New York Asian Film Festival 2017

Battle of Memories

After undergoing a medical procedure to retrieve lost memories, a novelist starts having the recollections of a serial killer. Battle of Memories is a hallucinogenic roller coaster ride built on dream logic, incorporating a stylish visual aesthetic into a tightly woven murder mystery.

Blood of Youth

North American Premiere • Director Yang Shupeng in attendance

After three vibrant period films, one of China's least-known maverick directors—self-trained fireman-turned-filmmaker Yang Shupeng—makes his first contemporary film, a crime drama about a computer hacker who plays a cat-and-mouse game with police and criminals, pitting one against the other in the midst of a bank heist.

Duckweed

After a close encounter with a fast-moving train in 2022, arrogant rally driver Tailang (Deng Cha) is transported back to 1998 and enlisted into the gang led by his own father Zhengtai (Eddie Peng). Boasting a rare 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, multitalented Han Han's sophomore production accelerated past the billion yuan ($150 million) milestone domestically.

Extraordinary Mission

Actor Duan Yihong will be in attendance and will receive the NYAFF 2017 Star Asia Award

Uber-cop Lin Kai (Huang Xuan) goes deep cover to take down a vicious drug cartel. The stakes are raised to the next level when he is entwined with psychopathic head honcho Eagle, leading to a harrowing journey of forced drug addiction and time bomb pyrotechnics in China’s bionic update of classic hyperbolic HK genre films.

Someone to Talk to

Liu Yulin's first feature is that rare beast, a truly honest and perceptive film about relationships. When cuckolded husband Aiguo sets out to catch his wife having an affair, he ends up destroying two marriages. Meanwhile his 39-year-old sister re-enters the dating game, desperately seeking someone of her own to talk to.

Soul on a String

After discovering a sacred stone in the mouth of a slain deer, young Tibetan wanderer Taibei embarks on a mission to bring the divine artifact back to its rightful home, the holy mountain of Buddha. Danger and treachery lurk at every step, as black market traders and two brothers in search of vengeance stand in his path.

Dealer/Healer

Q&A with director Lawrence Lau

Lau Ching-Wan headlines this dramatization of the incredible real-life story of Peter Chan, a former Triad member and drug addict who went on to be awarded for his tireless efforts as a substance abuse counselor. This tale of corruption and redemption masterfully recreates an all but forgotten underbelly of Hong Kong.

Election

Johnnie To’s magnum opus details the cutthroat contest to become the new number one in Hong Kong’s biggest triad: Laconic Lam Lok (Simon Yam) versus arrogant and impulsive Big D (Tony Leung Ka-fai, in one of his best performances). One of the greatest gangster films ever.

Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back

Tsui Hark's latest gives China’s best known story a pop-culture shock treatment, using the legendary Monkey King narrative for a film that feels like champagne bottles blasting for two dazzling hours.

Mad World

New York Premiere • Q&A with director Wong Chun, screenwriter Florence Chan, and actor Eric Tsang, who will receive the NYAFF 2017 Star Hong Kong Lifetime Achievement Award

Released from rehabilitation, a former investment banker struggles with mental illness as he rekindles a relationship with his estranged father in the relentlessly upwardly mobile city. This dramatic, heartfelt directorial debut reinvents the tenement drama genre; Wong Chun stands at the vanguard of a wave of directors transforming Hong Kong cinema.

Soul Mate

With this one-of-a-kind romantic drama, Derek Tsang sinks us deep into the tale of two young women, whose friendship burns as strong as an amorous passion. Compassionate, honest and intelligent, it demonstrates again how Chinese-language cinema is at the vanguard of exploring the modern human condition.

The Taking of Tiger Mountain

Tsui Hark's take on the Chinese national epic about 30 PLA soldiers taking down a 1000-strong bandit army strips out the ideology and makes it all about the action. In 3-D.

This Is Not What I Expected

Q&A with director Derek Hui

A brilliant accident-prone chef and a foodie megalomaniac millionaire have an unfortunate yet hilarious run-in that makes them mortal adversaries. An obsessive love-hate relationship blossoms—with food standing in for sex—amidst a nonstop series of laugh-riot hi-jinks. A dish to be savored.

Vampire Cleanup Department

In this tongue-in-cheek throwback to old-school Hong Kong comedies, the titular governmental department gets a new recruit in a vampire-immune virgin only for him to fall hopelessly in love with a beautiful nightwalker. Now he wants to train her to be human.

With Prisoners

Andrew Wong’s film about juvenile delinquents follows the misfortunes of young gang leader Fan (Neo Yau) after he is sentenced to three months of detention for a scuffle with a drunken cop who was publicly abusing his girlfriend. Little does he know he has entered into a world of trouble, where youths are dehumanized and routinely beaten.

