New York Asian Film Festival 2012: Review Roundup

The New York Asian Film Festival kicked off last night, and it will continue at the Walter Reade Theater, Japan Society, and Tribeca Cinemas through July 15. Click here for more info and to purchase tickets.

My NYAFF 2012 preview is now up over at Film-Forward. Below are brief reviews of the opening night films.

War of the Arrows (Kim Han-min)


A costume drama of breathless immediacy, Kim’s third feature employs the Manchu War of 1636, during which the Qing Dynasty of China invaded and enslaved hundreds of thousands of Koreans, as the backdrop for thrilling chases and convincing scenes of archery. The second half of the film is basically an extended chase scene, and the opening sequence hits the ground running, as an accused traitor is hunted down and executed in front of his two children, themselves in hiding from the authorities. Cut to 13 years later, and the two grown-up siblings Nam-Yi (Park Hae-il) and his younger sister Ja-in (Moon Chae-won) have been raised by friends of their father, with Ja-in about to marry Seo-Goon (Kim Mu-yeol), the son of the family. Nam-Yi fritters away his days in drunken despair over forever being branded the son of a traitor, and though he vehemently opposes his sister’s marriage, he is powerless to prevent it. On his sister’s wedding day, his family has the misfortune of being directly in the path of the Manchu invaders, and his sister, along with their entire village, is captured and enslaved. Nam-Yi escapes the carnage and finds a renewed sense of purpose in fulfilling his father’s parting directive to take care of his sister, and relentlessly pursues the invaders to rescue his sister. Standing in his way is Jyu Shin-ta (Ryu Seung-ryong), a methodical, cold-blooded killer who is the head of an elite squad of Qing Dynasty troops. They pursue each other by proxy as Shin-ta follows Nam-Yi’s trail of fallen Manchu soldiers. This is superior action filmmaking in every sense, with camerawork as swift as the arrows that soar throughout, and an uncomplicated, primal heroes-and-villains story rendered with plain and direct, yet incredibly elegant freshness.

Vulgaria (Pang Ho-cheung)

Hong Kong director Pang is often at his best in bawdy comedy mode (Men Suddenly In Black, AV), and his latest film Vulgaria, NYAFF’s opening night film, finds him firing on all cylinders. Based, according to its director, on actual incidents in the Hong Kong film industry, Pang has made an incredibly filthy movie that achieves its perversity solely through dialog, without a trace of nudity … without human nudity, anyway. In this sense, you could see Pang as Hong Kong’s answer to Kevin Smith, except with actual filmmaking talent. Framed as the recollections of an opportunistic, scruples-free producer (Chapman To) spinning true-life tales in front of a class of film students, Vulgaria’s jokes and gags come fast and furious, and they all hit their targets. A certain level of familiarity with the Hong Kong film industry, especially its Category III sex-and-violence sector, will be required to get all the jokes. (It especially helps if you’ve seen the recent HK softcore saga 3D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy, whose star Hiro Hayama here plays himself). All the actors are game, and acquit themselves with riveting energy and verve, as they navigate this world of triad investors, product placement, extreme cuisine, and as the hilarious cherry on top, drunken bestiality (perhaps Clerks 2 was an inspiration here?). Among Vulgaria’s many delightful qualities is a fantastic breakout performance by Dada Chan as a model/aspiring actress/video game designer named Popping Candy, so called because of her unique blow-job technique. She takes what in other hands would be a throwaway role and transforms it into a soulful one, and makes clear that there is a fierce intelligence behind her pulchritudinous beauty.

Boxer’s Omen (Kuei Chih-hung)

This bizarre (to put it very mildly) Shaw Brothers horror/fantasy production from 1983 has a thin sliver of a plot involving a man (Philip Ko) who travels to Thailand to get revenge against a kickboxer (Bolo Yeung) who killed his brother in the rung during a match. But this is where things get weird: he goes to a Buddhist temple to get help from the monks, and gets caught up in a good-and-evil battle spanning centuries. This is the type of movie the term “midnight movie” was custom made for. The extreme, gross-out imagery – a character consumes his own regurgitated food, which is regurgitated again and stuffed into a corpse’s mouth, which is then sewn into the skin of an alligator – only escalates, with ever scanter logic, with each minute of screen time. Bats, spiders, skulls with their brains made into soup, a writing zombie woman (emerging from an alligator corpse) who is later flayed and dissolved into maggots – all these and more, so much more, are thrown at us in a nearly sadistic assault on the senses. Add to that a couple of entirely gratuitous sex scenes, and you have the kind of what-the-fuck whatsit that you’ll only find at NYAFF.

New York Asian Film Festival 2011 Review: Ryoo Seung-wan's "City of Violence"

City of Violence (Jjakpae). 2006. Directed by Ryoo Seung-wan. Written by Kim Jeong-min, Lee Won-jae, and Ryoo Seung-wan. Produced by Ryoo Seung-wan and Kim Jeong-min. Cinematography by Yeong-cheol. Edited by Nam Na-yeong. Music by Bang Jun-seok. Martial arts direction by Jung Doo-hong.

Cast: Ryoo Seung-wan, Jung Doo-hong, Lee Beom-soo, Jeong Seok-yong, Ahn Kil-kang, Lee Joo-sil, Kim Byeong-ok, Kim Hyo-seon, Kim Kkobbi.

Ryoo Seung-wan, a favorite and frequent guest of the New York Asian Film Festival, has two films in this year's edition: The Unjust, his latest and one of his best, a sprawling tale of urban corruption and moral corrosion; and a retrospective screening of the swift-moving, down-and-dirty action flick City of Violence. Below is what I wrote on this film when it screened at the 2007 New York Asian Film Festival.

City of Violence, Ryoo Seung-wan’s lean and limber 92-minute noir, is very much a back-to-basics production after his previous, more ambitious films Arahan and his most impressive work to date, Crying Fist. Even though the knee-jerk reaction would be to identify Quentin Tarantino as his principal influence, a much more apt comparison would be the Shaw Brothers epics of the ‘70s, such as The Five Venoms, which Ryoo has expressed his great admiration for. City of Violence is anchored by its incredibly energetic and acrobatic action scenes, choreographed by his lead actor and long-time martial arts consultant Jung Doo-hong.

Jung plays Tae-su, a Seoul detective who returns to his childhood home of Onseong after the murder of Wang-jae (Ahn Gil-gang), one of his old friends. He reunites with his old crew, including Sukhwan (Ryoo Seung-wan) and Pil-ho (Lee Beom-soo). Pil-ho has become a powerful gang boss who, in a bid for legitimate respectability, is working to build a casino to make the town a major tourist attraction. Pil-ho tells Tae-su how the murder occurred (this scene is replayed multiple times, Rashomon-like, throughout the film). However, after visiting Wang-jae’s widow, Tae-su immediately smells a rat, and suspects that he hasn’t been told the entire truth. He decides to remain in Onseong and investigate the murder. Sukhwan, also suspicious, assists Tae-su.

City of Violence is so swift and relentless that one only notices its flaws on later reflection. Tae-su’s sudden realization of Wang-jae’s true killer doesn’t quite make sense, and the flashbacks to his friend’s younger days are rather awkward. However, while watching the film, these weaknesses seem to be minor since the movie contains enough style and verve to overcome them. City of Violence contains two impressive set pieces. One occurs early in the film, when Tae-su is confronted by scores of high-schoolers – uniform-clad schoolgirls, break dancers, motorcycle punks – whom he must fend off, each with their own weapons and fighting styles. The other is the film’s final fight scene in an inn, where Tae-su and Sukhwhan are armed with swords, battling dozens of henchmen (and one woman), and crashing through sliding screen doors and up and down staircases. To put it in musical terms, if Ryu’s previous film Crying Fist was his orchestral piece, then City of Violence is his garage band record: fast, loud, and somewhat ragged, but containing very entertaining and catchy riffs.

City of Violence screens July 13, 3:30pm at the Walter Reade Theater, with director Ryoo Seung-wan in attendance. For tickets, visit the New York Asian Film Festival and Film Society of Lincoln Center websites.

