Tag Archives: new york asian film festival

JAPAN CUTS — THE MOLE SONG: UNDERCOVER AGENT REIJI

Reiji Kikukawa (Toma Ikuta) goes undercover in Takashi Miike’s way-over-the-top yakuza flick THE MOLE SONG

THE MOLE SONG: UNDERCOVER AGENT REIJI (MOGURA NO UTA SENNYU SOUSAKAN REIJI) (Takashi Miike, 2013)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Thursday, July 10, 6:00
Festival runs July 10-20
212-715-1258
www.subwaycinema.com
www.japansociety.org

Multigenre master and cult legend Takashi Miike kicks off the annual Japan Cuts: The New York Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema with the U.S. premiere of his wild and wacky yakuza comedy-thriller, The Mole Song: Undercover Agent Reiji. Adapted from Noboru Takahashi’s popular manga series Mogura no Uta, the film stars Toma Ikuta (Hanazakari no Kimitachi e) as Reiji Kikukawa, a goofy but dedicated virgin cop (think a Japanese Dudley Do-Right) who is fired by Chief Sakami (Mitsuru Fukikoshi) so he can go undercover with the dangerous Sukiya-kai gang and ultimately capture its leader, Shuho Todoroki (Koichi Iwaki). Dressed in flashy clothes and sporting a ridiculous cockatoo-like mop of red hair, Reiji is soon taken under the wing of drug-hating made man and butterfly enthusiast Masaya Hiura (Shinichi Tsutsumi), aka “Crazy Papillon”; doing fierce battle with the short, bald, diamond-toothed, cat-loving Itsei Nekozawa (Takashi Okamura) from the rival Hachinosu-kai clan; cozying up to blonde MDMA dealer Shun Tsukihara (Takayuki Yamada); and being hunted down by tattoo-covered motorcycle-riding assassin Kenta Kurokawa (Yusuke Kamiji). All the while, Reiji keeps bumping into fellow cop and potential love interest Junna Wakagi (Riisa Naka), usually at the most inopportune of moments.

Written by Kankuro Kudo — who wrote Miike’s Zebraman films and wrote and directed another Japan Cuts selection, Maruyama, the Middle Schooler — The Mole Song has fun going way over the top, from Yuji Hayashida’s splendid production design to Nobuyasu Kita’s stellar cinematography to the actors themselves, who must have had quite a hard time trying to keep a straight face so much of the time. Miike, who references such previous cult classics of his as Ichi the Killer and Audition, does veer off course as he tries to figure out how to end the film, as the laughs start coming fewer and farther between, and the relationship between Reiji and Junna turns into more of an afterthought, but The Mole Song is still a blast, filled with zany surprises and unpredictable plot twists. A copresentation with the fourteenth annual New York Asian Film Festival, The Mole is screening July 10 at 6:00 at Japan Society.

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL: SOUL

A father (Jimmy Wang) and son (Joseph Chang Hsiao-Chuan) are trapped in a dark mystery that won’t let up in Chung Mong-Hong’s SOUL

SOUL (SHĪ HÚN) (Chung Mong-hong, 2013)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Walter Reade Theater
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Wednesday, July 9, 1:00
Festival continues through July 10
212-875-5600
www.filmlinc.com
www.subwaycinema.com

Taiwanese writer-director Chung Mong-Hong’s third feature film, following 2008’s Parking and 2010’s The Fourth Portrait, is an intense, meditatively paced thriller about family and identity. In Soul, wuxia legend Jimmy Wang (aka Jimmy Wong Yu) stars as Wang, a simple, understated old man living in a reclusive house in the mountains. After his chef son, Ah-Chuan (Joseph Chang Hsiao-Chuan), suddenly collapses in the city and is brought back to his childhood home, strange things start occurring, as Ah-Chuan seems different and dead bodies begin to pile up. It turns out that Ah-Chuan’s soul has temporarily left his body, replaced by another, not-quite-so-gentle being, leading to yet more trouble, especially because Wang’s goofy policeman nephew, Little Wu (Vincent Liang), continues to hang around, sensing that something suspicious might be going on. The Taiwanese entry for Best Foreign Language Film for the 2014 Oscars, Soul is a gripping, surreal tale that unfolds with a cool calm that can explode at any moment, and then does. Shaw Brothers veteran Wang, who wrote, directed, and starred in such martial arts classics as The Chinese Boxer and Master of the Flying Guillotine, is sensational as Uncle Wang, playing the role with an assured, self-possessed composure despite the hell the old man finds himself in.