Zombiology: Enjoy Yourself Tonight

North American Premiere • Q&A with director Alan Lo and actress Carrie Ng.

Produced by Clement Cheng (Gallants, NYAFF 2010), this riotous crowd-pleaser is developed from director Alan Lo’s debut short Zombie Guillotines (2012), a do-it-yourself guide to weaponing up for Z-Day with everyday objects in a hair salon. Fans of The Walking Dead may think they’ve witnessed every trick in the zombie playbook. They’re wrong.

Aroused by Gymnopedies

North American Premiere

Aroused by Gymnopedies follows the dwindling fortunes of Shinji (played by Itsuji Itao), a once-celebrated filmmaker whose star has waned so far he is reduced to shooting porno quickies to make ends meet. But when his lead actress (Izumi Okamura) quits mid-shoot, Shinji wanders from one misjudged sexual encounter to the next.

Close-Knit

Q&A with director Naoko Ogigami

When 11-year-old Tomo’s irresponsible single mother leaves her on her own for the umpteenth time, she turns to her Uncle Makio. Makio’s pretty girlfriend Rinko proves an excellent surrogate mother, and the three form an indelible bond, but not without complications: Rinko is transgender.

Dawn of the Felines

North American Premiere

A sin-deep chronicle tracing the daily lives of three Tokyo call girls from the director of The Devil's Path and Twisted Justice. Paying tribute to the rich vein of Japanese genre classics set in the sex trade, Kazuya Shiraishi also has a statement to make about contemporary Japanese morality.

Destruction Babies

New York Premiere

In this visceral cinematic diatribe, an everyman starts picking fights, leaving in his wake an apocalyptic streak of violent mayhem. It's arresting and well crafted, imbued with a refreshingly raw aesthetic.

A Double Life

North American Premiere

Tama (Mugi Kadowaki), a shy doctoral candidate in philosophy, feels stalled in her studies and somewhat detached from life and begins to follow around her neighbor, a successful book editor who seems like the perfect family man. Soon her growing voyeuristic obsession gets her inextricably tangled in other people’s secret lives.

Happiness

Masatoshi Nagase stars as the enigmatic Kanzaki who brings a strange electronic helmet to a somber little town. He allows an elderly shopkeeper to try out the device, which dredges up for her long lost memories of happiness. As the townspeople line up to recover their joy for life, Kanzaki slowly reveals his own dark agenda.

Japanese Girls Never Die

A vibrant protest against the oppression of women, a provocative pop-art manifesto, and the improbably touching story of a gone girl whose life gains new meaning after her disappearance. Director Daigo Matsui’s agenda is ambitious, and Japanese Girls Never Die is one of the past year's most audacious pieces of cinema.

The Long Excuse

When egotistical writer and cheating husband Sachio (Masahiro Motoki, Departures) loses his wife (Eri Fukatsu) to a tragic bus accident, he initially feigns grief, but then finds himself inexplicably befriending another widower. The latest from acclaimed director (and Hirokazu Kore-eda protégée) Nishikawa (Wild Berries) stars Masahiro Motoki in a stellar and nuanced performance.

Love and Other Cults

North American Premiere

A wild black comedy about gangs, cult religion, and love in backwater Japan. Marginalized teen Ryota falls in love with fellow dropout Ai and follows her down ever deeper and seedier paths. Real delinquents acted alongside Sion Sono's regular such that the film had to be shot under police supervision.

The Mole Song: Hong Kong Capriccio

Takashi Miike’s most entertaining and delirious film in years, The Mole Song: Hong Kong Capriccio returns to the pop madness of The Mole Song: Undercover Agent Reiji and turns it up to eleven, resulting in.a yakuza extravaganza that proudly stands on its own.

Rage

New York Premiere

One year after a gruesome murder in Tokyo, while a nationwide manhunt is still underway, three young men without a past enter the lives of three very different people. Creeping suspicion that each is the murderer destroys the lives around them. Rage is tragic, epic, and heartfelt.

Suffering of Ninko

Ninko, a devout monk in Edo-period Japan, is tormented by his condition as the object of every woman’s sexual desire. His dilemma is personified by a forest-dwelling seductress who forces him to choose his final destiny. The Suffering of Ninko is a wild, jaw-dropping fever dream of a film that must be seen to be believed.

Survival Family

New York Premiere

This deliciously yet darkly funny postapocalyptic road movie follows an average Tokyo family in the wake of an inexplicable and endless blackout. Determined to maintain normality at first, they slowly realize the direness of their situation and attempt to ride across Japan to their grandfather’s farm on their commuter bikes.