New York Asian Film Festival/Japan Cuts 2011 Review: Hisayasu Sato's "Love and Loathing and Lulu and Ayano"

Love and Loathing and Lulu and Ayano (Namae no nai onnatachi). 2010. Directed by Hisayasu Sato. Written by Naoko Nishida, based on the book "Women Without Names" by Atsuhiko Nakamura. Produced by Ryoji Kobayashi and Koichi Kusakabe. Cinematography by Kazuhiro Suzuki. Edited by Hiromitsu Yamanaka. Music by Jun Kawabata. Production design and art direction by Kaori Haga. Sound by Ataru Ueda.

Cast: Norie Yasui, Mayu Sakuma, Makiko Watanabe, Ini Kusano, Hirofumi Arai, Aya Kiguchi, Yuji Tajiri.

(Note: this review has been cross-posted on VCinema.)

This year’s New York Asian Film Festival and Japan Cuts festival is graced by new films by two of the “Kings of Pink,” directors who made their name in “pink films,” softcore Japanese sex films.  One is Takahisa Zeze’s Heaven’s Story, a sprawling 4½ hour examination of the aftermath of two murders which leaves the pink genre altogether, brimming with passion and ambition.  The other is Hisayasu Sato’s Love and Loathing and Lulu and Ayano, which is somewhat more connected to his sex-film roots, since it is set in the porn film industry.  Sato’s film is a hard-as-nails examination of this industry, based on Atsuhiko Nakamura’s nonfiction book Women Without Names, a collection of interviews with porn actresses. Accompanied by vertiginous images of Tokyo’s streetscapes, and often peering into puddles and gutters, the film is a quietly disturbing look at how personas are given and created, and how they can be simultaneously liberating and imprisoning. Love and Loathing and Lulu and Ayano is a porn Pygmalion, in which sleazy recruiters and promoters exploit women and trade them as commodities for entertainment value.  The women are very much aware of this, but they manage to derive some emotional value from this work and try to navigate through this sordid world and to find some personal space and freedom within it.

Mousy office girl Junko (Norie Yasui) has long been dominated by her sexually profligate mother (Makiko Watanabe), and is a withdrawn, shy presence at her office-drone job.  She finds very unlikely liberation from this restricted existence by a porn promoter whom she encounters on the street, who asks her the key question that opens her up to a new world: “Wouldn’t it be fun if you could become someone else?”  This someone else, suggested by the director of her first porn shoot, is a blue-haired, sailor suit wearing otaku character named Lulu.  She takes to the work very quickly, reveling in the double life she leads and her secret satisfaction that she is not the worthless person her mother thinks she is; strangers watch her, desire her, and send her fan letters.  Lulu has a rival in Ayano (Mayu Sakuma), a violent woman who immediately resents Lulu’s meek demeanor and naïveté; however, Ayano eventually warms to Lulu and comes to be protective of her.  The stardom Lulu has gained from being in porn also brings its dangers, most pertinently in the form of an overweight otaku (Ini Kusano) who sends Lulu her first fan letter, along with many more, and begins stalking her.  Lulu’s predatory promoter takes advantage of Lulu’s willingness to do anything on screen to steer her toward ever more physically dangerous, even life threatening, video shoots.  All these situations threaten to completely implode Lulu’s existence.

Love and Loathing and Lulu and Ayano is a sort of a meta-porn, a film that deconstructs the makings of this sort of film, utilizing a plot which could be that of a porn film itself.  The repressed woman’s awakening to her hidden sexual nature is a perennial plot of porn and many forms of erotic art.  The film is anchored by two fine and convincing performances by Yasui and Sakuma, portraying the newbie and the veteran who both find their own ways of escape from, or at least freedom within, their prisons.  Sato explores it all with a hard-edged, unsentimental eye, a nonjudgmental and non-stereotypical stance that makes this a film (mostly) not for titillation, and insistent of the dignity of its characters, and by extension, the real women who work in the sex-film industry.  Alternating between steely near-monochrome and lurid color (especially in a very violent and bloody scene near the conclusion), Sato’s film departs from the more extreme imagery and subject matter of his previous work (which depicted bestiality, rape, and most notoriously, self-cannibalism) to deliver an emotionally and psychologically penetrating film.

New York Asian Film Festival/Japan Cuts 2011 Review: Yu Irie's "Ringing in Their Ears"

Ringing in Their Ears (Gekijouban Shinsei Kamattechan: Rokkun roru wa nari tomaranai). 2011. Written, directed and edited by Yu Irie. Cinematography by Kazuhiro Mimura. Music by Shoji Ikenaga. Art direction by Naoko Hara. Sound by Osamu Shimizu.

Cast: Fumi Nikaido, Kurumi Morishita, Kiyotaka Uji, Yui Miura, Tatsuya Sakamoto, Maki Sakai, Mikito Tsurugi, Keisuke Horibe, Shinsei Kamattechan (Noko, Mono, Chibagin, Misako).

(Note: This review has been cross-posted on VCinema.)

Yu Irie’s last two films, 8000 Miles and 8000 Miles 2, detailed the travails of aspiring Japanese underground hip-hop artists.  With his latest, Ringing in Their Ears, Yu shifts to a rock milieu, an expansion of focus, and a leap of structural ambition, offering an Altmanesque multi-character narrative centering on Shinsei Kamattechan, a real-life rock band whose members play themselves.  The narrative is driven by a musical ticking time bomb, counting down to an upcoming performance by the band; there is a bit of suspense concerning whether Noko, the band’s mercurial, reclusive lead singer, will even show up for the gig.  As with many other details, this reflects reality outside the film; Noko assiduously avoids the press and refuses to participate in band interviews.  The narrative strand directly involving the band finds the group at a turning point in their career, having signed to a major label after gaining a large following on the internet.  Again, this has a real-life parallel; Shinsei Kamattechan was signed to Warner Music Japan last year after building their following with surreal homemade videos on You Tube, and a successful indie album release.  In the film, the band faces the perennial dilemma that comes from being on the verge of mainstream stardom: whether to “sell out” by making a bid for broad audience appeal, or remaining true to the essence of what attracted their fans in the first place, even if this retards their progress in conventional career terms.  This choice is presented to the band’s manager by an arrogant, bullying record company executive, who wants the band to change its image and rewrite one of their songs as a positive anthem to encourage hikikomori (pathological social shut-ins) to emerge from their rooms.  The manager, almost certain the band won’t go for it, gingerly, and reluctantly, tries to bring up the subject with the group.

While the band prepares for its show, we are taken into the lives of other characters whose crises orbit the group, and who are all connected with this music in some way.  Kaori (Kurumi Morishita), an office cleaning lady by day and an exotic dancer by night, is also a harried single mother driven to distraction by dealing with her son Ryota (Tatsuya Sakamoto), who won’t let go of the laptop given him by his estranged dad, and who horrifies his teachers by leading his kindergarten classmates in choruses of very morbid Shinsei Kamattechan lyrics.  Kaori wants to take the night off from the club to see the band in concert, but her boss gives her a hard time, threatening to replace her with younger girls.  Meanwhile, high-school girl Michiko (Fumi Nikaido) obsessively pursues her dream of becoming a shogi (Japanese chess) champion, which drives a wedge between herself and everyone around her, including her father – who increasingly resents her rebelliousness and who Michiko blames for turning her brother into a hikikomori – and her cheating boyfriend, who gives her a CD of the band’s music to listen to.

The film shuttles back and forth between the band and the parallel storylines, building to a crescendo with an impressively edited final sequence on the day of the show, in which all the narrative lines converge into an ecstatic explosion affirming the power of rock and roll, and most especially the passionate and idiosyncratic brand that Shinsei Kamattechan practices.  Their music is a vessel that allows their fans to express their hidden feelings and desires, allowing them to experience epiphanies and to break out of prisons both self-imposed and created by society.

Irie gets major points for ambition and well-drawn characters, but the grand statement he is clearly going for remains elusive, since his style of filmmaking rarely rises above the functional.  One hopes for more of a transcendent feeling from this film, for more poetry and less prose.  Still, Ringing in Their Ears nicely captures the power of a song, and the myriad ways it can hit listeners in the deepest and most personal places.

