Japan Cuts ’13 & NYAFF ’13: The Warped Forest

Does directed dreaming lead to bad luck?  Anything is possible in Shunichiro Miki’s world.  Now who’s hungry for dumplings?  Viewers really should fortify themselves before tumbling into Miki’s The Warped Forest (trailer here), which screens today as a co-presentation of the 2013 Japan Cuts and New York Asian Film Festival.

Warped Forest is not really a sequel to the two-and-a-half hour psychedelic head trip, Funky Forest: The First Contact, Miki co-directed with two co-conspirators.  However, it shares a similar sensibility.  Three men are getting drunk while the oldest relates a story about his budding boy-band dancer students who mysterious materialized in the nearby forest one night. Next thing they know, the agitated innkeeper bursts in.  Evidently, they too had been missing for the last two days.  Warped now flashes back, ostensibly showing viewers those two eventful days, but in a very strange and different world.

There is a narrative thread to the film that follows, but it impossible to describe in rational terms.  The professor is now a baker, who periodically sneaks off to the local cat house, where an otherworldly anteater-like creature attaches itself to his nipple.  Humans live and work side-by-side with either giants or Lilliputians, depending on one’s perspective.  Apli hunts the snark-like Pinkie Pankie with a decidedly phallic rifle, while her sister Au Lait harvests fruit resembling certain organs from the naked nymph trees.  She quietly pines for the local self-help guru, whose wife obsessively sharpens his samurai sword.

Eventually, just about everyone considers dream-hacking, which can apparently be done with the help of the ominous black inverted pyramid spinning overhead, bringing to mind The Tripods or V.  Frankly, if this is a case of a corrupted Matrix program, it would explain a lot.

Of course, Miki is not interested in banal explanations.  He wholly funded Warped himself through ten years of commercial work.  His independent spirit is admirable and obviously necessary.  It would be worth the price of admission just to see him try to pitch this film to a studio.  A whole lot of inventiveness went into Warped and a lot less logic. There are some oddly touching scenes in which characters try to forge connections, but the film’s overriding mission is to lead us on a guided tour of its mature, drug-influenced Candyland.

Somehow, Miki still managed to attract some big name stars to Warped, including Rinko Kikuchi, the Oscar nominee for Babel soon to be seen in Pacific Rim.  Viewers interested in either of those films should definitely check out Warped too, because how different can they be?  Kill Bill co-star Yôji Tanaka seems to be on a mission to make his filmography weirder with the recent punk rock dystopian Shakespeare non-adaptation Sado Tempest and his rather fearless and sometimes shirtless turn here as the baker/professor.  To their credit, the entire ensemble takes each scene scrupulously seriously and gives it their all.

You should have concluded long ago whether or not Warped Forest is your cup of tea.  For cult film connoisseurs, the bright colors, up-tempo music, and optimistic vibe of Forest are a rather refreshing change of pace from the dour, fatalism that often characterizes the cinema of the surreal.  Recommended for mature adults who want to see something new and bizarre, The Warped Forest screens tonight (7/7) at the Walter Reade and next Sunday afternoon (7/14) at the Japan Society, as part of this year’s Japan Cuts and NYAFF.

NYAFF ’13: An Inaccurate Memoir

Bet you didn’t know Dodge City was once occupied by the Japanese.  Evidently, they took it from the Chinese, but one undercover freedom fighter is determined to take it back in Leon Yang Shu-peng’s An Inaccurate Memoir (trailer here), which screens today as part of the Well Go USA spotlight at the 2013 New York Asian Film Festival.

Ambushed by the Japanese, the wounded Gao Dong-liang lies low in Taiping, a Northern Chinese city that mostly consists of jails and brothels.  After watching Fang You-wang’s gang break their ringleader out of prison with lickety-split efficiency, he starts hatching ideas.  Masquerading as a tempting rich twit, Gao gets himself kidnapped by the Fang gang, subsequently insinuating himself into the gang, after they tire of beating and torturing his uncooperative hide. 

Fang’s younger sister Jen takes a particular shine to him, which the outlaw is not exactly thrilled about.  Aside from Gao, the gang is not keen to tangle with the Japanese, but the Imperial Army forces their hands when they raid the hideout.  Suddenly, Fang is down with Gao’s crazy plan, but he gives it a distinctly bandito spin.

Inaccurate Memoir has already been widely compared to Jiang Wen’s Let the Bullets Fly, but it is less shticky, with more Spaghetti western grit to it.  Yang gets a bit bogged down with Gao’s first act abduction scenes, but once the soldier is part of the gang, Memoir settles down to business with commendable energy.

To its credit, the Fang Gang also boasts an unusually number of strong women members.  Working as a “professional” in town, Lady Dagger is as dangerous as she sounds, while the quiet but violent Lassie follows in the beloved tradition of lethal school girls.  However, the guys in the gang tend to blend together.  (You can tell this will be a problem when the film feels compelled to use on-screen graphics to introduce them to viewers by name.)

Regardless, Yang, the self-taught crash-the-party filmmaker, blows stuff up quite nicely.  Character development may not be his strong suit, but he helms some inventive action sequences and pays proper homage to the Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven/Dirty Dozen tradition, in which a pack of scraggly ruffians ultimately embrace and one-by-one die for a righteous cause.

Huang Xiaoming certainly looks the part of roguish Fang, but Zhang Yi’s Gao is a more multi-faceted character.  Still, Zhang Xinyi, Ni Jingyang, and Zhang Yue often steal the show as Jen, Lady Dagger, and Lassie.