Traces of Sin

Q&A with director Kei Ishikawa

Irrepressible journalist Tanaka (Satoshi Tsumabuki) probes the shocking murder of a wealthy family while struggling with his own demons. Kei Ishikawa’s impressive directorial debut is an indictment of class warfare wrapped in a seductive yet ultimately perverse mystery of devastating proportions.

Wet Woman in the Wind

North American Premiere • Q&A with director Akihiko Shiota and actress Yuki Mamiya

A tornado of unbridled sexual desire is unleashed when a free-spirited seductress sets her sights on a reclusive playwright in this stream-of-consciousness tale in this striking entry in Nikkatsu's “Roman Porno” redux series.

Fabricated City

A champion in the gaming world is framed for the rape and murder of a minor and sentenced to life in prison. After he escapes with the unexpected help of a serial killer, triggering a nationwide manhunt, his former team reunites to help their old video game partner, and soon they uncover an unimaginable conspiracy.

Fantasy of the Girls

After naïve freshman Sun-Wha is unexpectedly cast as Juliet against her all-girls’ high school heartthrob Hanam as Romeo, she learns about first love and more in this disarming tale of first love.

Jane

Q&A with director Cho Hyun-hoon, actors Lee Min-ji & Gu Gyo-hwan.

Using an abstract, circular, and cryptic form of storytelling, Jane sways between fantasy and reality, sincerity and lies. When troubled teenager So-hyun realizes her friend Jong-ho left her, she returns to the motel where they used to stay. There, So-hyun meets a transgender woman named Jane, who soon becomes her guardian angel.

Ordinary Person

Set in 1987 Korea, a time of political upheaval, this gritty police procedural follows hard-boiled police detective Sing-Jin as he catches the prime suspect in South Korea’s first serial killer case. However, as the national intelligence agency gets involved he discovers a web of intrigue leading to much more ominous crimes underfoot.

A Quiet Dream

U.S. Premiere • Q&A with director Zhang Lu and actress Han Ye-ri

A breath of fresh air in indie Korean cinema, Zhang Lu's quiet suburban comedy is a heartfelt charmer. Understated actress Han Ye-ri shines as the owner of a local bar, playing muse to three misfit regulars, played by actor-directors Yang Ik-june, Park Jung-bum, and Yoon Jong-bin.

A Single Rider

A beguiling elegy for an irretrievably lost past, A Single Rider is the tale of a man fallen from grace. Disgraced fund manager Kang Jae-hoon (Lee Byung-hun, NYAFF 2016 Star Asia Award) leaves his Seoul office behind and books a one-way ticket to Sydney, where his estranged wife and son live.

Split

This gloriously irreverent mash-up of White Men Can’t Jump, Rain Man and Kingpin is a surprisingly poignant comedy-cum-sports thriller. Former bowling champion Chul-jong, now a seedy hustler, teams up with his attractive and tenacious gambling partner Hee-jin, and an autistic bowling savant to escape their literally crippling debt.

The Tooth and the Nail

In this complex, dark romance set after the end of colonial rule in 1948 Korea when anything seems possible, a romance develops between a nightclub magician and his female assistant, their romance intercut with a heart-racing police procedural.

The Truth Beneath

In Lee Kyoung-mi’s taut political thriller, co-written by Park Chan-wook, a mother takes a stand against the deceit and hypocrisy of men. Son Ye-jin gives a career-best performance as the wife of an aspiring politician on a lonely, desperate search for their missing teenage daughter during a crucial campaign.

Vanishing Time: A Boy Who Returned

Gang Dong-won in attendance, who will receive the Star Asia Award

Um Tae-hwa’s magical second film is both a melancholy fantasy about time and, at a deeper level, an exploration of the world of childhood. Children find a glittering egg in a cave that, according to a local folktale, contains a time-eating monster. When it's broken, their lives are changed forever.

The Villainess

U.S. Premiere • Director Jung Byung-gil will be in attendance and will receive the NYAFF 2017 Daniel A. Craft Award for Excellence in Action Cinema

Trained as an assassin from a very young age, Sook-hee has only ever known a life of killing. After single-handedly dispatching an entire gang, she's given the chance to use her deadly skills for good. This is not just another twisted Korean revenge thriller—it’s a reinvention of action cinema.

Bad Genius

International Premiere • Q&A with Nattawut “Baz” Poonpiriya and Chanon Santinatornkul & Chutimon “Aokbab” Chuengcharoensukying, who will receive the NYAFF 2017 Screen International Rising Star Award

Nattawut Poonpiriya (Countdown, NYAFF 2013) places the heist thriller in a high school milieu for a nerve-racking joyride that plays on Thailand’s Confucian-like obsession with academic achievement. After losing a scholarship, high-school students stage a heist that will undermine the U.S. university entrance examination system and make them baht millionaires.