Ringing in Their Ears, a co-presentation of the New York Asian Film Festival and the Japan Cuts Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema, screens July 7, 9pm at Japan Society and July 11, 1:30pm at the Walter Reade Theater. For tickets, visit the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Japan Society websites.

        

New York Asian Film Festival 2011 Review: Lee Seo-goon's "The Recipe"

The Recipe (Doenjang). 2010. Directed by Lee Seo-goon. Written by Jang Jin and Lee Seo-goon. Produced by Jang Jin. Cinematography by Na Hee-seok. Edited by Kim Sang-bum. Music by Han Jae-gweon. Production design by Jang Seok-jin. Costume design by Kim Heui-ju. Sound by Choi Tae-yeong. Visual effects by Park Eui-dong.

Cast: Ryoo Seung-ryong (Choi Yu-jin), Lee Yo-won (Jang Hye-jin), Lee Dong-wook (Kim Hyun-soo), Cho Seong-ha (Chairman Park), Ryoo Seung-mok (Kim Jong-gu).

(Note: this review has been cross-posted on New Korean Cinema.)


A mystical and magical concoction, much like the doenjang jjigae (soybean paste stew) dish that it revolves around, Lee Seo-goon’s second feature The Recipe hinges on a brilliant bit of narrative misdirection.  Choi Yu-jin (Ryoo Seung-ryong), the producer/host of a sensationalistic TV expose program, is tipped by a prospective intern to an odd last statement given by Kim Jong-gu (Ryoo Seung-mok), a fearsome serial killer, on the day of his execution.  Jong-gu longingly utters the word “Doenjang.” (This is also the film’s Korean title.)  He goes on to express his wish for another bowl of the stew.  As we’ve been conditioned to do by so many other films, we expect to be taken into the convoluted past and secrets of this criminal, and indeed, this is the initial path Yu-jin pursues in his investigation.  However, to Yu-jin’s and our great surprise, Jong-gu quickly disappears as a significant character and instead the focus shifts to what would in any other film would be a peripheral figure: the woman who made the dish that mesmerized the criminal, allowing this fugitive to be taken in by the police and put to death.  This cook is one Jang Hye-jin (Lee Yo-won), and soon the story shifts to Yu-jin’s investigation of her life, and more specifically, the love affair that led to her own death in a car accident.  Along the way, Yu-jin learns the intricacies of doenjang making and is told about the metaphysical qualities of Hye-jin’s special brand, which mysteriously attracts butterflies, resurrects deadened taste buds, contains scientifically impossible 100% pure salt, and which proves to be a physical manifestation of her equally pure love for Kim Hyun-soo (Lee Dong-wook).  Yu-jin searches for this man, to get to the bottom of the enigma that is Hye-jin’s magical stew.

Free-wheeling mixing and matching of genres is a very much a hallmark of Korean cinema, and The Recipe takes this to a new level.  Lee’s film contains many different narrative modes and methods within it: the crime drama, the road movie, the romance, the melodrama, and the ghost story, with some off-kilter comic elements, and even an animated sequence, stirred into the mix.  On paper, this would seem like an impossibly unstable object; however, Lee’s sure and steady directorial hand, and the gorgeous and dreamy imagery she lends to her magical-realist tale, prevents it all from sinking into incoherence.  Lee Seo-goon, also known as Anna Lee, was the screenwriter (at 19!) of Park Chul-soo’s bizarre and satirical 301/302 (1995), which also had a very strong food-based theme.  But where that film depicts psychological imbalance and existential angst, The Recipe has a far gentler and more lyrical tone.  The film’s titular dish takes on an allegorical import that goes beyond mere food; its connection to nature and the land, and its representation of tradition and historical memory expands its meaning into a metaphor for the nation itself.  Hyun-soo’s status as a dual Korean/Japanese citizen, and the hinted-at colonial legacy which serves to drive the lovers apart, serves to make that metaphor explicit.

The Recipe, among its many other virtues, is a foodie film extraordinaire; it deserves to stand next to films such as Tampopo (1985), Babette’s Feast (1987), and Like Water for Chocolate (1992) as another classic of this genre.  Produced and co-written by writer-director Jang Jin (Guns and Talks, Good Morning President), Lee’s second film arrives 12 years after her debut feature Rub Love (1998).  Let’s hope this incredibly talented filmmaker doesn’t take nearly that long to make her next one.

The Recipe screens at the Walter Reade Theater on July 5 at 3:45pm and July 9 at 7pm.  For tickets, visit the New York Asian Film Festival and The Film Society of Lincoln Center websites.

New York Asian Film Festival 2011 Review: Jun Tsugita's "Horny House of Horror"

Horny House of Horror (Fasshon heru). 2010. Written and directed by Jun Tsugita. Produced by Hideomi Nagahama and Shin Hayasaka. Cinematography by Shin Hayasaka. Edited by Katsutoshi Usa and Jun Tsugita. Music by Piranha Orchestra. Art direction by Ryuji Hayakawa.

Cast: Saori Hara, Asami, Mint Suzuki, Yuya Ishikawa, Toushi Yanagi, Wani Kansai, Akira Murota, Demo Tanaka, Takashi Nishina.

(Note: this review has been cross-posted on VCinema.)

Jun Tsugita’s pink film/horror hybrid Horny House of Horror goes all Grand Guignol on us with its absurdly copious amounts of blood, which sprays with frequency and gleeful abandon.  As such, the film makes full use of the talents of gore effects master Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police) to relate its tale of three hapless friends who fall into the clutches of the titular trap for randy male customers.  There is a soupcon of social commentary here, mostly dealing with the euphemistic nature of the sort of sex parlor that the film satirizes; as the animated opening tells us, these happy-ending massage emporiums are called “fashion health” centers to get around Japan’s anti-prostitution laws.  The film’s Japanese title, Fashion Hell, is a play on words: “hell”/”health.”  The purpose of this down-and-dirty, quickie exploitation flick (albeit given a 21^st century digital sheen), is fairly straightforward: to titillate with its abundant female flesh, and to keep us in awe at how creatively flesh can rend and tear on screen.  As a horror film, it’s not really all that horrifying: there’s too much of a jocular air for that.  Much of the carnage is directed toward the vulnerable male member, the special target of the homicidal sex workers of the massage parlor.

The three victims are friends and amateur baseball players Nakazu (Yuya Ishikawa), Toshida (Wani Kansai), and Uno (Toushi Yanagi).  Nakazu has recently gotten married, and his friends incessantly rib him because of the cell-phone based short leash his wife keeps him on.  He professes to be a loyal and devoted husband, yet he doesn’t argue too strenuously when his friends drag him to Shogun, the massage parlor that will in short order become an insane charnel house of atrocity.  The three are matched up with Nagisa (Saori Hara), Nonoko (Asami), and Kaori (Mint Suzuki), the three girls of the house.  The pre-credits sequence shows Nagisa in action with another unfortunate client, who is subjected to a variation of sushi roll dining involving the man’s penis.  Think a variation of the denouement of In the Realm of the Senses (1976), but placed at the very beginning.  The three women are tasked with collecting the penises of their clients by their boss who monitors them through closed-circuit TV surveillance, for a reason that is never specified.  Much like Nakazu, who is slightly less of a pervert than his friends, Nagisa, the newbie sex worker, manages to retain the conscience and revulsion toward her work that her co-workers completely lack.  As the men very quickly cotton to the horrible predicament they have gotten themselves into, Nagisa switches sides and battles to escape from her workplace/prison.

The playing is as broad here as one would expect; Shakespearean-caliber performances are definitely not called for.  Hara, however, whose background is in hardcore pornography, gives some unexpected gravity to her character.  Asami, a veritable veteran of these kinds of films by now, is the force-of-nature spitfire she usually is, her tough-girl pose and her guttural screaming always fun to watch.  Tsugita, the screenwriter of Mutant Girls Squad (2010) making his directorial debut, delivers the sex-and-gore goods with maximum efficiency and minimum fuss.

A midnight movie if there ever was one, Horny House of Horror screens at exactly that time on July 1 (with a second screening on July 12 at 10:15pm), preceded by Makooto Ohtake’s short film Dark on Dark.  For tickets, visit the New York Asian Film Festival or the Film Society of Lincoln Center websites.