Yang gets a big assist from his production and set designers, who created a richly appointed subterranean hideout.  The film’s eccentric vibe helps soften the requisite Chinese nationalism and anti-Japanese sentiments.  (However, the sheer volume of recent releases waving the bloody WWII shirt could lead to long term image problems for Chinese cinema in the international market place.)  Shrewdly, Yang always keeps the mayhem entertaining.  Recommended for fans of war movies with an eastern western sensibility, An Inaccurate Memoir screens this afternoon (7/7) at the Walter Reade, as part of the Well Go USA spotlight at this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

NYAFFF ’13: One Perfect Day (short)

Let’s review.  If the characters are on a blind date, it’s a rom-com, but if they are internet dating, it’s a horror movie.  Yes, Korean horror master Kim Jee-woon indeed crosses over to the sunnier side of the street (let’s hope temporarily) with his pleasant short film One Perfect Day (trailer here), which screens today as part of the mighty 2013 New York Asian Film Festival.

Woon-chul badly wants to meet Ms. Right, so he gamely accepts a series of blind dates.  Unfortunately, that is really not a good forum for him.  Nonetheless, he makes a spectacularly counterproductive effort with Yoo-jin.  She is clearly not a good fit for him, but he drags her into a large municipal park (in heels), hoping to win her over through a game of rock-paper-scissors.  It might seem like a dubious choice, but he has his reasons.  However, she still is not the one.  That might be Eun-hee, who appears when and where Woon-chul least expects to find her.

Commissioned by a Korean sporting goods firm to celebrate their fortieth anniversary, OPD is light years removed from Kim’s brilliantly disturbing I Saw the Devil and his underperforming Hollywood debut, The Last Stand (here’s a marketing tip: putting Johnny Knoxville in a hat with ear flaps on your one-sheet will not necessarily guarantee box office gold).  OPD has its charms though, especially when Korean superstar Park Shin-hye lights up the third act.  Still, Yoon Kye-sang’s Woon-chul is so manically keen, it is hard to blame Yoo-jin for wanting the heck out of there.  In fact, viewers might find themselves rooting for Park Soo-jin and her perfect WTF expressions.  Nonetheless, Kim brings it all together with a payoff that implies much, but is quite satisfying.

To serve its promotional function, OPD is findable on the internet, but cinematographer Kim Woo-hyung’s rich use of light and color should look fantastic on a big screen and Kim Jee-woon is definitely a big picture director.  In any event, it is an entertaining short film, making it a nice bonus for Korean rom-com fans when it screens with the feature How to Use Guys with Secret Tips tonight (7/7) and Thursday (7/11) at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of this year’s NYAFF.

NYAFF ’13: When a Wolf Falls in Love with a Sheep

So far, American teens have largely been spared the joys of cram school.  In Taiwan, they are a fact of life for those facing the highly competitive university entrance tests.  It does not leave students much time for romance, but there just might be something cooking between two young back office workers.  Modern love is decidedly confused in Hou Chi-jan’s When a Wolf Falls in Love with a Sheep (trailer here), which screens today during the 2013 New York Asian Film Festival.

After leaving a “back soon” sticky note on his sleeping forehead, Tung’s girlfriend walked out of his life and has yet to return.  Maybe it was because he dressed too much like “Where’s Waldo.” Emerging from a heartsick tailspin, the dopey kid takes a job at a copy shop in the Nanyang cram school district, because he can do the work on autopilot and live in the loft above the store.  Making deliveries to the Bisheng School, Tung meets the cute but artistically frustrated Yang, who draws little sheep cartoons on the bottom of the school’s test papers.  One day, he responds with his own big bad wolf character and a doodle flirtation starts to blossom, much to the amusement of the student body.

Wolf is compulsively sweet, but it has tons more style than your average rom-com.  Hou integrates little animated vignettes of the sheep and wolf, as well as some completely fresh and original sight gags.  It sometimes feels a bit prone to ADD, but Hou eventually loops every rangy subplot back into his main narrative quite cleverly.  Despite its frothy tone, Wolf has some rather smart stuff to it, particularly the manner it presents the pseudo-courtship between Tung and Yang.  It is a two-tiered relationship, playful on paper but much more reserved in person, which really rings true.

As Tung, Kai Ko is appropriately sad-eyed and sensitive, while Chien Man-shu gives refreshing depth to the more philosophical Yang.  Wolf is also loaded with colorful supporting players, most notably including Lin Ching-tai (the star of Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale), playing off his real life persona as a former Presbyterian minister with his turn as a priest moonlighting as a noodle-cart vendor, wisdom dispenser, and general jack-of-all-trades.

Energetic and winning, Wolf is the sort of rom-com where fate is not content to merely take a hand, but will go so far as to smack characters alongside the head and yell “go after her, you schmuck.”  If that is manipulative at times, Hou nicely compensates with the originality of his execution.  Highly recommended for anyone who appreciates a good date movie, When a Wolf Loves a Sheep screens today (7/6) and Tuesday afternoon (7/9) at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.  Those who go should stay through the final credits for several reasons, including the attendance of director and festival special guest Hou Chi-jan.

Endeavour: the First Full Season

Detective Constable Morse is repeatedly told to pay more attention to traditional police work than his hunches.  However, the young policeman’s instincts often prove correct.  Such will not necessarily be the case later in his career.  Viewers will start to understand why Robbie Lewis often had to tidy up after his mentor in the first full season of Endeavour (promo here), which airs this Sunday as part of the current season of PBS’s Masterpiece Mystery.

Following last year’s successful one-off, the socially awkward Morse has impressed the dapper DI Fred Thursday with his aptitude, but he is not especially popular with the rest of the force.  This definitely includes their new by-the-book-seniority-over-merit Chief Superintendent.  Morse will not do his career many favors as he openly defies orders and protocol in the season opening, Girl. 

