2016 New York Asian Film Festival Brochure by New York Asian Film Festival

2 016

2016 NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL SPONSORS

PARTNERS

Taipei Cultural Center of TECO in New York

SPONSORS

mizu shochu

美鶴乃舞

THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER RECEIVES MAJOR SUPPORT FROM

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL | 2016

NYAFF Ad 2016.indd 6-7

16年5月13日下午2:57

EXHIBITIONS Gallery Korea, located within KCCNY, presents exhibitions per year, and offers artists of various backgrounds and disciplines a space to present their artworks in line with our mission to promote cultural exchange through art.

EDUCATION Playing a key role in our mission to spread Korean culture in depth and breadth, workshops and lectures are provided year round in all areas of the cultural arts and in partnerships with local cultural institutions.

PERFORMING ARTS The Performing Arts department aims to provide a stage for top performing artists of both traditional and contemporary fields to show their works to audiences through our annual OPEN STAGE program among other special events.

FILM Korean Movie Night New York and support of the NYAFF are two of our primary ways that we support the promotion of Korean films to the US audience under curated themes such as the Premiere Showcase and the Master Series.

SPORTS

K-POP

Taekwondo, an official Olympic sport, has continued to maintain its position as a prominent form of martial arts. KCCNY has been supporting public schools and universities to provide the highest quality of taekwondo education.

As one of the hottest contents to come out of Korea, KCCNY supports its spread through the NY K-Pop Fest; this year, a new program, the K-Pop Academy, will be held to provide a chance for participants to train like a K-Pop star.

CUSINE KCCNY is the annual host and sponsor organization of the top Korean food competitions such as the Global Taste of Korea Contest to deliver our message of the cultural depth of Korean cuisine beyond the recipes.

LIBRARY Our library, located inside KCCNY, holds a rich collection of over 20,000 books and DVDs in both English and Korean, covering topics from Korean literature, history, and more. Visit our E-library through our website.

460 Park Avenue 6th Floor, New York, NY 10022 Library Hours: Monday-Friday, 9AM-5PM | Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday, 9AM-5PM Phone: (212) 759 9550 | Fax: (212) 688 8640 | Email: info@koreanculture.org www.koreanculture.org | Instagram @KCCNY | Facebook.com/KoreanCulturalServiceNY

Korean Movie Night New York MASTER SERIES:

Master of Historical Drama 6.28~7.2

Co-presented by NYAFF and KCCNY@ Walter Reade Theatre 6.28 6.30

9:15 pm 8:30pm

“DONG-JU: The Portrait of a Poet” “THE THRONE”

Presented by KCCNY @ Beatrice Theatre 7.1

6:00pm 8:10 pm 9:10 pm

“KING AND THE CLOWN” Q&A/Talk with Lee Joon-ik “BLADES OF BLOOD”

7.2

4:30pm 6:30pm 8:35 pm

“ONCE UPON A TIME IN A BATTLEFIELD” “BATTLEFIELD HEROES” Q&A/Talk with Lee Joon-ik and Cho Cheol-hyeon (Writer/Producer of The Throne, Battlefield Heroes)

“영화 동주의 이준익 감독”, Vogue Korea, Doosan Magazine Digital Photograph, 4 February 2016 Photographer: Hyea W. Kang | Editor: Sohyeon Cho

B D

F M N R

F 6

18 INTRODUCTION © 20 16 T IS TW ED E

IC ST lm Fi Pa r tn

C TH LOS D E IN O T G W EN F N A ILM ST N A TS IR S

O IS PE TE N D IN JU G ST FILM IC E

s er

C H EN A TE M RP O IE G C (H E F A ILM ZE )

The Village Voice’s “Best Film Festival in NYC 2015” is back with its most cutting-edge lineup yet, served up with a cast of Asia’s biggest, most talented, and most glamorous stars. Yes, you can have your cake and eat it too. Our 15th anniversary edition promises a full serving of unhinged genre-benders, emotionally intelligent entertainment, and uncompromising arthouse gems that will sate all appetites, wholesome and otherwise. As New York City’s hottest summer event, our ambition is to tantalize, shock, and excite with a handpicked crop of disquieting noir, gonzo gangster action, dark romance, and sharp political works that showcase the vibrant talent working in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. NYAFF also celebrates its coming-of-age with screenings of the founders’ and current programmers’ favorite contemporary classics. A point of pride and a cornerstone of the festival, the Opening Night gala will be the World Premiere of Kazuya Shiraishi’s wild