New York Asian Film Festival 2011 Review: Panna Rittikrai and Morakot Kaewthanee's "BKO: Bangkok Knockout"

BKO: Bangkok Knockout. 2010. Directed by Panna Rittikrai and Morakot Kaewthanee. Written by Dojit Hongthong and Jonathon Siminoe. Produced by Prachya Pinkaew, Akarapol Techaratanaprasert, and Panna Rittikrai. Cinematography by Pipat Payakka and Nontakorn Taweesook. Edited by Saravut Nakajud and Nontakorn Taweesook. Music by Terdsak Janpan. Art direction by Pongnarin Jonghawklang. Production design by Kasi Faengrod. Action choreography and stunt co-ordination by Thana Srisook. Martial choreography by Sumret Muengput. Sound FX and sound design by Snowman Studio. Costume design by Jaruwan Pongpipattanakarn.

Cast: Sorapong Chatree, Supaksorn Chaimongkol, Kiattisak Udomnak, Pimchanok Leuwisedpaiboon, Patrick Kazu Tang, "Fighting Club", Speedy Arnold.

(Note: this review has been cross-posted on VCinema.)

BKO: Bangkok Knockout, the title of Panna Rittikrai and Morakot Kaewthanee’s kinetic B-movie action spectacular, is an unabashedly crude and blunt statement of purpose, much like the film itself.  And what is that purpose? To pummel you into submission and keep you continually in awe at the stable of martial artists Rittikrai has put together, blowing past the paper-thin plotting and characterization, the broad, cartoonish humor, and the generally unsubtle nature of the proceedings.  And at that it succeeds swimmingly.  Rittikrai, fight choreographer and sometime director, has mentored such Thai action stars as Tony Jaa (the Ong Bak films) and Jeeja Yanin (Chocolate, Raging Phoenix).  Bangkok Knockout functions as a virtual audition for film audiences, or, more pertinently, a battle between these fighters as to who can be a worthy successor to, or competitor with, those two established stars.

The film rather impatiently breezes through its setup.  A bunch of fighters are lured into a competition with a tantalizing prize dangled in front of them: the promise to be stunt performers in Hollywood.  Instead, after a huge banquet with drugged food, they find themselves in a cavernous warehouse, the unwitting action figures in a human video game hosted by an arrogant, cigar-chomping American (played by an actor with the amusing name Speedy Arnold), and their arranged battles bet upon by farang high-rollers.  There’s a bit of a romantic love triangle between three of the fighters, and a similarly underdeveloped revenge story between two other fighters, but who gives a damn about any of that?  The film certainly doesn’t; the bulk of its running time is devoted to the ever more elaborately choreographed, outrageous, and dangerous fights – this is certainly a production that knows what its audience wants and delivers exactly that, with direct, uncomplicated brio.  Bangkok Knockout affords us such sensational sequences as: a metal-masked, ax-wielding man on fire; two men smashing each other through an indoor waterfall; two others swinging on a dizzyingly high beam over a highway; and most audaciously, the climactic fight that occurs underneath the chassis of a moving truck. Muay Thai, capoeira, kung fu, tai chi, and any number of other fighting styles – this film has it all, and more.  Critical evaluation is almost beside the point for a film like this; the coolness of the fight scenes is both means and end.  If pure martial-arts demonstration is your thing, unencumbered by such niceties as plot, complex characterization, and actual acting, then Bangkok Knockout is just what the cinema doctor ordered.

BKO: Bangkok Knockout screens at the Walter Reade Theater on July 2 at 12:15pm and July 9 at midnight. For tickets, visit the New York Asian Film Festival's website.

New York Asian Film Festival 2010 Review: Ye Daying's "Tian An Men"

Tian An Men. 2009. Directed by Ye Daying. Written by Wang Bing. Produced by Han Sanping. Cinematography by Yang Tao. Edited by Cheng Long. Music by Xu Xiangrong. Production design by Quan Rongzhe. Visual effects supervised by Feng Liwei. Sound by Gu Changning.

Cast: Pan Yueming, Liu Xiaoxin, Tian Lihe, Xin Peng, Guo Keyu, Masanobu Otsuka.

(Note: this review has also been cross-posted on Twitch.)

Aliens, ninjas, mutant girls, soft porn, ass-kicking martial arts, unclassifiable weirdness … the New York Asian Film Festival truly has something for everyone, and these elements are perennials of this festival that is now in its ninth year. Such creatures and film genres, in fact, should by now be expected sights at the NYAFF. However, one of the true oddities of this year’s selections is Ye Daying’s Tian An Men, a slightly modernized slice of straight-up PRC propaganda created for last year’s 60th anniversary of the 1949 founding of the People’s Republic of China. Tian An Men is very much a throwback to the Chinese state productions of the 1950s and 1960s which glorified China with heroic episodes from the country’s history. The most famous cinematic product of last year’s celebration/nostalgia trip in China was Huang Jianxin and Han Sanping’s The Founding of a Republic, a star-studded super-production that detailed the history leading up to the formation of Communist China. The cast was a veritable who’s-who of just about every significant star of mainland China and Hong Kong. Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Zhang Ziyi, Andy Lau, and Zhao Wei are but a few of the superstars who appeared in this film, mostly glimpsed in the briefest of blink-and-you-missed-them cameos. Alas, despite its blinding star-wattage, The Founding of a Republic was a tedious exercise in mind-numbing exposition, so obsessed with trivial detail and blindly reverential that it was practically unwatchable. Still, the film did extremely well, breaking box-office records, probably more because of the patriotism of its audience rather than any real enthusiasm about its quality.


Tian An Men is easily far superior to The Founding of a Republic, if only because it dramatizes one specific episode rather than being a vast but shallow panoramic historical portrait. The film concerns a group of People’s Liberation Army soldiers tasked with getting Tiananmen Square in proper shape for Chairman Mao Zedong to give his speech at the founding ceremony of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1, 1949. Tian An Men delves into the rather fascinating minutiae of the problems the PLA faced in accomplishing their mission in the scant month in which they had to do it. The most dramatic episodes concern the acquisition of red dye for banners, and the quest to find proper sized lanterns to adorn the stage where Mao will speak. This scenario, on paper, threatens to be unbearably boring, but Tian An Men avoids this potential pitfall due to its detailed specificity, handsome production design (with CGI post-production enhancement), solid if unspectacular performances, and its utterly straight-faced sincerity. Tiananmen Square, of course, is associated in most people’s minds today with a far more tragic period of Chinese history, but the film that bears its name mostly succeeds in making this reality not an insurmountable impediment to appreciating this film.

Tian An Men screens on July 8, 1:45pm at the Walter Reade Theater. Click here to purchase tickets.

Watch the Tian An Men trailer here.

New York Asian Film Festival 2010 Review: E J-yong's "Actresses"

Actresses (Yeobaewoodeul). 2009. Produced and directed by E J-yong. Written by Yoon Yeo-jeong, Lee Mi-sook, Choi Ji-woo, Ko Hyun-jung, Kim Min-hee and Kim Ok-vin. Cinematography by Hung Kyung-pyo. Edited by Hahm Sung-won and Ko Amo. Music by Jang Young-gyu and Lee Byung-hoon. Production design by Hong Joo-hee. Costume design by Cho Yoon-mi.

Cast: Yoon Yeo-jeong, Lee Mi-sook, Choi Ji-woo, Ko Hyun-jung, Kim Min-hee, Kim Ok-vin, Kim Ji-soo, Lee Ji-ah, Kim Yong-ho, Oh Je-hyeong, Ahn Ji-hye, Yoo Te-oh.

(Note: this review has been cross-posted on Twitch.)