When a prominent nuclear researcher’s unstable daughter becomes the prime suspect for murder, Morse sets out to clear her name.  Obviously, this is not Superintendent Bright’s policy and even the only-so-indulgent Thursday is skeptical.  An okay procedural, Girl goes out of its way to portray the Edward Teller-ish character in a negative light. While it introduces the supercilious Bright and the stalwart Constable Jim Strange, it is the weakest the series, so far.

Quickly rebounding, Fugue represents Endeavour at its strongest.  Morse has been busted down to “general duties,” but when a murderer starts leaving opera-related clues, the inexperienced DC is pulled back into the thick of things.  Crisply helmed by Tom Vaughan (best known stateside for Harrison Ford’s middling Extraordinary Measures), Fugue incorporates several clever clues and nicely evokes the time when police forces were only just beginning to come to terms with the serial killer concept.

The current season maintains it momentum with Rocket, another strong crime story with particularly strong period details.  During the relatively new Queen Elizabeth’s state visit to a struggling munitions plant, a worker is murdered in the back office area.  It turns out Percy Malleson was the factory’s equivalent of Morse, a standoffish fellow suspected by his fellow workers of being a management snitch. 

However, he was not really Malleson, but Eustace Kendrick, the prime suspect in a local girl’s unsolved disappearance several years ago.  A well written case, Rocket’s ultimate murderer could never conceivably be the perp in a Hollywood produced show, which makes it jolly refreshing.

The season concluding Home is not a bad episode, but it emphasizes character development over the investigation.  Morse and Thursday largely chase their tails as they try to deduce the murderer of an Oxford professor.  However, fans will get a large helping of backstory when Thursday confronts the London gangster whom he blames for the death of his former Sergeant.

Shaun Evans settles in quite nicely as the title character, playing him with the right mix of prickliness and earnest guilelessness. Likewise, Roger Allam’s Thursday might be the smartest character currently on television.  Morse fans will also be happy to hear John Thaw’s daughter Abigail regularly appears as muckraking editor Dorothea Frazil (she rather grows on viewers, in fact).  Anton Lessor (recognizable from The Hour, The Scapegoat, and Spies of Warsaw) is a bit buffoonish as Bright, but humanizes him a bit in the series closer.

Endeavour is one of the better British mysteries going.  Evans and Allam play off each other well and vivid sense of time and place—Oxford in the early 1960’s—adds a distinctive flavor. Recommended for fans of Colin Dexter’s characters as well as those interested in the era, the first full season of Endeavour launches tomorrow night (7/7) on most PBS outlets nationwide.

NYAFF ’13: Drug War

Divide-and-conquer and playing one opponent against another might sound like shrewd Art of War strategies, but they can land you in the midst a crossfire.  Frankly, there is no safe place to be in Johnnie To’s Drug War (trailer here).  The HK action auteur’s lean, mean return to form screens today at the 2013 New York Asian Film Festival just ahead of its July 26^th New York opening, courtesy of Well Go USA, the intrepid distributor getting a special shout-out at this year’s festival with their own special programming spotlight.

“I’m cop—I didn’t betray you, I busted you.”  Captain Zhang Lei’s choice words for the somewhat disappointed drug courier he just collared will echo throughout To’s first gangster throwdown set and co-produced in Mainland China.  Zhang also reeled in a bigger fish: Timmy Choi, a meth lab proprietor and trusted liaison between various criminal factions.

Facing the death penalty, Choi agrees to play ball with Zhang.  He will introduce Zhang to Brother Haha, a distribution kingpin looking for product and the representative of a shadowy supply consortium.  At each meeting, Zhang pretends to be the opposite gangster, in hopes of taking down both operations simultaneously.  He is not absolutely, positively sure he can trust Choi, but it is too good an opportunity to pass up.

Unusually gritty compared to the operatic Vengeance and Exiled, the first two acts of Drug War are essentially street-level procedurals, but darn good ones.  To shows us the nuts and bolts of the Tianjin drug squad at work, as well as the extreme lengths Zhang will go to take down his targets.  However, when it is finally go time, Drug War erupts into cold, hard, violent bedlam.

As Zhang, Sun Honglei is the absolute essence of hard-nosed steeliness.  Initially, it is rather jarring to hear him giggling in the guise of Haha, put he pulls that off too.  Likewise, Louis Koo will make viewers forget all about his recent leading man rom-com roles in his coldest, weasliest performance in years, even if he was dubbed for Mandarin speaking audiences.  His Choi is truly a survivor, like a cockroach. 

To fans will also being relieved to hear Lam Suet eventually turns up, as a criminal mastermind, no less.  Aside from a bit of comic relief here and there, the soldier-like supporting cast sets the right tone, particularly the glammed-down, nonsense Crystal Huang as Zhang’s colleague, Yang Xiabei.

The massively cool Drug War does not just pack a punch.  It is more like a body slam.  Critics and fans were concerned whether To’s hardboiled brand of crime drama would fly in China, but somehow he slipped this pitch black gem past the Party goalie.  A case of a master filmmaker and an all-star cast working at the tops of their respective games, Drug War is very highly recommended for action and gangster movie enthusiasts.  It screens today (7/5) at the Walter Reade Theater as part of this year’s NYAFF and opens its regular IFC Center engagement for the Fest feted Well Go USA on Friday the 26^th.

NYAFF ’13: Comrade Kim Goes Flying

The North Korean film authorities must love training montages.  You will find conspicuous examples in Pak Chong-song’s Centre Forward as well as this strange new North Korean-European co-production.  Granted, that is not a very large sampling, but it is not like there is room for much aesthetic diversity with the powers-that-be.  The production values have improved, but the dialogue is as stilted as ever in Kim Gwang-hun, Nicholas Bonner, and Anja Daelemans’ Comrade Kim Goes Flying (trailer here), which screens today during the 2013 New York Asian Film Festival.

