying to save a kitten. Yoshida’s twisted, smart, and deftly handled first film is as black as a comedy can get, yet wrapped in a lighthearted exterior.

Insanity

North American Premiere

In this psychological thriller produced by Derek Yee (The Great Magician, One Nite in Mongkok), a psychiatrist (Huang Xiaoming) is lured to the dark side of the mind by his patient and convicted murderer (Lau Ching-Wan).

It’s Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong

Q&A with Emily Ting, Jamie Chung, and Bryan Greenberg

This compelling walk and talk romance à la Richard Linklater, centered on two Hong Kong expats who randomly cross paths one night, is as much about the attraction between the leads as it is about the love of Hong Kong.

Kabukicho Love Hotel

Q&A with Ryuichi Hiroki and actor Shota Sometani; Sometani will be presented with the Screen International Rising Star Award

Preceded by a Rising Star Award cocktail hour in the Furman Gallery at 5:00pm, open to all ticket holders!

Taking place over 24 hours in a Tokyo love hotel, this steamy and poignant character-driven ensemble drama from director Ryuichi Hiroki (Vibrator) looks at ordinary people as they experience life-changing events.

La La La at Rock Bottom

North American Premiere

From Nobuhiro Yamashita (director of Linda Linda Linda and Tamako in Moratorium) comes this romantic comedy about an amnesiac man who, as the memory of his criminal past slowly returns, tries to find redemption and love through rock music.

The Last Reel

This engaging drama about a rebellious Cambodian girl determined to shoot the missing ending of a 40-year-old movie starring her mother is a meditation on Cambodia’s past and present, and the power of art.

Little Big Master

Hong Kong’s runaway box-office hit is a powerful drama based on the true story of a principal assigned to a failing rural kindergarten with only five students: if one of them drops out, the school must close.

Meeting Dr. Sun

U.S. Premiere | Q&A with Yee Chih-Yen

Preceded by a reception in the Furman Gallery at 6:15pm celebrating Taiwanese film, open to all ticket holders, with free food and drinks!

A deadpan high-school noir about two gangs of impoverished boys competing to steal a statue of Dr. Sun Yat-sen so they can sell if as scrap metal. Schoolyard slapstick becomes a call to action for Taiwan’s youth to wake up.

My Love, Don’t Cross That River

In Jin Mo-young’s critically acclaimed documentary—which is also the most successful independent film in Korean history—a couple who have been married for 76 years face death with dignity and the strength of love.

Pale Moon

U.S. Premiere

Q&A with Daihachi Yoshida

A housewife turns to a sophisticated embezzlement scheme to support an affair with a college student in NYAFF director-in-focus Daihachi Yoshida’s mesmerizing fantasy-drama.

Permanent Nobara

A happy-go-wacky relationship film about a recently divorced woman (Miho Kanno) who returns with her young daughter to her tiny hometown. There, she reunites with her mother (Mari Natsuki) who runs the only hair salon in town, Permanent Nobara, an extraordinary place that provides a signature perm and a shame-free confessional for the local women to discuss their most personal love and sex issues.

The President’s Last Bang

Introduction by Shim Jae-myung

One of the most controversial Korean movies of all time, Im Sang-soo’s black comedy tells the tale of the 1979 assassination of military dictator President Park by the head of the Korean CIA. It’s all the more relevant today because Park’s daughter is currently president of Korea.

Red Amnesia

Beijing Bicycle director Wang Xiaoshuai’s latest film is a blood-curdling mystery about the harassment of an elderly widow, and her haunting by a mysterious young boy who brings back ghosts of past choices, moral compromises, and the long shadows of the Cultural Revolution.

Revivre

Legendary 78-year-old Korean filmmaker Im Kwon-taek (Beyond the Years, Chihwaseon: Painted Fire) delivers a powerful and vital film—his 102nd!—about the indignities of old age and the inferno of suppressed desire, anchored by a commanding performance from veteran actor Ahn Sung-gi (Nowhere to Hide) as a marketing director who finds himself attracted to a younger employee while dutifully tending to his dying wife.

River Road

U.S. Premiere

Bartel and Adikeer, two Yugur ethnic minority brothers, set out with their camel across the deserts of northwestern China in search of their parents in this masterfully lensed nomadic road movie.

Robbery

World Premiere

An absurdist blood-soaked Grand Guignol with attitude to burn, Fire Lee’s indie black comedy about an overnight shift in a convenience store starts with a simple robbery, then moves on to mass murder, terrorist bombings, police shoot-outs, and even the afterlife.

Ruined Heart: Another Love Story Between a Criminal & a Whore

Neon-smeared pop poetry materializes on screen in this (almost) dialogue-free gangland art flick shot in the slums of Manila and starring Tadanobu Asano (Ichi the Killer) and shot by longtime Wong Kar Wai cinematographer Christopher Doyle.

Socialphobia

U.S. Premiere

Four friends track down a cyberbully only to find that she’s hung herself. But two of them are convinced it’s murder, and the film becomes a grungy, realistic murder mystery set in the twitchy world of social media.

Solomon’s Perjury Part 1: Suspicion

North American Premiere

In the first of a twisty two-parter, high-school students find the dead body of one of their classmates in the snow. Not convinced by the conclusion that he killed himself, they begin an investigation that eventually leads them to conducting a mock trial at school.

Taksu

North American Premiere

Two couples find their needs and desires driving them further apart in this erotic and melancholy drama set in Bali.

Tokyo Tribe

Introduction by actor Shota Sometani

Told almost entirely in hip-hop, Sion Sono’s berserk rap musical about warring gangs in Tokyo is full of tanks, B-boy battles, and so many baroque visual flourishes that the entire movie feels like Versailles stabbing you in both eyes.

Two Thumbs Up

North American Premiere

Q&A with Lau Ho-leung

Old-school Hong Kong action-comedy at its finest, Two Thumbs Up stars Simon Yam and Francis Ng as ex-cons who disguise themselves as policemen to pull a heist. But it turns out they kind of like being cops...

Violator

North American Premiere

The sole horror movie in this year’s lineup, Violator