2016 NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL 19

N IO

Southeast Asian Cinema receives a greater focus in this selection, reflecting how the region is taking the lead in producing the world’s most innovative films. Highlights include the Tamil-language Jagat (Brutal) from Malaysia, Heart Attack from Thailand, and youth noir Hamog (Haze) from the Philippines. Just as glamorous and talented as their Northern neighbors (Star Asia Awardees Miriam Yeung and Lee ByungHun, and Rising Stars Go Ayano and Jelly Lin), Southeast Asian stars who will appear in person include John Lloyd Cruz (Star Asia Award), Teri Malvar (aforementioned Rising Star Award), Sid Lucero, and Annicka Dolonius (both stars of the Philippines’ sensuous surfing drama Apocalypse Child),

CT DU O

This year, we set out to champion a much broader range of Asian cinema. For example, we are particularly excited by a new breed of noir film, rooted in social issues, which is emerging in both China and Southeast Asia. With these and other selections in the lineup, we want to show how Asian films are exploring and setting new directions for world cinema.

TR IN

crime epic Twisted Justice, starring Japan’s hottest actor and Screen International Rising Star honoree Go Ayano as his country’s most corrupt police detective. The Centerpiece Gala is the North American Premiere of Ralston Jover’s Hamog (Haze), an empowering and thrilling tale about a gang of street kids, headlined by Rising Star honoree Teri Malvar. The Closing Night is the International Premiere of Adam Tsuei’s The Tenants Downstairs. Based on a story by former NYAFF guest Giddens Ko (You Are the Apple of My Eye), the somberly comic, sexually explicit thriller features Simon Yam (also a former guest of the festival) as a landlord spying on and manipulating the lives of his tenants.

and Apinya Sakuljaroensuk (from the socialmedia slasher flick Grace). In explorations of innocence corrupted, we also put the spotlight on first-time female directors with China’s What’s in the Darkness (dir. Wang Yichun), and Hong Kong’s Lazy Hazy Crazy (dir. Jody Luk), in which schoolgirls explore the city’s heart of greed by charging for sex. As a whole (a sign of the times perhaps), some of the most fascinating films that the programming team discovered this year are quarrelsome thrillers that target institutionalized and individual, corruption— in the police, in the courts, in the media, and on the political stage—with Woo Min-ho’s Inside Men from South Korea in particular. These films are razor-sharp dissections of the corruption at the heart of fragile democracies at a moment when these countries are becoming swinging pendulums of political turmoil. To celebrate our 15th edition, we made the difficult and deliberate decision to have a lean selection. Bigger isn’t better; better is better. While maintaining a focus on quality and diversity, we’re putting our energies into promoting each film, so that they have a life after the festival, on screens and in the hearts our audience. (S.J.) NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL | 2016

20 FOCUS PROGRAMS

IM E AT

N D

ER PA RT N M FIL E KL IN W VA N P RI R FO E ID BR ©

N A A RE EM KO IN C

A EM N IN A C AP J EW M N RO F

A EM W IN NO

S RE & U S AT ER E FE TH UT D FA R I B T

G N KO A G AM N R O NO PA

A IW

TA A ST EA N TH IO U OT SO M IN

HONG KONG PANORAMA

SI A

Faithful to its Chinatown roots and central to its lineup, the festival will feature a Hong Kong Panorama, showcasing the most innovative films from the Special Administrative Region, with the support of Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in New York. From a coming-of-age drama about high-school girls who become involved in the sex trade (Lazy Hazy Crazy), to a feel-good baseball movie set within Hong Kong’s public-housing system (Weeds on Fire), to a hard-boiled gangster omnibus (the Johnnie To–produced Trivisa), these films are revitalizing local genre staples with a fresh spin. The program also includes Nick Cheung’s Keeper of Darkness, Herman Yau’s The Mobfathers, and Adam Wong’s She Remembers, He Forgets. Presented with the support of Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office New York.

2016 NYAFF FOCUS PROGRAMS 21

SOUTH KOREAN CINEMA

The South Korean Cinema lineup includes a vibrant mix of thrillers (both supernatural and surreal) from first and second-time directors that are daring twists on genre films (Alone, The Boys Who Cried Wolf, and The Priests), and insightful art-house dramas focusing on social issues from established directors (Jung Ji-woo’s Fourth Place, about how much we demand from the next generation, and E J-yong’s The Bacchus Lady, about the plight of the country’s abandoned elderly). In copresentation with the Korean Movie Night New York Master Series, NYAFF will feature the two latest films by Lee Joon-ik, who will attend screenings of Dongju: The Portrait of a Poet (with producer and screenwriter Shin Yeon-shick) and The Throne. Together with Lee Jongpil’s The Sound of a Flower, the triptych examines the scars of South Korea’s troubled history. The festival’s 11 South Korean films are presented with the support of the Korean Cultural Center New York. Presented with the support of the Korean Cultural Center New York.

