Tadanobu Asano and Nathalia Acevedo star as lovers on the run in Khavn’s visually stunning RUINED HEART
RUINED HEART: ANOTHER LOVE STORY BETWEEN A CRIMINAL AND A WHORE (Khavn, 2014)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
Thursday, July 2, 10:15
Festival runs June 26 – July 8
212-875-5050
www.filmlinc.com
www.subwaycinema.com
If you’re in the mood for something very different at the fourteenth annual New York Asian Film Festival, look no further than Khavn de la Cruz’s Ruined Heart: Another Love Story Between a Criminal & a Whore. Expanding his fifteen-minute 2012 short, Khavn has created a visually arresting film that weaves its way through the gritty streets of an almost postapocalyptic Manila slum bursting with flashes of red, yellow, blue, and green. Using virtually no dialogue — the only words are from occasional poetry and several songs, and the very few times that characters speak, no translation is offered — Khavn tells the story of a Criminal (Japanese star Tadanobu Asano) on the run with a Whore (Mexican actress Nathalia Acevedo), attempting to get away from the Godfather (Filipino poet and playwright Vim Nadera). The multinational cast also includes the Friend (Andrew Puertollano) and the Lover (Russian-born actress Elena Kazan, who grew up in Berlin and now lives in Mumbai), but the real stars are Khavn’s mesmerizing score, Frances Grace Mortel’s art direction, Frances Soeder’s production design, Carlo Francisco Manatad’s frantic editing, and Christopher Doyle’s dizzying cinematography, which at times has Asano doing the camerawork himself as he runs through small passageways and back alleys.
The film feels like an intriguing blend of Wong Kar-wai, Kenneth Anger, Derek Jarman, Takashi Miike, and David Lynch, a punk opera tone poem with images that range from the beautiful to the extremely disturbing, a treat for the eyes and ears while confounding the mind, from the opening credits until the screen goes black. The soundtrack features songs by Stereo Total, Bing Austria & the Flippin’ Soul Stompers, the Radioactive Sago Project, and Scott Matthew, but it’s Khavn’s hauntingly gorgeous theme that will stay with you. (Khavn, an award-winning Filipino digital filmmaker and author, also appears in the seventy-minute flick as the Pianist.) Ruined Heart is screening at the Walter Reade Theater on July 2 at 10:15; the New York Asian Film Festival continues at Lincoln Center through July 8 with more than three dozen new and old films from China, Korea, Japan, Cambodia, and other Southeast Asian countries, including Li Ruijin’s River Road, Kiki Sugino’s Taksu, Hong Seok-jae’s Socialphobia, Yim Soon-Rye’s The Whistleblower, and Kinji Fukasaku’s Cops vs. Thugs.
Yasujirō Ozu’s Late Spring marked a late spring of sorts in the Japanese auteur’s career as he moved into a new, post-WWII phase of his long exploration of Japanese family life and the middle class. Based on Kazuo Hirotsu’s novel Father and Daughter, the black-and-white film, written by Ozu with longtime collaborator Kogo Noda, tells the story of twenty-seven-year-old Noriko (Setsuko Hara), who lives at home with her widower father, Shukichi Somiya (Chishu Ryu), a university professor who has carved out a very simple existence for himself. Her aunt, Masa (Haruko Sugimura), thinks Noriko should get married, but she prefers caring for her father, who she believes would be lost without her. But when Somiya starts dropping hints that he might remarry, like his friend and colleague Jo Onodera (Masao Mishima) did — a deed that Noriko finds unbecoming and “filthy” — Noriko has to take another look at her future. Late Spring is a masterpiece of simplicity and economy while also being a complex, multilayered tale whose every moment offers unlimited rewards. From the placement and minimal movement of the camera to the design of the set to the carefully choreographed acting, Ozu infuses the work with meaning, examining not only the on-screen relationship between father and daughter but the intimate relationship between the film and the viewer. Ozu, who never married, has a firm grasp on the state of the Japanese family as some of the characters try to hold on to old-fashioned culture and tradition while recovering from the war’s devastation and facing the modernism that is taking over.