Viewers will quickly realize Flying is a fantasy because characters constantly sit down to big traditional meals.  In between smashing daily production quotas, coalminer Kim Yong-mi dreams of being an acrobat in the Pyongyang Circus.  Her gruff father sounds a little like Casey Kasem, telling her to “keep her feet on the ground and her head out of the clouds.”  However, when Comrade Kim is temporarily transferred to the Pyongyang construction brigade, she jumps at a chance to audition for the Circus School.

Unfortunately, the circus elites do not appreciate her raw talent and enthusiasm.  Initially deflated, her spirit rebounds when Commander Sok Gun, the kindly foreman, enlists her to train a troupe of construction worker-acrobats.  Witnessing the salt-of-the-earth workers’ performance, Pak Jang-phil, the stuck-up trapeze strongman, realizes how much he and the circus need her.  When she finally gets her shot, will Comrade Kim be able to endure the rigorous training and make the final cut?

Obviously, Flying is an odd film, particularly given the open portrayal of class conflict between the scrappy workers and the snobby circus performers.  You might have thought the DPRK was a unified workers’ paradise, but evidently not.  In that case, just what have the Great Leader, the Dear Leader, and the Great Successor been doing all this time?

On the plus side, Flying is a much more polished film than Centre Forward.  Hwang Jin-sok’s candy-colored cinematography is rather appealing and the battery of co-directors keeps the action moving along quite spritely.  The brief animated sequences, adapted from old school North Korean socialist realist wood-cuts (of which co-director Bonner is considered the world’s leading collector) are also quite striking.  Nevertheless, the propaganda-laden dialogue, brimming with worker solidarity rhetoric and praise for the Party, just clunks along like an old jalopy.

Having recently reviewed Marc Wiese’s harrowing Camp 14—Total Control Zone, one hesitates to single out any of the cast for praise, in the fear it might somehow be used against them.  After all, any bourgeoisie association can be lethal in the DPRK police state.  In general terms, many of the cast members are veterans of the Pyongyang Circus, who have real credibility in their acrobatic scenes and transition fairly well into dramatic acting.  Those who really must be charming for the film to work are indeed quite winning and attractive.  One of several cast and crew members officially designated a “People’s Artist,” Ri Yong-ho is a particularly strong and engaging presence as the sensitive hardhat, Sok Gun.

Evidently, women’s stories are largely under-represented in North Korean cinema, so Comrade Kim can be considered progressive on that front.  It is always nice to see an underdog triumph over adversity, especially when it is rendered with energy and bright colors. 

Indeed, it is good for North Korea watchers to get a gander at the film, like old Kremlinologists leafing through an issue of Soviet Life.  However, presenting it without a reality check is a tad problematic.  In contrast, the 2011 Korean American Film Festival offered a more robust and informed picture of the notoriously closed country by programming Centre Forward on a double bill with Mads Brügger’s mid-blowing comedic expose Red Chapel.  Comrade Kim Goes Flying boasts a fresh-faced, highly likable cast, but the didactic script often undermines their efforts.  Recommended for curious audiences experienced in parsing propaganda, it screens this afternoon (7/5) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s NYAFF.

NYAFF ’13: The Fridge

Somebody get this woman a box of industrial strength Arm & Hammer.  She just can’t get that musty malevolent spirit out of her refrigerator.  Yes, she has a demonic appliance.  Evil takes many forms, so just go with it when Rico Maria Ilarde’s The Fridge (trailer here) screens tonight during the 2013 New York Asian Film Festival.

After years in America, Tina has returned to her old family home in the Philippines, hoping to discover what happened to her parents.  Nobody wants to talk about, so it must have been awful.  The house looks spooky from the street, but it is pretty cozy on the inside, aside from that hulking, ugly-looking refrigerator.  Turns out the appliance has an attitude to match.

Trying to start a new life, Tina crosses paths with James, an old torch-carrying elementary school friend at the grocery store and asks the electrician to come check out her buggy wiring shortly thereafter.  If that sounds like a way too convenient coincidence, bear in mind this is a film about a killer refrigerator.  Your pedantry is neither useful nor welcome here.

Of course, the fridge with its supernatural tentacles (sort of a cross between Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors and Cthulhu) starts racking up a respectable body count, in spectacularly bloody fashion.  However, most of its victims sort of have it coming, E.C. Comics style.  (Maybe not the neighbor’s cat, but it was disposable anyway.)

One of the crazier things about Fridge is its horror movie mechanics are way better than one would expect.  Sure, on some level it is cognizant how ludicrous the story truly is.  Nonetheless, Ilarde sets the mood nicely and Andi Eigenmann and JM de Guzman play it scrupulously straight as Tina and James.  Never winking at the camera, they act like it is pretty dreadful to have a possessed refrigerator in your kitchen, as it most certainly would be.

But wait, there’s more—two of the country’s top actors lend their prestige to the picture.  Joel Torre soldiers through like a good sport as Tina’s long suffering father and Ronnie Lazaro delivers a stiff shot of badassery as retired Det. Albay, styling an eye-patch and a triple-barreled shotgun.

Seriously, how can you go wrong with a killer refrigerator movie?  Executed with earnest confidence, this one will likely exceed audience expectations by a healthy margin.  While there is clearly a generous element of camp to it, Fridge holds together surprisingly well.  Horror movie fans really have to check it out when it screens tonight (7/5) at the Beale Theater and Wednesday afternoon (7/10) at the Walter Reade as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

NYAFF ’13: The Last Tycoon

There are explosions, talk of independence, and a villain named Mao.  What more could you ask for in a Fourth of July screening?  Shanghai’s most prominent gangster and his two very different mentors will choose up sides amid the turmoil of Republican era China in Wong Jing’s The Last Tycoon (trailer here) which screens today during the 2013 New York Asian Film Festival.