Jimmy Wang gives a carefully measured performance in NYAFF psychological thriller

Chang (Eternal Summer, Au Revoir Taipei) is a strong counterpart to Wang, combining inner strength with just the right amount of mystery and danger. As in his previous films, which also include the 2011 short Reverberation and the 2006 documentary Doctor, Chung also serves as cinematographer, using the pseudonym Nagao Nakashima, and the gorgeous photography is like a character unto itself, bathing the film in lush earth tones that add yet another level to the lovely perplexity of it all. Soul is having its New York premiere at the 2014 New York Asian Film Festival, its second screening taking place at the Walter Reade Theater on July 9 at 1:00; Wang was initially due to attend the festival as a special guest but had to cancel due to unforeseen circumstances. The thirteenth annual NYAFF continues through July 10 with some five dozen films, including Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s My Man, Lee Joon-ik’s Hope, Kim Byeong-woo’s The Terror Live, and Kang Woo-suk’s Public Enemy, before leading into the eleven-day Japan Cuts series at Japan Society.

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL: NO MAN’S LAND

Ning Hao’s NO MAN’S LAND is finally making its North American premiere, at the NYAFF

NO MAN’S LAND (WESTERN SUNSHINE) (Ning Hao, 2009)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Walter Reade Theater
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Aves.
Tuesday, July 1, 9:15
Festival continues through July 10
212-875-5600
www.filmlinc.com
www.subwaycinema.com

Finally getting its North American premiere after being banned in its home country of China, Ning Hao’s No Man’s Land is a violently beautiful black comedy that takes on modernization and commercialization with tongue firmly and riotously rooted deep in cheek. Xu Zhen stars as Pan Xiao, a young hotshot lawyer, if he does say so himself, who gets a vicious falcon poacher (Duo Bujie) off for killing a cop. The poacher promises to wire Pan his fee, but the lawyer instead demands collateral in the form of the red car the poacher bought for his dead wife. Pan then sets out for home, riding across the Gobi desert in Xinjiang in northwest China, but things don’t go too well for him, as he keeps getting involved with strange, dangerous, ever-more-surreal men and women, from a pair of truck drivers transporting hay (Wang Shuangbao and Sun Jianmin) to an extortionist gas station owner (Yan Xinming) and his back-room prostitute (Yu Nan) to another falcon poacher (Huang Bo) who can’t avoid getting the crap beaten out of him time and time again. But Pan keeps trying to persevere, believing he is better than everyone around him, but it takes him quite a while to learn his lesson, if he ever really does.

NO MAN’S LAND pays homage to such genre films as BLOOD SIMPLE, THE ROAD WARRIOR, and RED ROCK WEST

Gorgeously photographed in a desert palette by Du Jie and featuring a noirish neo-spaghetti Eastern score by Nathan Wang, No Man’s Land is a thoroughly entertaining genre picture that pays tribute to such forebears as the Coen brothers’ Blood Simple and Raising Arizona, George Miller’s The Road Warrior, John Dahl’s Red Rock West, and the Quentin Tarantino / Robert Rodriguez collaborations. Hao (Crazy Racer, Mongolian Ping Pong) is in firm control of his wacky tale, which is lovingly paced even as the craziness reaches major proportions. Xu (Lost in Thailand) and Duo (Mountain Patrol: Kekexili) manage to gain sympathy for their characters despite all outward appearances, making for an engaging and unusual kind of odd couple. No Man’s Land is a helluva lot of fun, exactly the kind of film we’ve come to expect from the New York Asian Film Festival, where it will be screening July 1 at 9:15 at the Walter Reade Theater. The thirteenth annual NYAFF continues through July 10 with some five dozen films, including Park Joong-hoon’s Top Star, Kim Ki-duk’s Moebius, Hitoshi Matsumoto’s R100, and Matt Chow’s Chickensss before leading into the two-week Japan Cuts series at Japan Society.