Birdshot

Q&A with director Mikhail Red and actor Arnold Reyes

This intense, slow-burning, and semi-mystical thriller tells the intertwined stories of two innocent souls and how society tries to corrupt them. One is a cop, investigating his seniors' political cover-up, the other a farm girl who has committed an irreversible act that she isn't even aware is a crime.

Kfc

New York Premiere

WATCH AT YOUR OWN RISK! This omnibus of strange and harrowing stories connected by vagabond characters at various levels of moral bankruptcy is truly sick in most parts, but what makes it unforgettable is the sheer talent of its director, and the ineradicable sense of profundity throughout.

Mrs. K

This could very well be the spectacular swan song for the amazing action career of Hong Kong actress Kara Wai, an icon of 1970s and 1980s Shaw Brothers films. Whatever the eponymous Mrs. K might have been, she isn’t anymore, until a former associate (Simon Yam) tracks her down seeking retribution for a past misdeed.

Saving Sally

New York Premiere

With its stop-and-start production taking more than a decade, the very existence of Saving Sally is a miraculous fairy tale of its own. This wildly creative mix of live action and animation centers on geeky wannabe comic book artist Marty and his hopeless crush on beautiful and spunky inventor Sally.

Town in a Lake

The rape and murder of a schoolgirl brings unwelcome media attention to a quiet fishing village. With her classmate still missing, the forest starts revealing its mysteries, including giant shadow creatures that protect or punish interlopers. Jet Leyco's second feature is part H.P. Lovecraft, part David Lynch, and wholly original.

Eternal Summer

An emotionally searing drama about friendship and longing. Straight-A student Jonathan (Bryant Chang) is forced by his teacher to befriend rebellious underachiever Shane (Joseph Chang Hsiao-chuan). Ten years later, their friendship is tested by the return of former classmate Carrie (Kate Yeung) who secretly dates each of the high schoolers in turn.

The Gangster’s Daughter

North American Premiere • Director Chen Mei-juin in attendance

After getting into trouble with a local bully, teenage Shaowu is sent to Taipei to live with her estranged gangster father, Keiko. He quickly takes to being a father and sets out go straight, but soon he is dragged back into the criminal world by corruption and a quest for vengeance that will decide both of their fates.

Godspeed

A sadsack would-be criminal pairs up with an eccentric over-the-hill cabbie for the cross-country delivery of a mysterious package to southern gangsters in this dark and irreverently comedic take on the road movie. Featuring Mr. Boo himself Michael Hui in a wonderfully wry star turn.

Mon Mon Mon Monsters

North American Premiere

A group of alpha-bullies kidnap their very own ghoul-like monster, keeping her alive with a steady stream of vein-fresh blood, only to get buyer's remorse. Things get gorier from there. The real monsters are the humans in Giddens's cruel and subversive follow-up to You Are the Apple of My Eye.

The Road to Mandalay

An exquisite yet heart-wrenching portrait of vulnerable and marginalized characters at odds with their surroundings and even each other as they strive to make it at any cost. It starts when a romance develops between a couple on the small truck that smuggles them over the Burmese border into Thailand.

The Village of No Return

The relative peace of Desire Village, fraught with domestic squabble, is about to be disturbed by greed in various guises: a group of bandits prepares to besiege the time-forsaken hamlet and a Taoist priest (Wang Qianyuan) shows up with a mysterious device, the “Worry Ridder,” a helmet that can remove memories from people’s minds.

Bamseom Pirates Seoul Inferno

North American Premiere • Q&A with director Jung Yoon-suk & the Bamseom Pirates (producer Park Junggeun, bassist Jang Sunggun, and drummer Kwon Yongman)

The band Bamseom Pirates earns fame with their savagely satirical lyrics, bizarre performances in abandoned buildings, and a growing reputation for being the most controversial band in Korea. But soon friend and producer Park Jung-geun is arrested for violating the National Security Law. Hilarity does not ensue.

Mrs. B., A North Korean Woman

North American Premiere

Mrs. B. reveals and conceals in equal measure. This documentary shows the reality of a woman who left everything behind, including her husband and two sons, to seek a better life, and who, in some ways, has known the worst: from her farmhouse, she operates a business trafficking North Koreans to China.

Surprise Screening

A special 25th anniversary event celebrating a provocative classic—a film that undoubtedly made many of you fall in love with Asian cinema.