Cheng Daqi is very loosely based on the real life historical figure, Du Yuesheng, a high-ranking Shanghai mobster, who supported the Nationalists out of anti-Communist and anti-Japanese sentiments.  As a young man, Cheng always intended to make a name for himself in the big city, but a scrape with a corrupt cop forced his hand.  It also introduced him to his temporary cellmate, Mao Zai, an army officer serving as an unofficial liaison to the underworld.  When Mao’s men spring them from prison, Cheng follows them to Shanghai.

Cheng quickly raises through the ranks, apprenticing under the top gangster, Hong Shouting.  However, he still remembers his great love, Ye Zhiqui.  She has also fulfilled her ambition to become the toast of Beijing’s opera, eventually marrying Cheng Zhaimei, a scholar and clandestine operative in the revolutionary underground.  Of all the nightclubs in Shanghai, Ye and her husband walk into Cheng Daqi’s, because it is the biggest and most ostentatious.

There are echoes of Casablanca throughout Tycoon, but Wong never slavishly parallels the Bogart classic.  He also departs considerably from the established facts of Du’s life.  However, he clearly plays to the strengths of his star, Chow Yun-fat, giving him plenty of opportunity to blast away two-handed while dressed to the nines.  Although The Assassins was pretty good, Tycoon is really the sort of film his fans have been waiting years for.

Chow does his stone cold cool thing and it still works like a charm.  Sammo Hung also brings all kinds of gravitas and good karma as his patriotic master, Hong.  Clearly enjoying the heavy role, Francis Ng is charismatically villainous as the turncoat Mao Zai (not Zedong, but close enough for the 4^th).  While his Mao is not exactly analogous to Claude Rains’ Captain Renault, Monica Mok really throws a wrench in the Casablanca works as Cheng Daqi’s wife, Bao.  Sensitive but strong and resilient, she rather walks away with the audience’s sympathies.

Produced by special festival guest Andrew Lau, Tycoon is the sort of sprawling gangster/war epic that HK cinema does so well.  It is a quality period production, boasting quite a few get-your-money’s-worth action sequences.  Sure to satisfy fans of the all-star cast and martial arts shoot-outs, The Last Tycoon screens tonight (7/4) at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of the 2013 New York Asian Film Festival.  Happy 4^th of July.

NYAFF ’13: Countdown

Technically, this is not a home invasion film, because they invited him in.  Nor is this psycho dug-dealer exactly whom he seems to be—except maybe the psycho part.  Regardless, three privileged Thai expats are in for a really crummy New Year’s Eve in Nattawat Poonpiriya’s Countdown (trailer here), which screens tonight during the 2013 New York Asian Film Festival.

Bee, her boyfriend Jack, and their flat-mate Pam are not big on consequences.  They live the bohemia life in New York and their long suffering parents’ pay the bills.  Ironically, their small time dealer friend sets all the drama in motion when he resolves to clean up his act.  Snoopy Jack thinks he found his connection’s ripped up business card, but it is missing a digit.  Bee adds a 3 in honor of the New Year of 2013 and presto, Jesus (that is with the Spanish pronunciation, mind you) is on his way over with fresh weed.

For a while, the three entitled kids enjoy smoking up with the scraggly looking dealer, despite the rather odd remarks he occasionally lets slip.  As the more responsible one, Bee slowly picks up on Jesus’s bad vibe, but with Jack and Pam out-of-their-minds high, she is no match for the large, angry man.  Ominously, he also seems to know secrets about them that a garden variety dealer should have no way of knowing.  Man, are these cats going to miss Dick Clark.

Countdown starts in a hip Kevin Williamson bag, but things quickly get biblical.  Following in the tradition of old school E.C. Comics morality tales, Bee, Jack, and Pam have been bad kids, so viewers will not be overly disturbed when Jesus puts the screws to them.  Still, Poonpiriya takes the action to some thematically dark places and does not skimp on the physical violence.

As Jesus, David Asavanond makes a killer villain, so to speak.  He struts about and delivers his heavy dialogue with the authority befitting an avenging whatever.  However, Jarinporn Joonkiat also does some real acting as Bee.  She actually makes her a complex, believable character, which is quite impressive in a neo-exploitation genre mash-up.  Essentially, Pachara Chirathivat plays Jack as the character demands: weak and annoying.  Likewise, Pattarasaya Kreuasuwansri certainly looks and acts the part as the shallow but photogenic Pam.  Indeed, the small, game cast does what they need to do to keep the bloody mayhem on track.

Countdown has the potential to become a midnight movie perennial.  Poonpiriya incorporates his New Year’s Eve countdown motif in clever ways, while Asavanond’s gleefully Mephistophelian turn is tailor-made for cult-fandom.  Recommended for experienced NYAFF patrons, Countdown screens tonight (7/3) at the Walter Reade Theater, but repent before you go.

NYAFF ’13: Feng Shui

Feng Shui is a traditional Chinese spiritual and aesthetic practice meant to maximize the flow of positive chi in living spaces.  The principles of shrewishness are pretty universal.  Both phenomena contribute to a bossy wife and mother’s bad karma in Wang Jing’s Feng Shui (trailer here), which screens tonight during the 2013 New York Asian Film Festival.

As soon as they move into their new flat, Li Baoli starts tearing into her passive husband, Ma Xuewu.  Suddenly, neither he nor their studious young son Xiabao seem to do anything right.  After about a day of this, Ma declares he wants a divorce, but this only further antagonizes his wife. Launching an emotional cold war against her husband, Li succeeds in pushing him into the arms of his factory colleague Zhou Fen, with disastrous results for the family.