NEW CINEMA FROM JAPAN

Japanese films have a special place in the New York Asian Film Festival. The archipelago’s idiosyncratic brand of cinematic madness might be best represented this year by Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s unnerving Creepy, about a maniac who infiltrates and corrupts the nuclear-family unit; Hideo Sakaki’s shocking Kiyamachi Daruma, featuring a manipulative yakuza boss who lacks not only digits but also his arms and legs; the loony Hentai Kamen 2, the hotly anticipated sequel to our 2013 Audience Award winner about a fetishistic superhero who wears his crime-busting underwear on his head.; and the balls-to-the walls Too Young to Die!, easily the best comedy of the year. But the most exciting part of the Japanese film lineup might come from our pick for the Lifetime Achievement Award: IWAI Shunji. The first Japanese recipient of the award, he will present his three cinematic epics— Swallowtail Butterfly (1996), All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001), and A Bride for Rip Van Winkle (2016), starring Go Ayano—during the festival’s opening weekend. Iwai has proven himself one of Asia’s most influential filmmakers since his mid-1990s Undo, Picnic, and Love Letter. He is recognized for capturing the spirit of the times, and stretching the cinematic language of Asian cinema. Despite his early successes, he has continued to reinvent himself, recently directing his first animated feature. Presented with the support of Japan Foundation New York.

SOUTHEAST ASIA IN MOTION

From the Philippines we present three genre-defying films that explore fatherhood, and what it means to be an adult: Erik Matti’s religious crime drama Honor Thy Father, Ralston Jover’s noir youth drama Hamog (Haze), and Mario Cornejo’s sensual surfing film Apocalypse Child, which posits that Francis Ford Coppola left behind an illegitimate son as well as a surfboard after shooting Apocalypse Now in the Philippines. We cling to the company of lost souls to explore the little-known territory of Tamil-language Malaysian cinema and the plight of the local Indian community in the 1990s. First-time director Shanjhey Kumar Perumal’s Jagat (Brutal) follows the hardships of a 12-year-old boy as he gets drawn into the criminal lifestyle of his uncle, a henchman for a local Malaysian gang. Channeling the spirit of Satyajit Ray, this raw coming-of-age story receives its North American premiere at NYAFF. Also of note: Thailand’s Grace (dir. Ornusa Donsawai & Pun Homchuen), which offers a merciless attack on social-media idolatry, and the acutely observed Heart Attack.

TAIWAN CINEMA NOW

The Taiwan Cinema Now section defies expectations with first films by new directors Adam Tsuei (The Tenants Downstairs), Vic Cheng (The Tag-Along), and Lee Chung (The Laundryman) that expand the horizons of the island’s genre cinema. The section, presented with the support of the Taipei Cultural Center of TECO in New York, is completed by two powerful dramas from established filmmakers Tom Lin (Zinnia Flower) and Cheng Wen-tang (Maverick), which explore loss and redemption. Presented with the support of the Taipei Cultural Center of TECO in New York.

ANIMATED FEATURES & FOUNDING FATHERS TRIBUTE

Animation is represented by three of the most innovative examples of the past decade: South Korea’s zombie apocalypse tale Seoul Station, Japan’s artist biopic Miss Hokusai and, as part of a focus on the favorite films of the festival’s founders, Michael Arias’ madcap Tekkonkinkreet. Other tribute titles include Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man and Pang Hocheung’s Love in the Buff starring Miriam Yeung. We are also hosting a Surprise Screening of a contemporary classic that has special significance to the founding fathers of NYAFF. NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL | 2016

22 SCHEDULE

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER June 22 - July 5 WALTER READE THEATRE 165 West 65th Street, north side/upper level between Broadway and Amsterdam 212.875.5600 Subway:Take the 1 train to the 66th Street statio then walk west on 65th Street and look for the FILM banner. Bus: The M104, M5 and M7 all stop in front of Lincoln Center. FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO:FILMLINC.COM

6/22 WEDS OPENING NIGHT 7:00pm 9:30pm

TWISTED JUSTICE 135min Opening Night Party for Ticket Holders

6/23 THURS 6:15pm 9:00pm

APOCALYPSE CHILD 95 min +Q&A THE PRIESTS 108 min

6/24 FRI 4:00pm 6:15pm 9:45pm

IF CATS DISAPPEARED FROM THE WORLD 100min A BRIDE FOR RIP VAN WINKLE 179min Award SEOUL STATION 92min

6/25 SAT 12:30pm 2:45pm 6:15pm 8:30pm 11:00pm

THE LAUNDRYMAN 112min SWALLOWTAIL BUTTERFLY 146min + Q&A LAZY HAZY CRAZY 99min THE BODYGUARD 90min Award + Q&A TETSUO THE IRON MAN 67min