JAPAN CUTS: THE KIRISHIMA THING

Life is turned upside down and inside out when a high school hero suddenly and unexpectedly disappears in THE KIRISHIMA THING

THE KIRISHIMA THING (Daihachi Yoshida, 2012)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Sunday, July 14, 7:30
Japan Cuts series continues through July 28
212-715-1258
www.subwaycinema.com
www.japansociety.org

Life goes completely out of whack when a massively popular student suddenly and mysteriously disappears in Daihachi Yoshida’s splendid examination of the trials and travails of high school, The Kirishima Thing. With no advance warning, superstar athlete and dreamy stud Kirishima can’t be found, missing class and volleyball practice, thoroughly confusing his friends and teammates. His girlfriend, the beautiful Risa (Mizuki Yamamoto), doesn’t know where he is. Risa’s clique of cool girls, including Sana (Mayu Matsuoka), Mika (Kurumi Shimizu), and Kasumi (Ai Hashimoto), start growing apart. The not extremely talented Koizumi (Taiga) is forced to replace Kirishima on the volleyball team. Aya (Suzuka Ohgo) plays sax on a rooftop while actually spying on her secret crush, the handsome Hiroki (Masahiro Higashide), who is Sana’s girlfriend and Kirishima’s best friend. Another of Kirishima’s friends, Ryuta (Motoki Ochiai), shows up to school with ridiculously curly hair. And Kasumi begins spending more time with nerd-geek Ryoya (Ryunosuke Kamiki), who decides to defy his film teacher by going ahead and making the zombie flick Student Council of the Living Dead. Tensions heat up, fears rise to the surface, and standard hierarchical relationships go significantly off kilter as Kirishima’s unexplained absence affects everyone’s position in high school society and makes them reexamine the purpose of their young lives. Based on the omnibus novel Kirishima, Bukatsu Yamerutteyo (“Did You Hear Kirishima Quit?”) by Ryo Asai, The Kirishima Thing cleverly deals with genre clichés as Yoshida (Permanent Nobara, The Wonderful World of Captain Kuhio) and cowriter Kohei Kiyasu tackle the myriad issues that face teenagers on a daily basis, evoking both Beckett and Kurosawa through a John Hughes-like lens with scenes that are retold from multiple viewpoints but don’t provide any firm answers. Winner of Best Picture, Best Director, Most Popular Film, and Outstanding Achievement in Editing at the 2013 Japan Academy Prize awards show, The Kirishima Thing is screening July 14 at 7:30 at Japan Society as part of the Japan Cuts series, a copresentation with the New York Asian Film Festival.

JAPAN CUTS: THERMAE ROMAE

Public baths architect Lucius Modestus (Hiroshi Abe) is amazed by what he sees as he travels back and forth through time in THERMAE ROMAE

THERMAE ROMAE (Hideki Takeuchi, 2012)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Sunday, July 14, 5:15
Series runs July 11-21
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Adapted from Mari Yamazaki’s popular manga series, Thermae Romae is a bizarre, hysterical tale about the importance of public baths throughout history. In the year 128, architect Lucius Modestus (Hiroshi Abe) has lost his mojo, losing his job to a youngster with more modern ideas and being hounded by his wife to have greater ambition. Down on his luck, he is contemplating his bleak future when he sees a crack at the bottom of a pool, which sucks him into a contemporary Japanese bath house where a bunch of old men are relaxing. The confused fish out of water is amazed by what he sees, from bottled drinks to a clothing basket, and upon magically returning to Rome, he adds these elements to a new bath design that is a huge hit. Soon, every time he goes into water in Rome, he ends up in Japan, bumping into the adorable Mami Yamakoshi (Aya Ueto) and bringing back more ideas, eventually designing bath houses for Emperor Hadrian (Masachika Ichimura), who believes the public bath is a key way to maintain a good relationship with the common people. But despite his success, Lucius can’t help feeling like a fraud, and things only get more complicated when he gets involved in the political machinations of Rome revolving around Hadrian’s successor, either the dedicated Antoninus (Kai Shishido) or self-obsessed womanizer Ceionius (Kazuki Kitamura). Abe is a riot as Lucius, displaying wonderful deadpan flare as he stands naked in front of men and women, refers to the modern-day folk as a flat-faced tribe, and gazes in wonder at a flush toilet. His trips from Rome to Japan evoke the tunnel in Being John Malkovich, complete with appropriately goofy special effects. Writer Shōgo Mutō and director Hideki Takeuchi keep things moving at a playful pace, celebrating social interaction as well as potential romance, complete with a fun Greek chorus of Japanese bath lovers. A sequel has just come out in Japan, but you can catch the first film on July 14 at 5:15 as part of the annual “Japan Cuts” series at Japan Society, which runs July 11-21 and includes such other works as Takashi Miike’s Lesson of the Evil, Yukihiro Toda’s There Is Light, Yuki Tanada’s The Cowards Who Looked to the Sky, Mika Ninagawa’s Helter Skelter, and Keishi Otomo’s Rurouni Kenshin, many of which are copresentations with the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s New York Asian Film Festival.