Flashforward ten years: Li is now the primary breadwinner for her resentful son and her grey-haired mother-in-law.  Slaving like a dog as a yoke-bearing street porter, Li lives for the day the high achieving Xiabao takes his university entrance exams.  However, the teen has a general idea what transpired between her and her father and he definitely holds it against her.

Basically, Feng Shui is divided into two distinct halves.  Initially, Li Baoli is so foul-mouthed, insensitive, and downright mean-spirited she will have viewers reeling.  Surely, no movie character has used the expression “dog-f___er” as much as her.  Yet, somehow Yan Bingyan makes us care about her rather deeply during the redemptive karmic payback portion of the film.

Yan Bingyan is frankly amazing as Li, smoothly segueing from hot mess on wheels to a weathered self-sacrificing maternal goddess in the Ruan Lingyu mold.  She makes some extreme extremes look perfectly believable and totally exhausting. 

As befitting a woman’s story, Feng Shui’s richest supporting turns mostly come from women.  He Minglan gives a wonderfully subtle and humane turn as the mother-in-law who can see both the bad and the good in Li.  Likewise, Wang Moxi has some brief but powerful moments as Ma’s almost mistress.  Zhao Qian also adds some seasoning to the film as Li’s best friend, an aging trophy wife (who blames her less fortunate friend’s troubles on bad feng shui). However, for an ostensibly smart kid, the teenaged Xiabao does not seem to have much going on in his head, besides an awkward surliness.

Feng Shui is based on a novel by Fang Fang, whose work is either reminiscent of Neil LaBute or Ozu, depending on which half of the film you judge by.  Clearly, Li Baoli’s trials and tribulations are intended to underscore the difficulty realizing social mobility in contemporary China.  It might be a stark reflection of reality, but it is a good film.  Recommended for those who enjoy a quality tearjerker with an edge, Feng Shui screens tonight (7/3) at the Walter Reade Theater as part of the 2013 NYAFF.

NYAFF '13: Mystery

Chinese film censors often seem to get rather acute cases of “approver’s remorse.”  After allowing Lou Ye to screen his latest film at Cannes (to general acclaim) they suddenly demanded the director edit two“violent” scenes before allowing his film a Mainland theatrical release.  Considering several of Lou’s films have been banned outright in China and the filmmaker has openly defied a state imposed five year filmmaking prohibition in the past, this arguably represents progress. As with his previous work, the Party bureaucrats are protecting the public from an excellent film.  New Yorkers can judge for themselves when Lou’s Mystery (trailer here), screens today at the 2013 New York Asian Film Festival.

Like most of contemporary China, the industrial city of Wuhan is sharply divided between the have’s and the have-not’s.  In the opening scene, a reckless group of have’s runs over a woman. Their first response is neither compassion nor remorse.  Hold that thought.  Lou will return to the woman on the motorway in due time.  However, he abruptly shifts his focus to Yongzhao, who is striving to become one of the have’s.  As a result, he works late hours, leaving his wife Lu Jie to care for their endearing young daughter, An-an.

One day after school, Lu Jie is asked out on a playdate by Sang Qi.  She is not particularly keen to get to know the woman, but An-an clearly gets on with the woman’s son like two peas in a pod. Reluctantly agreeing to subsequently meet the woman for lunch, Lu Jie is rather uncomfortable when Sang Qi asks for advice on how to handle her cheating husband.  At that moment, Lu Jie observes her husband across the street, entering a hotel with a woman who is most definitely not herself.

Coincidences do play a role in Mystery, but many things happen for reasons not immediately apparent.  Indeed, the police investigation of the opening incident will ultimately involve several of the film’s primary characters. These cases are called crimes of passion, correct?

In the past Lou has addressed topics like homosexuality and Tiananmen Square, which are absolutely radioactive as far as Party bureaucrats are concerned.  Mystery implies much about contemporary China’s growing class inequities and the collapse of traditional values, but as an ostensive film noir, it is obviously much less controversial. Domestic critics have often unfairly rapped Lou for his supposed Euro-art house style, but in this case viewers can sort of see it.  One might more readily compare his latest to Louis Malle’s Damage than Lou’s Digital Generation-esque Spring Fever.

The star of Lou’s Summer Palace (a tragic love story bound up in the Tiananmen Square protests that went over with the censors like a lead balloon), Hao Lei is scary good as Lu Jie.  She takes the audience on quite a ride with her character’s arc of development, vividly illustrating what “a woman scorned” means.  Likewise, Qi Xi plays the seemingly naïve Sang Qi with surprising subtly and power.  Keep your eyes on them both.

Without question, Mystery is a film for mature adults. While there are exponentially more violent films at this year’s fest, Lou presents the occasional outbreaks in disturbingly intimate terms. Taut and sophisticated, Mystery amply rewards viewers who indulgence its plot contrivances.  An important new work from a truly independent filmmaker and an accomplished cast, Mystery is very highly recommended when it screens tonight (7/3) and next Thursday afternoon (7/11) at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Absence: More Found Footage of a Cabin in the Woods

It is always weird to watch horror movies that kind of, sort of carry pro-life implications.  After all, it is never the “fetus” terrorized pregnant mothers worry about, but their “baby.”  Poor Liz has already lost her daughter and it wasn’t the dingos that took her. Somehow her seven month old baby just vanished from within.  Unfortunately, the unknown responsible party probably still has her on their radar in Jimmy Loweree’s Absence (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Not only have Liz and Rick lost their unborn child, everyone in their hometown assumes she is just an attention seeking Susan Smith.  To get away from the pressure, they head to Rick’s isolated family cabin in the mountains.  For reasons that escape Rick, they also take along Liz’s immature brother Evan.  He intends to document their getaway for his film school thesis, hoping it will show the world who the real Liz really is.  Okay, good plan.  That hardly sounds exploitative at all.  Thanks to Evan, it is time once again for viewers to get their found footage on.