6/26 SUN 12:00pm 2:15pm 5:15pm 7:30pm 9:30pm

WHAT A WONDERFUL FAMILY 108min ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU-CHOU 146min + Appearance TEKKONKINKREET 111min BRUTAL (JAGAT) 86min + Appearance MAVERICK 114min

6/27 MON 6:15pm 9:00pm

WHAT’S IN THE DARKNESS 98min +Q&A IF CATS DISAPPEARED FROM THE WORLD 100min

6/28 TUES 6:00pm 9:15pm

TWISTED JUSTICE 135min + Q&A + award DONGJU 110 min + Q&A

6/29 WEDS 6:00pm 8:45pm

CREEPY 130 min SHE REMEMBERS HE FORGETS 110min + AWARD/Q&A

6/30 THURS 6:00pm 8:30pm

LOVE IN THE BUFF 111min + Appearance THE THRONE 125 min + Appearance

7/1 FRI 3:30pm 6:00pm 8:15pm

TOO YOUNG TO DIE 125m THE BACCHUS LADY 110min HAZE 100min Award + Q&A

2016 NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL 23

SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS Beatrice and Silas Theatres July 6 - July 9

7/2 SAT 1:00pm 3:05pm 5:30pm 8:15pm

YELLOW FLOWERS ON GREEN GRASS 103min FOURTH PLACE 116min THE MERMAID 94min Award + Q&A HONOR THY FATHER 115min Award + Q&A

7/3 SUN 12:30pm 2:30pm 4:30pm 6:30pm 9:00pm

THE TAG-ALONG 93min MISS HOKUSAI 90min ZINNIA FLOWER 95min HEART ATTACK 125min GRACE + Q&A 90min

7/4 MON 12:00pm 2:10pm 4:15pm 6:30pm 9:00pm

THE BODYGUARD 99min WEEDS ON FIRE 95min TRIVISA 97min THE MOBFATHERS w/ short KILLER AND UNDERCOVER 104min 10 YEARS + Q&A 104min

7/5 TUES 6:00pm 8:30pm

KIYAMACHI DARUMA 115min INSIDE MEN 130min Award +Q&A

SVA THEATRE | BEATRICE THEATRE 333 West 23rd Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues 212.592.2980

Subway:C/E to 23rd Street (at 8th Avenue); 1 to 23rd Street (at 7th Avenue); F to 23rd Street (at 6th Avenue); N/R to 23rd Street (at 5th Avenue/ Broadway); 6 to 23rd Street (at Park Avenue). Bus: Downtown M11 (on 9th Avenue); Uptown M20 bus (on 8th Avenue); Crosstown M23 bus (stops at 8th and 9th Avenues). FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO:SVATHEATRE.COM

7/6 WEDS- SVA THEATRE 6:30pm 8:30pm

ALONE 90min HENTAI KAMEN 2 117min

7/7 THURS- SVA THEATRE 6:15pm 8:30pm

THE SOUND OF A FLOWER 109min MR. SIX 136min

7/8 FRI- SVA THEATRE 6:15pm 8:40pm

A VIOLENT PROSECUTOR 126min 15th ANNIVERSARY SURPRISE SCREENING 96min

7/9 SAT- SVA THEATRE 12:00pm 2:15pm 4:00pm 6:15pm 9:00pm

KEEPER OF DARKNESS 103min THE BOYS WHO CRIED WOLF 80min + Appearance SAVING MR WU 106min TOO YOUNG TO DIE 125min THE TENANTS DOWNSTAIRS + Q&A

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL | 2016

24 LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

IWAI SHUNJI - LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 25

UN ,J AY ID 24

IW AI

The first phase of Iwai’s career came to a close with the release of his wildly ambitious Swallowtail Butterfly the following year. Set in an alternative Japan, home to millions of immigrants in shanty towns, it stars Chara as a wannabe pop star whose dreams are realized when her “Yen Town” comrades get rich using the most ingenious currency scam ever committed to celluloid. Ahead of its time for its depiction of a multi-racial Japan, its adoption of world-class CGI in an extraordinary butterfly sequence, and

Two years after the sprawling 146-minute Swallowtail, Iwai returned with his smallest movie yet, the perfectly-formed 67-minute April Story about a female student moving into her own apartment and experiencing first love. Iwai not only wrote, directed and edited the film, but also produced it, composed its music, and self-distributed it. It marked a new self-reliance and a necessary detachment that that would later see him becoming his own cinematographer. He has since made films in New York, Vancouver and Paris, directed an animated feature, and set up a company in Shanghai where he is about to launch the next phase of his career. (S.C.)