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL: MYSTERY

Yongzhao (Qin Hao) leads a double life in Lou Ye’s Asian Film Awards winner MYSTERY

MYSTERY (Lou Ye, 2012)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Wednesday, July 3, 5:45, and Thursday, July 11, 1:00
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
www.wildbunch.biz

Controversial Sixth Generation director Lou Ye, who scored an international hit with 2000’s Suzhou River but whose work is regularly banned by Chinese authorities, officially returns to his homeland with Mystery, a complex tale that weaves together two main stories in the centrally located city of Wuhan. The dark film opens with a young woman, Xiaomin (Chang Fangyuan), getting mowed down by a car racing down the highway on a rainy night. Meanwhile, the married Sang Qi (Qi Xi) tells her new friend, single mother Lu Jie (Hao Lei), that she thinks her husband, Yongzhao (Qin Hao), is having an affair, but both women soon have more surprises in store for them as an intricate web of infidelity, betrayal, obsession, lies, class, cover-ups, and payoffs slowly reveals itself. Written by Lou (Purple Butterfly, Summer Palace) with Mei Feng and Yu Fan, Mystery, a selection of the Un Certain Regard sidebar at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and Best Picture, Best Screenwriter, and Best Newcomer (Qi Xi) winner at the Asian Film Awards, is a moody, often uneasy work that tries too hard to confuse the viewer yet still manages to be compelling as things eventually come into focus. Inspired by three stories Mei found on the internet about changing social structures on the mainland, the film ends with unexpected violence that Lou was forced to edit for the Chinese release, leading him to remove his name from that version. Mystery is having its North American premiere July 3 & 11 at the Walter Reade Theater as part of the New York Asian Film Festival, which continues through July 15 with works from China, Japan, Thailand, Korea, the Philippines, and other countries, including Jang Cheol-Soo’s Secretly Greatly, Hideo Nakata’s The Complex, Jeong Byeong-Gil’s Confession of Murder, Johnnie To’s Drug War, Takashi Miike’s Lesson of the Evil, and a retrospective of Taiwanese director Tsai Yang-Ming.

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL / JAPAN CUTS: MONSTERS CLUB

MONSTERS CLUB is another offbeat and unusual tale from Toshiaki Toyoda

MONSTERS CLUB (MONSUTAZU KURABU) (Toshiaki Toyoda, 2011)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Sunday, July 15, 6:00
Japan Cuts series continues through July 28
212-715-1258
www.subwaycinema.com
www.japansociety.org

Two years ago, Japanese auteur Toshiaki Toyoda presented The Blood of Rebirth at the New York Asian Film Festival and Japan Cuts, his first movie in four years following a hiatus involving drug charges, as well as his previous work, 2005’s extraordinary Hanging Garden. The iconoclastic Osaka-born director of such other films as Blue Spring and 9 Souls is now back at the dual festivals with his latest, another bizarre, offbeat tale, Monsters Club. Inspired by Unabomber Ted Kaczynski’s manifesto that called for revolution, Toyoda has crafted another surreal mood piece that can be as mesmerizing as it is frustrating and silly. Ryoichi Kakiuchi stars as Eita, a quiet, disciplined young man who has quit society and instead lives in the middle of a snowy forest, where he calmly chops wood, cleans his cabin, and sends out letter bombs to kill corrupt corporate executives and politicians. There he is visited by his supposedly dead brother, Yuki (Yôsuke Kubozuka), as well as a strange, haunting face-painted creature (Pyuupiru) who is an oddly charming mix of Sid Haig’s freakish Captain Spaulding from House of 1000 Corpses and Hayao Miyazaki’s adorable Totoro. But soon the idyllic little life Eita has built for himself is threatened as he discovers it’s not so easy to escape from today’s must-stay-connected world. A weirdly meditative tone poem, Monsters Club is screening at Japan Society on July 15 at 6:00 and will be followed by a Q&A with director Toyoda.