Of course, the audience quickly suspects there is something not quite right going on in the background.  However, Evan is real slow on the up-take and evidently never reviews the footage he shoots while in the process of passing out.

To their credit, Loweree and co-writer Jake Moreno really try to take the time to establish their characters, unlike most found footage formula grinders.  It is a nice instinct, but they overcompensate.  As a result, Absence feels like it is about 92% percent set-up and 8% getting down to genre business.

Eric Matheny brings a strong presence to the film as the protective Rick and he develops a decent screen rapport with Erin Way’s convincingly fragile Liz.  However, as Evan, Ryan Smale cranks up the shtick to the point viewers will become nostalgic for Jaime Kennedy in the Scream franchise.

Ultimately, Absence’s restraint becomes too much of a good thing.  The fact that Evan is our primary POV figure also works against the film.  At least Loweree sets the scene nicely and never cops out with cheap gotcha scares.  There is a cookout scene too, so maybe that makes it fit diehard horror fans’ 4^th of July weekend plans.  Rather middling overall but competently produced, Absence opens this Friday (7/5) in New York at the Quad Cinema and at the Gateway Film Center in Columbus.

NYAFF ’13: Confession of Murder

It is a capricious perversity of the legal system a Victorian novelist would admire.  After the statute of limitations expires for his crimes, a serial killer comes forward—ostensibly to repent.  However, the cop in charge of the investigation doubts both his sincerity and his veracity in Jung Byoung-gil’s Confession of Murder (trailer here), which screens today during the 2013 New York Asian Film Festival.

Det. Choi Hyung-goo still bears the scar from his close encounter with a masked serial killer.  The case became personal for him—real personal.  When Lee Doo-suk steps forward claiming to be the serial killer he is not impressed.  Neither are the families of his victims.  In marked contrast, the public eats up his phony contrition act, turning Lee into a media phenomenon. Unfortunately, there is little Choi can do, but the families are not so passive.

Directed by Jung, who is best known to NYAFF patrons for Action Boys, his documentary about Korean stuntmen, Confession has its share of big, adrenaline charged chases and fight scenes.  However, it is not the stunt work bacchanal one might expect.  Instead, Confession plumbs some murky psychological depths.  Rather than an action thrill ride, it compares more closely to Kim Jee-woon’s I Saw the Devil.

Jung maintains the stark tension throughout the film, but he unleashes a barrage of revelations in the third act.  Indeed, viewers might kick themselves for not guessing a few, but Confession serves as an object lesson in how not to telegraph your big twists by keeping everyone distracting with breakneck pacing.  This is a really well constructed film, but it is not for those with delicate sensibilities. Yes, there is a fair amount of physical conflict, but the emotional violence is far more unsettling.

Jung Jae-young is all kinds of hardnosed as Det. Choi, yet he also perfectly conveys the damaged cop’s tragic nature.  Television star Park Si-hoo is suitably cold and creepy as the serial killer-teen idol.  Their scenes together have serious zing, but they are also backed-up by a strong supporting cast that really helps sell the twists and turns.

Presumably most viewers will not be experts in South Korean criminal law, so it is easy to suspend disbelief over its initial MacGuffin. While in America, the statute of limitations never expires for murder, Confessions is such a nifty, high concept thriller, it seems ripe for a Hollywood remake nonetheless. (Perhaps a liberal judge in the Dirty Harry tradition could issue a preemptive ruling granting the killer impunity.)  Regardless, Confession of Murder is a muscular thriller that ventures into some unusually dark places.  Very highly recommended, it screens this afternoon (7/3) at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of the 2013 New York Asian Film Festival.

NYAFF: The Animals

Kids grow up fast in Manila’s gated communities.  Instead of waiting for college to haze their juniors and slip girls roofies, they start in high school.  The law of the jungle applies in full force to the hard partying youths in Gino Santos’s The Animals (trailer here), which screens today during the 2013 New York Asian Film Festival.

Entitled as entitled gets, Jake is already a full-fledged exploiter, charging bait-and-switch prices for his raves.  His girlfriend Trina is somewhat middle-class, but her hotness still provides her some social status.  Her introverted younger brother Alex is not so fortunate.  He is pledging a gang-like fraternity out of a need for a sense of belonging.  They will all end up at Jake’s latest party, where things quickly get ugly as sex, booze, drugs, and violence will become tragically intertwined for several of Animals’ major characters.

These sort of things never happened while Old Man Marcos was around—that doesn’t make him right, but just saying.  For weak parents, the good thing about martial law is it comes with a curfew.  From what we see of them in Animals, Jake and Trina’s parental units are clueless to the point of negligence.  Likewise, the male characters are almost exclusively cads on the make, most definitely starting with Jake.  In contrast, Trina and her friends are certainly shallow (and her kleptomania is a bit problematic), but they are far from irredeemable.

Unfortunately, Animals is more like Larry Clark’s Kids than Edward Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day.  Santos revels in the dissolute youths’ hedonism and the tragic repercussions, but he never really gets inside anyone’s head.  As a result, viewers will feel a little gross taking in the enormity of his teenage wasteland.

Still, there are some remarkable performances, starting first and foremost with Dawn Balagot as the insecure, borderline anorexic Trina.  Although a small supporting role, Micah Cabral shows plenty of “it-factor” as Trina’s flirty friend Leslie.  However, it is hard to get what they see in any of the guys, including Albie Casino’s blandly amoral Jake.