He found his next outlet at the 9pm “late show” screenings at theaters, where he exhibited his 47-minute Undo about the madness inherent in love. The hallmarks that defined his career - poetic works with fresh visuals, sensual soundtracks and Japan’s most beautiful actors - were already evident. His first feature-length film was the 72-minute Picnic, starring Asano and singer Chara as escapees from an asylum, but the first to reach cinemas was his classic Love Letter in 1995. The parallel-timeline romance is about a young widow who sends a letter to her dead husband in his Hokkaido hometown, only to get a reply from his female classmate with the same name. The film brought Iwai legions of fans across Asia; while it sold out theaters in Japan for 14 weeks, it played in Hong Kong for 30 straight weeks and became the must-see film for students in South Korea where Japanese films were still banned.

its multi-media marketing campaign, it also marked Iwai’s withdrawal from Japan’s rigid film industry.

Q LIF &A AW ETI & L AR ME STA D TIM R AN CE E AS A D RE AC IA 6: BR M HI 15 ID O EV E N PM F Y EM O W EN | R LIN RI ITH T CO P V LN AN CE WI N NK TE LE R

IWAI SHUNJI

The path of ’s career is unique in Japan. He started out in television, making a dozen short- and medium-length films including 1993’s Fried Dragon Fish, starring a young Tadanobu Asano, and Fireworks, Shall We See It From the Side or the Bottom?. The latter won an award from the Directors Guild of Japan, something unprecedented for a TV movie.

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL | 2016

STAR ASIA AWARD

LEE Byung-hun - star asia aWarD 27

LY JU Y, DA

UN G

-H

Lee’s first foray into Hollywood was in 2009 with the memorable role of Storm Shadow in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. He is fast becoming one of the best known Asian faces in the West for his appearances in blockbuster

ES TU

Throughout his career, he has chosen to work with debut directors, demonstrating a keen eye for talent through collaborations with Kim Sung-soo (Run Away), Lee Youngjae (The Harmonium in My Memory), Kim Dae-seung (Bungee Jumping of Their Own), Park Young-hoon (Addicted) and Lee Jaekyoo (The Influence). This willingness to take risks can also be seen in the personae he has taken on, from the sadistic crime lord in Tran Anh Hung’s I Come with the Rain, to the one-handed survivor in Woo Min-ho’s Inside Men.

2016 is proving another landmark year for Lee outside South Korea, beginning in February when he was tasked with presenting the Best Foreign Language Film Award at the 88th Oscars. Lee next appears in Antoine Fuqua’s The Magnificent Seven, the latest remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. This year, we are proud to bring him back “East” as a recipient of one of our anniversary edition’s Star Asia Awards. (C.M.).

Lee nurtured his domestic popularity by moving back-and-forth between successful TV dramas (Beautiful Days, All In, and Iris) and contemporary classics from directors Kim Jee-woon (A Bittersweet Life; The Good, the Bad, the Weird; I Saw the Devil) and Park Chan-wook (Joint Security Area). His partnerships with these world-renowned directors also earned him critical acclaim, and a fervent fan base in the West.

leading man of South Korean cinema, and beyond. His career has spanned twenty years in genres as diverse as the romance, the wuxia epic, the eastern (Manchurian) western, the period drama, and the bloody thriller.

franchises (Red 2; Terminator Genisys). But he has also maintained a successful commercial career and critical respect at home, winning a Grand Bell Award for Best Actor for his dual roles in Choo Chang-min’s lavish 2012 period drama Masquerade. It is currently South Korea’s 8th most successful (local) film of all time. The same year, Lee and veteran Ahn Sung-ki became the first Korean actors to immortalize their hand- and foot-prints on the forecourts of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

Q CE &A RE & M ST O AR AN N N D Y AS E W IA W IN ITH A 8: SI YO W 30 D AR R PM E M K D PR | EN E M LIN IE CO RE O LN F CE N TE R

LEE BYUNG-HUN is the undisputed

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL | 2016

STAR ASIA AWARD

MIRIAM YEUNG - STAR ASIA AWARD 29

N JU Y, DA

She found that reconnection in 2010—after a turning point in her personal life: marriage— when she started a creative partnership with Pang Ho-cheung, taking both their careers to another level. In the 18-rated romance Love in a Puff, Yeung played foul-mouthed cosmetics salesgirl Cherie who starts a relationship with an advertising executive after city-wide smoking regulations throw the chain-smokers

ED W

For several years she balanced a career refining her natural skill as a comedienne while challenging herself in more demanding roles, including Fruit Chan’s dark horror Dumplings in 2004. However, unable to find a persona that again resonated with Hong Kong audiences, she focused on her music career.