“Curb Your Enthusiasm meets Korean TV drama” could be the tagline for E J-yong’s delightful Actresses, a semi-improvised comedy/drama featuring a sextet of actresses – Yoon Yeo-jeong (A Good Lawyer’s Wife, The President’s Last Bang, The Housemaid), Lee Mi-sook (An Affair, Untold Scandal, Hellcats), Choi Ji-woo (Winter Sonata, The Romantic President, Everybody Has Secrets), Ko Hyun-jung (Woman on the Beach, Like You Know It All), Kim Min-hee (Hellcats), and Kim Ok-vin (Dasepo Naughty Girls, Thirst) – all “playing themselves.” (I’ll explain the quotes later.) The entire film takes place during a Vogue fashion shoot on Christmas Eve, teasing out the camaraderie and conflicts that arise among these strong women with equally strong egos. The action plays out in near-real time, faux-documentary style. The actresses are a cross-section of different generations: Kim Ok-vin and Kim Min-hee are the youngest, in their 20’s; Ko Hyun-jung and Choi Ji-woo are in their 30’s; Lee Mi-sook is in her 40’s; and the eldest is Yoon Yeo-jeong, in her 60’s.


The most pronounced conflict in the film occurs between Ko and Choi, who very nearly come to blows. Because they are of the same generation, they are the most direct rivals. Choi, prior to the shoot, is the most anxious at meeting the other actresses: “Just imagining a bunch of actresses with strong egos in one place … It’s so scary!” These women have had similar experiences and would seem to have natural camaraderie, but the dog-eat-dog nature of the entertainment industry encourages rivalries that can often become very bitter. Actresses makes much of Choi’s huge stardom in Japan, mostly due to the massive popularity there of Winter Sonata, the 2002 Korean TV drama that was a smash hit across Asia, and was a major work of the hallyu (Korean pop-culture wave) phenomenon. This forms a major part of the rivalry between Choi and Ko, who wishes for similar pan-Asian popularity; Ko identifies as her personal rival Lee Young-ae, who achieved great popularity in China due to her work in the 2003 Korean TV drama Dae Jang Geum (Jewel in the Palace). There is a funny bit in which Choi is accosted by a trio of middle-aged Japanese women fans when she arrives at the shoot; this was the main fan base of Winter Sonata in Japan.

The opening epigram of Actresses states that “There are male, female, and actress in this world.” This illuminates a major theme of the film: actresses are put in a separate category from “normal” people, their every move subject to media scrutiny. Especially as women, they are judged much more harshly for getting divorced or other supposed peccadilloes, things that ordinary people experience every day without being put under a public microscope. Such things happen in many other places, of course, but this situation is much more pronounced in Korea, which still remains a very patriarchal society. Actresses is quite astute in its depiction of the elaborate apparatus of image-making which is a crucial part of both the film and fashion industries. The Vogue staff (who also portray themselves) are well aware they’re taking a big risk by having all of these actresses, along with their attendant egos and insecurities, in the same room together. Kim Ji-soo, the Vogue department head organizing the shoot, advises her staff, “Just keep telling them they’re pretty.” E pokes fun (perhaps; it could be sheer reportage) at some of the outlandish and rather silly concepts for fashion photo shoots. Two of the more amusing are Kim Ok-vin wearing a low-cut red dress while carrying a fishing pole, and Kim Min-hee donning a big pair of velvet bunny ears and eating a cream-topped cupcake.

The final half-hour of the film, where all the actresses gather around an improvised Christmas dinner with copious amounts of wine, is the most revealing. They discuss their rivalries, the difficulties of personal relationships and being actresses in Korea, the pressures of fame and being under constant public scrutiny, and the divorces of three of them – Ko, Yoon, and Lee. The only moment that comes across as somewhat false is when all the actresses break down in tears toward the end of their talk. Although they are mining very painful personal material for this scene, the suddenness with which this is introduced feels a bit forced and shoehorned in to unnecessarily underline the film’s themes.

Even though Actresses is billed as featuring actresses “playing themselves,” its most clever gambit is in forcing the viewer to question what that really means. Much of the actresses’ personality traits – Ko’s wicked temper, Choi’s diva attitude, Yoon’s world-weariness and irritability – play upon Korean audiences’ popular notions of these actresses, and their media image. But is all this truly “real,” or instead film performances that actually have no basis in reality? It’s impossible to say, so who these actresses really are remains a mystery, despite a film form that encourages us to read what we see as actresses revealing their “real” selves. And if that’s not meta enough for you, as promotion for the film in Korea, all six actresses were featured in a photo shoot for … you guessed it, Vogue.

Actresses hums along at a breezy clip, and at first it seems like a mere trifle, if an enjoyable one. However, as things get serious in the final reels, it becomes clear that the actresses’ real lives (they all credited as screenwriters) have been mined to create a work that has much more depth than it initially appears to have. Viewers’ comprehension of this film is directly proportional to their familiarity with these actresses’ film and television work and their personal lives, as well as the Korean entertainment industry in general. Therefore, much of the proceedings will be a bit inside baseball for most non-Koreans. However, issues of the travails of actresses, and the double standards they are often held to, will resonate with viewers from anywhere in the world. Actresses may initially seem to be a superficial, if pretty, object, but in the end becomes a moving tribute to these beautiful women and their enduring allure. Actresses has a radically different style from E J-yong’s last film, the pop-art confection Dasepo Naughty Girls, and adds another facet to this director’s very eclectic career. Actresses is a lovely tribute both to the six women featured and to actresses everywhere. The film sparkles with effervescent charm, and there are doubtless many gems to be found in the outtakes. One could easily, and enjoyably, spend many more hours in the company of these wonderful women.

Actresses screens on July 3 at 7pm and July 5 at 3:40 at the Walter Reade Theater. Both screenings will be introduced by E J-yong. Click here to purchase tickets.

Actresses trailer:



Arirang TV piece on Actresses:

A History of Violence

Breathless (Ddongpari). 2008. Produced, written and directed by Yang Ik-june. Cinematography by Yun Jong-ho. Edited by Lee Yeong-jeon. Music by The Invisible Fish. Production design by Hon Zi.

Cast: Yang Ik-june (Sang-hoon), Kim Kkot-bi (Yeon-hee), Jeong Man-shik (Man-shik), Lee Hwan (Yeong-jae), Park Jeong-soon (Seung-cheol), Lee Seung-yeon (Hyeon-seo), Kim Hee-soo (Hyeong-in), Choi Yong-min (Hyeong-seok), Yoon Seung-hoon (Hwan-gyu), Lee Jin-sook (Sang-hoon's mother), Kil Hae-yeon (Yeon-hee's mother).

Yang Ik-june’s astonishing debut film Breathless is an indelibly potent depiction of the daisy chain of domestic violence and how it swallows up everyone in its wake, told through the stories of two people whose lives and psyches have been scarred by the violence in their homes. The film’s worldview is neatly encapsulated in the pre-credits opener: a man punches and kicks a screaming woman out on the street in front of a handful of shocked observers, who nevertheless do not attempt to intervene. Another man stalks into the scene, breaking up the fight by beating up this aggressor. After he is done, he squats in front of the woman, and instead of comforting her or expressing his sympathies, spits in her face, and begins smacking her. “Why do you just take it?” he asks her repeatedly between slaps. He then stops to smoke a cigarette … and falls out of the frame as he is struck by a blow from someone off-screen. Cue title. This audacious start to an even more audacious film lets us know exactly what we are in for: an extremely violent and incredibly profane film (there are more verbal obscenities per minute than any routine Andrew Dice Clay ever dreamt up; Breathless is a virtual language manual of Korean cuss-words) that is as raw and uncompromising as art gets.

That first scene is our introduction to Sang-hoon (Yang Ik-june), a petty gangster who works as the main muscle and debt enforcer for his partner, loan shark Man-shik (Jeong Man-shik). Sang-hoon is the dictionary definition of a short fuse, reveling in his job stomping down deadbeat borrowers, demolishing outdoor food stalls, and breaking up student demonstrations. Sang-hoon’s unrelenting rage against the world expresses itself in his endless lashing out against any and all of his perceived enemies, and being around him becomes an occupational hazard for the other gang members who work under him, as he often fails to differentiate between his own men and those who he has been sent to beat up. The reasons behind Sang-hoon’s anger are shown through brief flashback scenes from his childhood, in which we learn that his family existed under the thrall of their abusive father Seung-cheol (Park Jeong-soon), who beat their mother regularly in front of the children. One of his violent episodes led to the deaths of both Sang-hoon’s mother and sister, for which Seung-cheol spent fifteen years in jail. Sang-hoon’s father now lives alone in a small apartment, supported largely by Man-shik, who feels sorry for the old man, and being an orphan, wishes he had a father. Sang-hoon bitterly mocks Man-shik for his largesse, and continues to make his father pay for his crime by periodically storming into the apartment to beat his father whenever the rage inside him becomes too great to bear.