The fourteenth annual New York Asian Film Festival is saluting legendary Hong Kong director Ringo Lam, presenting him with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Lam, who turns sixty this year, will be at Lincoln Center for screenings of two of his works, City on Fire on June 27 and Full Alert on June 28. In the latter, Lam’s follow-up to his disappointing Hollywood debut, the Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Maximum Risk, Lau Ching-wan stars as Officer Pao, a member of Hong Kong’s Special Crime Bureau who becomes involved in a case that turns deeply personal. After arresting explosives expert Mak Kwan (Francis Ng) for the brutal murder of an architect, Pao is determined to find the rest of Mak’s Taiwanese crew, which is led by mainland boss Jie (Jack Gao), and prevent the robbery of a mysterious vault. Pao and his team track Mak’s girlfriend, Chung Lai Hung (Amanda Lee), who knows more than she’s letting on, while Pao and Mak become immersed in a tense, psychological game of cat and mouse, exploring what it feels like to kill someone. There are numerous incredulous plot twists and a rather lame car chase, but the guerrilla filmmaking style of Lam and cinematographer Ardy Lam, ranging through the streets of a Hong Kong about to be handed over from the British to the Chinese, is supremely effective, as are the lead performances by Lau and Ng, evoking the relationships portrayed earlier by Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Michael Mann’s Heat and later by Andy Lau and Tony Leung in Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Infernal Affairs. The use of mobile phones and surveillance technology feels much older than 1997, displaying how far we have come so fast. Lam saves the heavy violence for the spectacular finale, letting the emotions build before exploding. Nominated for five Hong Kong Film Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor (Lau), Full Alert is screening at the Walter Reade Theater on June 28 at 2:00, with Lam on hand to introduce it. The New York Asian Film Festival continues at Lincoln Center through July 6 with more than three dozen new and old films from China, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Cambodia, and other Southeast Asian countries, including Sabu’s Chasuke’s Journey, Kinji Fukasuku’s Battles without Honor and Humanity, Im Sang-soo’s The President’s Last Bang, Wang Xiaoshuai’s Red Amnesia, Im Kwon-taek’s Revivre, and Sion Sono’s Tokyo Tribe.
Writer-director Noah Buschel’s Glass Chin is a gentle, understated boxing movie, an indie sleeper that eschews brutal uppercuts, damaging overhand rights, and heavy knockout blows in favor of steady jabs and clever bobbing and weaving that slowly build in effectiveness. Unlike most fight flicks, there’s not a whole lot of shouting and braggadocio, blood and guts, and melodramatic relationships, no montages set to classic rock songs or slow-motion fight scenes. Instead, Glass Chin is a quiet, deeply contemplative character study of a conflicted man who finds himself at a crossroads. Corey Stoll is sensational as Bud “the Saint” Gordon, a former boxing champ trying to make a life for himself outside the ring. Living in New Jersey with his devoted girlfriend, Ellen (Marin Ireland), he is offered two opportunities, one helping Lou Powell (John Douglas Thompson) train Kid Sunshine (Malcolm Xavier) for an upcoming championship bout at Madison Square Garden, the other working for JJ Cook (Billy Crudup), a crooked restaurateur and loan shark who sends Bud out with Roberto (Yul Vazquez) to collect money from deadbeats, luring the ex-boxer by promising to back Bud’s dream of owning a restaurant in Manhattan. Bud bounces between training at the gym and accompanying Roberto on visits to such clients as Stanley (David Johansen) and Colby (Michael Chermus), who owe JJ big bucks and are going to have to pay for it if they don’t pony up the money. Bud knows he’s getting in too deep, and soon he finds himself in a tough situation that sends his world into a dangerous tailspin.