At this year’s NYAFF, we present her newest film, Adam Wong’s ambitious mid-life crisis romantic drama She Remembers, He Forgets. (S.C.)

IR IA

epitomizes the anything-is-possible spirit of Hong Kong. Since winning third prize in a TVB singing competition in 1995, Yeung has released 40 albums, acted in 35 feature films and become one of Hong Kong’s leading charity ambassadors. After starting her movie career in 1998 in James Yuen’s Rumble Ages, Yeung became a major box office draw in 2001-2 with her charismatic performances as quirky girl-next-doors in three offbeat comedies directed by Joe Ma: Feel 100% II, Dummy Mommy Without a Baby and Love Undercover. Her new prominence was recognized at the Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy, where she was presented with the Most Popular Artiste Award.

MIRIAM YEUNG

together. Two years later, Yeung won Best Actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards for the more poignant Beijing-set follow-up, Love in the Buff, also a major box office hit in both Hong Kong and mainland China. Yeung has continued to work with Pang, most notably on Aberdeen, and with another chronicler of modern Hong Kong, Johnnie To, on Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2. In 2015, two decades after launching her entertainment career, Yeung headlined the biggest local hit of the year, Little Big Master, based on the true story of a kindergarten teacher fighting for the education of five underprivileged kids in the New Territories.

Q CE &A RE & M ST O AR AN N Y AS SH D W IA S HE E CR ITH A 8: F RE EE W 45 O M N AR PM RG EM IN D G | ET BE O LIN S RS F CO , LN CE N TE R

The daughter of an English teacher who herself trained and worked as a nurse,

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL | 2016

STAR ASIA AWARD

JOHN LLOYD CRUZ - STAR ASIA AWARD 31

one of the and outside York Asian with his first

, AY RD

TU SA LY JU 2 LIN HY EM CO FA IERE LN TH O F CE ER N TE R

In New York, we are capturing him at a crucial moment in his career, with a screening of his first film as a producer and investor, Erik Matti’s Honor Thy Father. Although the crime thriller was released one month after Second Chance, it marked his first film after a one-year stand-off with ABS-CBN and a radical departure from his still-boyish image. The film, about family, religion and corruption, stars Cruz as a father whose household is besieged by mob violence and whose daughter is kidnapped by creditors after the collapse of his father-in-law’s pyramid scheme. Released on December 25th within the nationwide Metro Manila Film Festival, it unravelled a corruption scandal within the

To salute his reinvention as Philippines best actors inside the romantic genre, the New Film Festival is presenting Cruz international award. (S.C.)

JO L H N AN LO N D Y D H EW 8: ON YO CR 15 O R PM R K UZ T PR

most powerful actor in the Philippines, was discovered by a talent scout in a shopping mall. After appearing in a handful of teenoriented television shows, he signed with ABSCBN’s Star Magic group in 1997, giving him a platform to star opposite leading actresses Toni Gonzaga, Sarah Geronimo, and Bea Alonzo in a series of romantic blockbusters for the television behemoth’s Star Cinema studio. His Cathy Garcia-Molina-directed romantic dramas One More Chance (2007, with Alonzo), A Very Special Love (2008, with Geronimo) and You Changed My Life (2009, Geronimo again) were the country’s highest grossing films three years in a row making him the country’s undisputed box office king. Last year’s sequel A Second Chance stands as the country’s highest grossing local film with a $12 million domestic haul. He has also won practically every award in the Philippines.

event itself, that led to radical changes and hearings in Congress.

Q CE &A RE & M ST O AR N Y AS W IA ITH A W AR D

JOHN LLOYD CRUZ, arguably the

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL | 2016

Issue 1804

February

Magazine and special supplements

2016

aily.com www.ScreenD

ers perfoprerm mieres Peak16’s world

• In-depth analysis, company profiles, interviews and expert insight into the global film industry

e Preview Berlinal

Berlin 20

• Annual showcases: Future Leaders and Stars of Tomorrow

■

ntina g ■ Arge as Vinterber ■ Thom uction nd film prod iew ■ Irela EFM Prev

• Special supplements including World of Locations, and guides for all the key international film markets and festivals

focus territory

Online resources • ScreenDaily.com: All the latest industry news and reviews • 15 years of searchable archives • Production and financing information for key international territories

Essential festival daily editions and awards season coverage • Festival dailies for Berlin, Cannes, Toronto, Jerusalem, Zurich, Busan, Dubai, AFM, Hong Kong FILMART, Rotterdam & Film Bazaar • On-the-pulse coverage of key international deals + Special awards issues featuring exclusive interviews with the talent behind the nominated films