One day, Sang-hoon meets his match in Yeon-hee (Kim Kkot-bi), a high-school girl who confronts him with expletive-rich invective after he accidentally spits on her school uniform as he passes her by. Sang-hoon responds in his usual manner – punching her in the face and knocking her out. When Yeon-hee comes to, she continues her harangue, demanding that he make up for it. Thus begins a very combative friendship between the two. They don’t tell each other the truth about their lives, but they recognize each other as kindred spirits, and are eventually bound together by the violence that is a daily part of their lives. Yeon-hee claims to be a rich girl who hangs out with Sang-hoon out of boredom, but the truth is that she must endure a tortured home life, left after her mother’s death with a senile, violent father (Choi Yong-min) and an equally violent brother, Yeong-jae (Lee Hwan), who constantly threatens, insults, and demands money from her. Yeon-hee helps to bring out a more benevolent side to Sang-hoon, a side we also see as he becomes a father figure to his nephew Hyeong-in (Kim Hee-soo) and gives some of his earnings to Hyeong-in’s mother, Sang-hoon’s half-sister Hyeon-seo (Lee Seung-yeon). Sang-hoon and Yeon-hee are able to steal some moments of happiness while on a mall outing with Hyeong-in, or having a late-night drink. However, these brief respites are few and far between, and the violence in both of their lives escalate, especially after Yeong-jae joins Sang-hoon’s gang, Sang-hoon being unaware of who he is. Events are set into motion leading to tragic consequences.

Writer, director and star Yang Ik-june has created a nervy, brutal, yet tender and heartfelt film that crackles with invention, humor, restless – and yes, breathless, energy. It is also a deeply personal film for its creator, and while he declines in interviews to give specifics on the autobiographical elements, his total investment and symbiotic connection to this material is evident in every frame. Yang has said that he made this film as a form of therapy, to deal with the rage he has often felt in his life. To that end, he made great personal sacrifices to bring this project to fruition, borrowing from family and friends and even selling his house to raise the money to make the film. Yang aims in Breathless to give viewers as painfully visceral an experience of violence as possible. He refuses to depict this violence in the cool and stylized way it is often portrayed, especially in other Korean films dealing with gangsters. Yang shows us that violence indeed hurts, with every punch, every bat to the legs, every bottle broken over a skull, every hammer to the head. And it hurts not only the perpetrators and victims, but those forced to witness it, especially children. Yang presents it all with a mostly handheld camera, and such niceties as aesthetic framing and carefully composed mise-en-scène are clearly less important to Yang than in getting the experience of violence across in the most direct and unadorned way possible. This will prove to be too intense for some – festival screenings of this film are often met with audience walkouts. However, Breathless’ unflinching examination of this subject is the film’s most valuable asset. While the film’s domestic violence theme will resonate with audiences anywhere, it has special meaning in a Korean context, where domestic violence is as great a problem as it is rarely discussed in public. The continuing legacies of Confucianism and patriarchy all too often translate into men asserting the dictatorial control over families that they lack elsewhere. In one telling scene, Sang-hoon walks in on one of his deadbeat clients beating his wife in front of their children. As he pulls the man off his wife and begins beating the man, Sang-hoon rails against “fathers in this country” who are “all fucked up … They’re pathetic fucks, but when it comes to family, they’re Kim Il-sung.” This deeply affected audiences in Korea who saw the film at last year’s Pusan International Film Festival; Yang says many in the audience were moved to tears.

Not surprisingly for a film made by an actor, the performances in the film are uniformly impressive. Yang Ik-june embodies his character in a way that beautifully conveys both the brutality and poignancy of this “shit fly” (the literal translation of the film’s Korean title), this marginal and unsavory figure we end up at the film’s conclusion deeply caring for. Kim Kkot-bi, as Yeon-hee, is a revelation, as commanding a screen presence as Yang, and delivering a wonderfully nuanced and complex performance. Jeong Man-shik is also great, and very funny in the scenes in which he trades profane repartee with Yang. Much like the Godard classic that the English title of this film evokes, Breathless heralds the debut of a fully-formed major talent that shows the promise of greater things to come.

Breathless screened as part of the New York Asian Film Festival, where it received the jury award for Best Debut Feature.

2009 New York Asian Film Festival/Japan Cuts Review: Koki Mitani's "The Magic Hour"

The Magic Hour. 2008. Written and directed by Koki Mitani. Produced by Chihiro Kameyama and Yoshishige Shimatani. Cinematography by Hideo Yamamoto. Edited by Soichi Ueno. Music by Kiyoko Ogino. Production design by Yohei Taneda. Costume design by Ikuko Utsunomiya. Sound by Tetsuo Segawa.

Cast: Koichi Sato (Taiki Murata), Satoshi Tsumabuki (Noburo Bingo), Eri Fukatsu (Mari Takachiho), Haruka Ayase (Natsuko Shikama), Toshiyuki Nishida (Teshio), Fumiyo Kohinata (Kenjuro Hasegawa), Susumu Terajima (Hiromi Kurokawa), Teriyuki Kagawa (Jun), Keiko Toda (Madame Ranko), Keisuke Horibe (Bambi), Kiichi Nakai (Toru Iwata), Yoshimasa Kondo (Konno), Kon Ichikawa (Film Director).

(Note: this review has been cross-posted on Twitch.)

Koki Mitani’s latest film The Magic Hour is an entertaining and beautifully designed tribute to movies and movie-making that revels in its artificiality. Early in the film, Natsuko (Haruka Ayase), a nightclub waitress, remarks that the elements of the story – gangsters, guns, cement overshoes, a boss’ moll – all make the town seem like a movie set. At the film’s outset, nightclub manager Bingo (Satoshi Tsumbuki) has run afoul of yakuza boss Teshio (Toshiyuki Nishida) by having an affair with the boss’ girlfriend Mari (Eri Fukatsu). Bingo saves them both from being the proverbial feed for the fishes by claiming to be an acquaintance of Della Togashi, a famous hit man known as the “Phantom Assassin,” whom Teshio would like to meet. Not actually knowing the assassin at all, and unable to find the real deal, he comes up with the idea of asking Murata (Koichi Sato), a stuntman, bit part actor, and aspiring star player, to stand in for the assassin. Bingo must keep up a double ruse, convincing Teshio that the actor is the hit man, and also making Murata believe he is in a film. The film’s scenario echoes other films such as Bowfinger and, more recently, Tropic Thunder, in which much humor is mined from the idea of tossing actors unknowingly into dangerous real-life situations. All the complications that one would expect, and then some, ensue. All the visual elements of this film – its cinematography, production design, and canny recreations of old movies – are top notch, as are the spirited performances of its cast, especially Koichi Sato, Eri Fukatsu, and Haruka Ayase.

The Magic Hour is an immensely pleasing homage to 1930’s and 1940’s Hollywood screwball comedy, a mode familiar to this popular film and stage director, and a hallmark of his previous films, such as Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald (1997) and The Wow-Choten Hotel (2006). The film’s spirit of movie love is quite infectious, and it ultimately becomes an endearing ode to cinema, reinforced by the presence of the late, legendary Japanese director Kon Ichikawa in a cameo. The film’s very title is a film term, referring to the time just before sunrise or sunset in which there is an especially aesthetically pleasing quality to the light that makes anything filmed at that time ethereally beautiful. (Perhaps the most celebrated film associated with this time of day is Terence Malick’s Days of Heaven.) As movie-obsessed as The Magic Hour is, there is also a very theatrical feel to the film, which makes sense given Mitani’s experience directing for the stage. Mitani is an unabashed acolyte of Billy Wilder, and this is very evident in the high farce the film indulges in, which reaches ever more absurd proportions as the film progresses. If there’s any fault to be found in this film, it’s in the overabundance of riches – its huge all-star cast, the multiple twists and complications of its scenario – that make The Magic Hour an overstuffed cornucopia that Mitani has a little trouble sustaining over its two hour-plus length. Nevertheless, the film was deservedly a massive hit upon its release in Japan last summer, solidifying Mitani’s status as a unique comic auteur.