While imperfect, Animals is still an interesting statement on contemporary Filipino society.  Arguably, it serves as the evil twin of Marie Jamora’s What Isn’t There, whose teenagers are smart, sensitive, and go out primarily just to hear their favorite indie bands.  For those who take their cinema with a heavy dose of class warfare, The Animals screens this afternoon (7/2) and next Wednesday night (7/10) at the Walter Reade Theater as part of NYFF’s Manila Chronicles: the New Filipino Cinema.

Best Friends Forever: Driving Off into the Apocalypse

When the apocalypse comes, books will definitely have an advantage over the internet.  An aspiring grad student would agree.  She was planning a career as a librarian.  Unfortunately, the end of the world complicates matters.  However, it takes a while for her and her hard partying BFF a while to notice Armageddon looming during their southwestern road trip in Brea Grant’s Best Friends Forever (trailer here), which releases today on itunes.

Harriet is the sensitive one, who spent a short stint in a mental hospital following a suicide attempt.  Following the long held tradition of low budget genre movies, her best pal Reba is kind of trampy.  After graduation, Harriet packs up the AMC Pacer for grad school in Texas, convincing Reba to tag along for the ride.  While they are on the road, a mysterious terrorist attack leads to a series of nuclear explosions.  The two women are not listening to the news though, preferring music and the occasional “Oprah” moment to the outside world.  Their first inklings something might be amiss comes when three hipsters carjack their Pacer.

Eventually, the breakdown of civilization strains their relationship.  Of course, nobody claims responsibility for the cataclysmic act of terror, lest the film offend anyone prone to offense.  In one awfully strange exchange, several characters want to blame North Korea, to which Reba replies she is Chinese, as if the PRC were as benign as Luxemburg.  Indeed, the third act threatens to undo much of the good will established by the co-leads, depicting a rather nasty nativist martial law sweeping across Texas.

Since Grant co-wrote and co-produced with her co-star Vera Miao, viewers are pretty much stuck with them as Harriet and Reba, respectively.  Fortunately, they have some nice bickering buddy-buddy chemistry together.  Still, this is clearly a genre film with a female audience in mind, casting men exclusively in either predatory or ineffectual roles.  While Grant comes in with geek credentials from appearances in Heroes and Halloween 2, as well as her work co-writing the 1920’s zombie comic We Will Bury You with her brother Zane, neither of the two seems particularly comfortable with the odd action scene.  Frankly, everyone in BFF would rather talk than do anything else, but the dialogue does not have the sort of snap it should.

Putting a Pacer in the center of an end-of-the-world road movie is pretty ingenious.  Employing the apocalypse as a prism through which to examine personal and social relationships is also a promising strategy, yielding mixed results in this case.  There are some appealing moments of friendship under extreme circumstance in BFF.  Nonetheless, it never approaches the attitude or verve of Thom Eberhardt’s Night of the Comet, the gold standard for zeitgeisty generational Doomsday movies.  

More chick flick (deliberately referencing Thelma & Louise) than midnight movie, Best Friends Forever should satisfy those looking for the former, albeit with a smidge of an edge.  Flawed but interesting, it releases this week on VOD platforms and will screen conventionally August 1^st during the forthcoming 2013 Asian American International Film Festival.

NYAFF ’13: Aberya

A Filipino-American boxer says he can take Pacquiao.  Those are fighting words in the Philippines.  However, Lourd Villegas has not come to spar.  He is looking for love, plus a little side action in Christian Linaban’s Aberya (trailer here), which screens this afternoon as part of Manila Chronicles, the Filipino cinema programming focus at this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Villegas came to his parents’ homeland looking for a bride.  He thinks he may have found her, but he has also lined up women for every other day of the week.  He explains as much to viewers, but he is not really talking to us.  He is just in the habit of narrating his life as if it were a film.  One might logically assume he will be our central protagonist, or at least our focal anti-hero.  However, Linaban will fracture his narrative and timeframe, giving us backstory on three other characters, whose fates will intertwine with Villegas.

Villegas thinks Eden is the one.  He is ready to marry her, fully knowing the unemployed nurse has a weird pagan sex tape floating around the internet.  Of course, his idea of commitment is rather problematic.  Angel is one of the women he would like to spend some quality time with right now.  The former nun has a dark past—real, real dark.  Through her dodgy associations, she comes in contact with Mike, a politician’s prodigal son dealing drugs and liberally sampling his designer wares.  Having apparently read too much Aldous Huxley, Mike is trying to warp time and reality through his special stock.  In doing so, he may have attracted supernatural attention.

Aberya is a dashed difficult film to get one’s head around.  It is hard to tell whether Linaban is going for hipster irony, cult-movie trippiness, or class-conscious tragedy.  The wacked out, old school vintage low budget 1980’s look of Mike’s hallucinations further complicate such judgments.

At least Aberya is definitely something, bolstered by two genuinely intense performances from Will Devaughn and Iwa Moto, as Villegas and his sort of fiancée, respectively.  Charismatic screen presences, they develop some intriguing chemistry together.  Devaughn is a particularly forceful, slowly getting under viewers’ skin as he reveals the extent of Villegas’ egoism and his cynically nationalistic vision.

Shot on-location throughout Cebu, Aberya nicely showcases the island’s local sights and talent.  Linaban’s DIY digital cinematography consistently evokes mystery and passion, except during the film’s not infrequent freak outs.  Frankly though, the highly sexualized Catholic imagery is more clichéd than shocking at this point.  A bit more discipline would have strengthened the inconsistent film, but it still offers a chance to see the up-and-coming cast go for broke quite admirably.  Mostly recommended for adventurous fans of Filipino cinema that can get away for a long lunch, Aberya screens this afternoon (7/1) at the Walter Reade Theater, as a selection of the 2013 NYAFF.