ONLY $199

for a 1-year Print + Online subscription SAVE OVER 46% | REGULAR RATE $369

Subscribe today: www.screendaily.com/NYAFF Offer available to new subscribers only. Ends 31 July, 2016

GO AYANO - SCREEN INTERNATIONAL RISING STAR AWARD 33 33

This year’s New York Asian Film Festival is awarding Japanese actor

GO AYANO

a Screen International Rising Star Award for his chameleon-like range as an actor, whether portraying long-haired students or demon assassins. In 2016, he is already emerging as Japan’s hottest actor for roles including a Machiavellian fixer in Shunji Iwai’s A Bride for Rip Van Winkle, the country’s most corrupt cop in Kazuya Shiraishi’s Twisted Justice, and as one of three suspects of a heinous crime in Lee Sang-il’s upcoming murder-mystery Rage. Ayano’s rise has been swift. He first burst into the Japanese film industry’s consciousness in 2009 with a supporting role in Takashi Miike’s school gang warfare franchise entry Crows II. He has since starred in a series of iconic films including Mika Ninagawa’s Helter Skelter, Keishi Otomo’s Rurouni Kenshin, Shuichi Okita’s A Story of Yonosuke, Eriko Kitagawa’s I Have to Buy New Shoes, and Oh Mipo’s The Light Shines Only There. He is represented by TriStone Entertainment (S.C.)

J Y, DA

AY AN

Q SC &A RI RE & SI EN N G IN ST TE AN A TW D R RN CE AT 6: RE IO 00 IST M NA PM ED O N L | JU Y LIN S W CO TIC / LN E CE N TE R

E NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL | 2016

JELLY LIN - SCREEN INTERNATIONAL RISING STAR AWARD

JELLY LIN is China’s newest “It Girl” after her

film debut Stephen Chow’s The Mermaid broke box office records earlier this year. She was among 120,000 contenders who joined open auditions for the titular role of a half-woman, half-fish who seduces an environmentallyunfriendly property developer so that her merkind can assassinate him… only to fall madly in love. Lin’s beguiling performance, which showed her as a gifted comedienne, has been described as the film’s “secret weapon” that catapulted it to $520 million at the China box office. Later this year she stars as the nearimmortal Tianshu Youhua in L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties, Guo Jingming’s motioncapture, CGI adaptation of his own novel. Next year she’ll be seen in Tsui Hark’s Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons 2 and the Hasichaolu-directed, Jean-Jacques Annaudproduced The Legend of the Mongol King. Lin is represented by Chow’s talent management agency, Worth Achieve Associates. (S.C.)

, AY RD

TU SA LY JU

LL Y

LIN

Q SC &A RI RE & SI EN N G IN ST TE AN AR RN T D CE AT 5: HE SC 30 M RE RE IO PM ER EN M NA O | MA IN N L Y LIN I G W O D CO F / LN CE N TE R

34 34

TERI MALVAR - SCREEN INTERNATIONAL RISING STAR AWARD

TERI MALVAR’s film career is the stuff of

/ AL N YW IO N AT MO RN RE TE E & IN R C &A EEN STA

JU LY

RI M

AL VA R

Q SC &A RI RE & SI EN N G IN ST TE AN AR RN P D CE AT HA REM NO RE IO 8: M IE RT M NA 15 O RE H O PM G O AM N L F Y E | (H W R LIN A IC / A Z CO E N ) FR LN ID CE N AY TE R ,

Her next two films owe a debt to The Wicker Man, True Detective and the works of David Lynch. In Alec Figuracion’s Zigzag Road, she played the moral center of a nuclear family who are trapped together with other travelers when their car cannot find its way out of a spaghetti nest of twisting roads. In Jet Leyco’s mystery Town in a Lake she played a schoolgirl who disappears when her best friend (and alleged lesbian lover) is rape-murdered. Both films create rich mythologies whose undercurrents consume their contemporary protagonists. With Ralston Jover’s Hamog (Haze), Malvar is on the cusp of getting the international attention she deserves. Conceived as the tale of four homeless street kids, Malvar’s screen-stealing performance as Jinky led the filmmakers to

R G L SC SIN Y G ID LN RI LL WIN MA CO JE OLLO MER | LIN F E M TH :30P

fairytales. While accompanying her part-time actress mom to an audition, she unexpectedly landed the main role. That film was Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo’s coming-of-age drama Anita’s Last Cha-Cha, a competition entry in the 1st CineFilipino Film Festival. Set in a small village in the Philippines, Malvar depicted the (lesbian) first love story of its 12-year-old protagonist with effortless charm and sensitivity. Malvar caused a media storm when she won the festival’s Best Actress award, beating screen legend Nora Aunor. It also shared the Best Film Award. Anita is one of several daring castings with which Malvar has broadened the range of Philippines’ cinema. Malvar followed Anita with Kip Oebanda’s human trafficking drama In the Can, in which she played one of a group of children forced to work long hours in a sardinecanning factory.

refashion the film’s second half around her. She won her second Best Actress award for her fiery portrayal at the Cinema One Originals Film Festival. She is next competing for Best Actress at the Shanghai and Moscow International Film Festivals, which are hosting the film’s Asian and European premieres. (S.C.)