The Magic Hour, a co-presentation of the New York Asian Film Festival and the Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film, screens at Japan Society on July 5 at 12pm. Click here to purchase tickets.

2009 New York Asian Film Festival/Japan Cuts Review: Hajime Kadoi's "Vacation"

Vacation (Kyuka). 2008. Directed by Hajime Kadoi. Written by Dai Sako, based on a short story by Akira Yoshimura. Produced by Kazuhiro Koike. Cinematography by Hiroyuki Okimura. Edited by Naoki Kaneko. Music by Teruyuki Nobuchika. Production design by Chiharu Hashimoto. Sound by Kazuo Numata.

Cast: Kaoru Kobayashi (Toru), Hidetoshi Nishijima (Kaneda), Nene Otsuka (Mika), Shuji Kashiwabara (Otsuka), Ren Osugi (Mishima), Shun Sugata (Sakamoto), Shusei Uto (Tatsuya).

(Note: this review has been cross-posted on Twitch.)

Hajime Kadoi’s contemplative second feature Vacation explores the relationship between Toru (Kaoru Kobayashi), a prison guard at a high-security facility, and Kaneda (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a condemned prisoner soon to be executed for murder, who has spent most of his years in prison appealing to the authorities for clemency. The “vacation” of the title is granted to Toru for volunteering for the traumatic task of assisting in Kaneda’s execution by leading him to the death chamber and holding his legs as he is hanged. Making this much harder for Toru is the fact that he has developed an unexpressed fondness for this quiet prisoner, who spends his days in his immaculately furnished cell drawing in his sketchbook. For his efforts, Toru is given a week off to have a brief honeymoon with his new bride, divorced single mother Mika (Nene Otsuka), accompanied by her young son Tatsuya (Shusei Uto). The film is elliptically edited, jumbling its chronology in a way that is not obvious at first, but gradually becomes more apparent as the film progresses. This fractured-narrative strategy serves to throw the contrasts between the scenes of the couple on their vacation and the execution that has made this outing possible into much sharper relief than a strictly linear presentation of events would have. Much of the film focuses on the long-time employees of the institution, which are quite a motley bunch, most notably the cynical, wisecracking Mishima (Ren Osugi), the green rookie Otsuka (Shuji Kashiwabara), and the soon-to-be retired Sakamoto (Shun Sugata). Despite the brutal elements of their work, they all look upon this as a job like any other, and though what they see daily no doubt takes its toll on them, they remain stoic in the face of it. Also striving for stoicism is Kaneda, Prisoner #350, who concentrates on his drawing and collecting photographs ripped out of magazines for inspiration. However, he has gradually become beaten down by the futility of his appeals for clemency; his exhaustion is so complete that when his sister visits, he can no longer bring himself to even speak a word to her. When the word comes down that his execution will proceed, all his careful calm evaporates in an instant.

Toru, meanwhile, is learning to get used to his new life as a married man, in an arranged marriage (set up by his sister) to a woman he barely knows, with a son who is aloof and initially resentful of the man who will be his new father. Mika, for her part, is still feeling Toru out but is cautiously optimistic that marrying him is the right decision, yet still worrying about how this will affect her son. The film alternates between the realms of Toru’s domestic situation and his work at the prison, connecting them in ways that sometimes unnecessarily drive home the parallels between them, for example making both Kaneda and the young Tatsuya have an artistic bent, and mirroring shots of an ant crawling across a tatami mat in both narrative strands. However, these details may also be in the film’s source material, a short story by Japanese novelist Akira Yoshimura, who also wrote the novel that was the basis of Shohei Imamura’s film The Eel. Vacation, however, is as far from the anarchic earthiness of Imamura as one can get, its visual compositions almost fastidious in their stark, antiseptic qualities. The performances are mostly restrained and often unnervingly calm, with Ren Osugi popping up every now and then to bring some needed comic relief. While Vacation admirably avoids the temptation to become a simplistic polemic against capital punishment, this strategy, along with the distancing effects of its jumbled timeline and cool austerity, unfortunately robs the film of the heat that would make it a much more emotionally resonant experience.

Vacation, a co-presentation of the New York Asian Film Festival and the Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film, screens at Japan Society on July 3 at 4pm. Click here to purchase tickets.

Scenes From a Marriage

All Around Us (Gururi no koto). 2008. Written, directed and edited by Ryosuke Hashiguchi. Produced by Hiroki Ohwada, Yuji Sadai, Takeo Hisamatsu, Masayuki Miyashita, and Yoshiro Yasunaga. Cinematography by Shogo Ueno. Music by Akeboshi. Production design by Toshihiro Isomi. Sound by Takeshi Ogawa. Costume design by Kumiko Ogawa.

Cast: Lily Franky (Kanao Sato), Tae Kimura (Shoko Sato), Mitsuko Baisho (Shoko's mother), Susumu Terajima (Shoko's brother), Tamae Ando (Shoko's sister-in-law), Yuichi Kimura (Natsume), Akira Emoto (Yasuda), Norito Yashima (Kanao's boss), Minori Terada (Yoshizume), Yosuke Sato (Hashimoto), Hirofumi Arai (Defendant -- Trial for the Murder of Elementary School Students), Ryo Kase (Defendant -- Trial for the Murder of a Preschool Girl), Megumi Yokoyama (Witness -- Trial for the Murder of a Kindergartener), Reiko Kataoka (Defendant -- Trial for the Murder of a Kindergartener), Noriko Eguchi (Neighbor).

(Note: this review has been cross-posted on Twitch.)

One of the best selections this year of both the New York Asian Film Festival and the Japan Cuts Festival is Ryosuke Hashiguchi’s All Around Us, a beautifully observed film that examines the vicissitudes of the relationship between a married couple – Kanao (Lily Franky), a courtroom sketch artist, and Shoko (Tae Kimura), an editor at a publishing house – against the backdrop of the larger Japanese society from 1993 to 2001. At the film’s outset, the tone is lightly comic, as Shoko puts Kanao on a strict schedule of sex three times a week, and also a curfew, because of her suspicions that he is cheating on her – which are probably not unfounded, as evidenced by early scenes in which Kanao openly flirts with women at his shoe-repair shop. Kanao is a somewhat isolated person, estranged from his own family and saddled with in-laws who don’t show him much respect. During a family dinner, Shoko’s mother (Mitsuko Baisho) leans toward her daughter and whispers, “You can do better.” Shoko resists her family’s opposition, perhaps sensing that Kanao’s easygoing nature balances out her control-freak tendencies. Soon after, a friend of Kanao’s introduces him to a new line of work, as a courtroom artist for a local television station. At first, this promises to be the latest in a series of jobs Kanao casually drifts into, but he soon takes to the work, and he now spends his days in the courtroom observing trials for some of the most heinous crimes: serial killers, cannibals, and cult mass murderers, as well as their victims, fall under his artist’s gaze, as he picks up the telling details that he sketches and presents to the public to satisfy their insatiable curiosity. While Kanao becomes a more responsible, stable person due to his new calling, Shoko begins making an opposite trajectory, unable to cope with the death of their infant daughter and sinking into a deep depression. Kanao, as much as he wants to help her, is ultimately at a loss as to how to do so, and can only observe his wife getting worse, much as he observes the criminals in the courtroom.

Hashiguchi, one of the few openly gay filmmakers in Japan, returns after a seven-year hiatus from directing with his best film to date. While the subject matter of his latest film would seem to represent a break with his previous gay-themed features, such as A Touch of Fever (1993) and the film festival favorite Hush! (2001), All Around Us retains the qualities of humor and astute observation that run through all his films. At once sweepingly panoramic and microscopically intimate, Hashiguchi’s fourth feature parallels the pains and struggles of the married couple at its center with the changes in Japan itself, touching on such major events as the 1990’s economic collapse, the 1995 subway sarin gas attacks, and others. Also attesting to Hashiguchi’s care in accurately detailing the specific time period he covers is the fact that the courtroom trials we see in the film are based on actual cases of the time. Shoko’s trauma of the death of her child and the subsequent devastation to her psyche mirrors (perhaps a bit too neatly in the film’s scenario) Japan’s economic collapse and the violence and desperation that follows, at least as can be evidenced from the increasingly grisly criminal testimonies that Kanao observes in the courtroom. At almost two and a half hours, All Around Us is patient and subtle in its examination of the married couple it follows, leaving the major dramatic moments mostly off-screen, instead conveying them through synecdochic details: the altar for their dead child; the parenting manuals left in the trash; spilled rice in a sink representing Shoko’s mental unraveling. Shot with a burnished glow and a gorgeous palette (appropriately for a film in which art plays such a large role), All Around Us boasts great performances across the board, but especially by those of its two anchors – veteran character actress Tae Kimura, who compellingly registers Shoko’s changing mental state and eventual healing with astute precision, and Lily Franky, a real-life illustrator and author (his memoir Tokyo Tower became a popular television series, and later an equally celebrated film), whose appealingly deadpan performance paradoxically conveys an emotional depth that is a revelation and endlessly fascinating to watch.

All Around Us, a co-presentation of the New York Asian Film Festival and the Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film, screens at Japan Society on July 2 at 8:45 and July 5 at 2:45. Click here to purchase tickets.

New York Asian Film Festival 2009 Review: Jang Hun's "Rough Cut"

Rough Cut (Yeonghwaneun yeonghwada). 2008. Directed by Jang Hun. Written by Kim Ki-duk. Produced by Kim Ki-duk and David Cho. Cinematography by Kim Gi-tae. Edited by Wong Su-ahn. Music by Roh Hyoung-woo. Production design by Lee Hyun-chu. Sound by Jung Kwang-ho. Costume design by Ma Youn-hee. Fight choreography by Jeon Moon-shik and Oh Ho-jin.

Cast: So Ji-sub (Lee Gang-pae), Kang Ji-hwan (Jang Soo-ta), Hong Soo-hyeon (Kang Mi-na), Ko Chang-seok (Director Bong), Jang Hee-jin (Eun-seon), Song Yong-tae (President Baek), Han Gi-joong (President Park), Han Seung-do (Button Man 1), Jo Seok-hyeon (Button Man 2), Park Soo-young (Chief Lee).

(Note: this review has been cross-posted on Twitch.)

Jang Hun’s debut feature Rough Cut, a smart, immensely entertaining action film produced and scripted by cinematic enfant terrible Kim Ki-duk, takes the shopworn concept of an actor playing a gangster who meets a real gangster, and invests it with a surprising amount of humor, heart and melancholy. Soo-ta (Kang Ji-wan), a spoiled brat of an actor, as well as an imperious jackass who thinks he’s God’s gift to the world, gets himself in a major jam during the shoot of his latest film when he ends up actually assaulting the actors he’s playing fight scenes with, to the point that no other actor will play opposite him. Enter Gang-pae (So Ji-sub), an actual gangster (as opposed to Soo-ta’s cinematic faux one), a fan of Soo-ta’s who’s initially brushed off by him when they meet in a room salon, where Gang-pae asks for an autograph (after the shy gangster first sends two of his henchmen to ask for him). Later, when Soo-ta is desperate for an acting partner, he seizes upon Gang-pae’s earlier confession that he once aspired to be an actor to implore Gang-pae to fill in for the latest co-star he put in the hospital. Gang-pae agrees, but with one major condition: their fight scenes have to be for real. “I can’t fake things,” Gang-pae says. Bong (Ko Chang-seok), the film’s director (who sort of looks like a much heavier version of Hong Sang-soo), is at first skeptical, but he soon warms to the idea of this “real” aspect of the film that will distinguish his from the rest. Thereafter begins a sort of action-film version of Persona, where these two supposedly polar opposites find they have much more in common than they think. Gang-pae lives alone, taking anti-depression pills and watching films in the anonymous hotel rooms he takes up residence in. He regularly takes breaks from his gangster duties to catch a matinee at the local movie theater. Gang-pae’s favorite film, in a neat bit of homage, is Lee Chang-dong’s Green Fish, another unconventional gangster film, and a major film of Korean cinema’s late 90’s renaissance. Gang-pae seems very much alienated from his profession, seemingly going through the motions of gangster behavior without really feeling it. It’s as if he’s already an actor in his own life, albeit without a camera, at least initially. Soo-ta is also isolated, since his violent nature drives all other actors away from him, and he treats his agent, his only advocate, like a common servant. He carries on a relationship in secret, which seems only to consist of furtive sex sessions inside his van, with Eun-seon (Jang Hee-jin), whom he is loath to be seen with in public. “If your face gets out, you’ll never be able to get married,” Soo-ta feebly offers as an explanation, when it’s obvious that the secrecy is for his benefit alone.

Surprisingly for a film written by Kim Ki-duk, this film has a light touch, rendered with a swift, sure hand and maximum efficiency by Jang, a former assistant of Kim. Real life and cinema blend into one another (Soo-ta speaks in lines from his script when he first meets Gang-pae), belying the film’s ironic Korean title, “A Movie is a Movie.” The bloody pugilism prevalent in the film is leavened slightly by the presence of Mi-na (Hong Soo-hyeon), the film’s leading lady, who becomes drawn to the mysterious Gang-pae. As befits the film’s male-oriented milieu, the character of Mi-na is the weakest aspect of the film’s script. Nevertheless, Hong is quite good in this role, investing her role with an appeal that somewhat deepens her sketchily drawn character. Rough Cut, as much as anything else, is a major showcase for So Ji-sub, a popular television actor appearing in his second film six years after his debut (2002’s Can’t Live Without Robbery), who is terrific, his slow, rolling gait and heavy-lidded, brooding eyes suggesting a Korean version of Robert Mitchum. Although So is the star of this show, Kang Ji-hwan (Host and Guest), another popular television actor, proves a worthy foil, sensitively registering his character’s transformation from pampered celebrity to someone whose privileged bubble is violently burst, especially in the film’s final scene. Rough Cut’s intelligent, quicksilver script is continually surprising, and injects some intriguing ambiguity into the scenario. For example, it is unsettlingly left an open question whether, in a scene in which Gang-pae’s character rapes Mi-na’s character in the film-within-the-film, Gang-pae remains true to his stated credo to not “fake things.” To further the film’s theme of the blurry line between cinema and reality, Jang reportedly included in the film fight scenes where So Ji-sub and Kang Ji-wan accidentally hurt one another on set. This most likely occurred during the shooting of the mud-drenched showdown between their characters, in which (as Jang has related in interviews) all the careful fight choreography planned for them went out the window, as both actors slipped around in the muck.

Even though this film superficially shares little with Kim Ki-duk’s films as a director (for example such divisive films as Bad Guy and The Isle), dig a little deeper and you’ll find some affinities. Kim’s protagonists are usually violent men who feel marginalized from the environments in which they find themselves, and that characterization certainly bears itself out here. However, there is also a fair amount of humor in the film, with Kim’s script gleefully poking fun at the film industry, with its satirical portrait of actors puffed up with an inflated sense of their own importance and abilities, and the routine unoriginality of most commercial film plots. By all evidence, the film-within-a-film of Rough Cut seems to be the most unoriginal gangster film ever made, which would explain director Bong’s eagerness to seize on any aspect distinguishing his film from all the rest. The idea of a funny film written by Kim Ki-duk would at first blush seem like an oxymoron, until you consider that the scenarios of many of Kim’s own films skirt the very edge of risibility, and would be ridiculously absurd and yes, hilarious, if they weren’t rendered with the utter conviction that Kim brings to the material (for exhibit A, see Kim’s freaky plastic-surgery drama Time). Kim’s playful wit extends to the very names of the actor and gangster, which are the English word “star” (Soo-ta) and the Korean word for “gangster” (Gang-pae). Rough Cut was very popular in Korea upon its release last summer (no doubt owing more to its stars than to producer-writer Kim, whose own films usually fare poorly at the box-office), attracting more than a million viewers in its first week of release. So and Kang also shared the Best New Actor Prize at last year’s Blue Dragon Film Awards.

Rough Cut, a major highlight of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival, screens June 23 at 9:30 and June 24 at 6:30 at the IFC Center. Lead actor So Ji-sub will appear in person at both screenings. Click here to purchase tickets.