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL | 2016

YUE SONG - DANIEL A. CRAFT AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN ASIAN CINEMA

YUE SONG

Shandong-born learnt different fighting styles from a young age, studying traditional boxing, kickboxing, ju-jitsu, Muay Thai, Jeet Kune Do, and mixed martial arts. He also created his own moves, including the “bullet punch”, “seven-meter flip”, and “gun grab”. He first came to the attention of action fans with his short training video, Chinese Kung Fu Kid Shocks the World, which demonstrated his practical, balls-to-the-wall street-fighting style. In 2008, it became an internet sensation with over 2 million views and 8,000 comments on Youku. In 2009, his first martial arts feature collapsed due to poor budgeting and a series of accidents on set. In 2010, he took out a bank loan to make The King of the Streets, which he shot over 20 exhausting days. Yue, who was director, screenwriter and actor, next spent six months persuading the Beijing Film Bureau to let it pass it through censorship, before its theatrical release in 2012. The Bodyguard is his latest (glorious )attempt to put Chinese martial arts back on the map. (S.C.)

5 25 2 E NE FT IN UNJU RA CE Y , J Y, . C EN ON AYDA L A ELL EM IE R N EXC CE RDUR DA R A TU T O A F & EM D N SA S G &A R CI

Q AW &A AC A & D TIO RD AN N FO IE AN CI R E L A AM D N EM XCE . CR TH ER NO A LLE AF I 8: E W N T 30 B CAN RTH ITH CE PM OD P IN R Y | E LIN G MI CO UA ERE LN RD OF CE N TE R

N RD E AW IA SO G A N C AS ITH E WIN YGUCOL W YUOLLO BOD | LIN F E M TH :30P

R TE

NYAFF 2016 GUESTS 37

YOSHINORI CHIBA Yoshinori Chiba started his career as one of ten employees at Gaga Corporation. In 2004, he produced Keita Amemiya’s Zeiram as a company employee only to be reprimanded for being heavily over budget. His second chance came four years later with the boom in straight-to-video releases, producing films in-house for Takashi Miike (Fudoh: The New Generation), Sato Shimako (Wizard of Darkness), and Rokuro Mochizuki (Another Lonely Hitman). In 1998, after producing 60 films at Gaga, he started his own company, Media Suits, where he launched the careers of Yasuo Inoue (The Neighbor No. Thirteen), Yudai Yamaguchi (Battlefield Baseball), and Yuji Shimomura (Death Trace). In 2009, he created the Sushi Typhoon label at Nikkatsu, where he produced films by Noboru Iguchi (The Machine Girl), Yoshihiro Nishimura (Helldriver), and Sion Sono (Cold Fish). His recent films for Nikkatsu include The Mo Brothers’ Killers, Sion Sono’s Tokyo Tribe, and Kazuya Shiraishi’s Twisted Justice.

MICHAEL ARIAS Michael Arias dropped out of his linguistics degree to become a musician, before joining the film industry in 1987 as a motion capture camera assistant on genre classics The Abyss and Total Recall. After a period working under VFX legend Douglas Trumball at Universal Studios’ theme parks, Arias moved to Tokyo in 1991 to work for IMAGICA and Sega. Returning to New York in 1993, he co-founded CG design boutique Syzygy Digital Cinema — creating film title sequences for David Cronenberg, Spike Lee and The Coen Brothers — and then helped develop hybrid 2-D and 3-D animation software at Softimage for DreamWorks Animation (Prince of Egypt) and Studio Ghibli (Princess Mononoke). Relocating to Japan in 1995, he fell in love with Taiyo Matsumoto’s Tekkonkinreet manga, creating an award-winning four-minute film pilot short before producing The Animatrix omnibus at Studio 4°C. His films include the feature-length anime Tekkonkinkreet, the live-action Heaven’s Door and dark sci-fi anime Harmony

ANNICKA DOLONIUS Born in Singapore, raised in Malaysia, and educated in Switzerland, half-Swedish Annicka Dolonius is one of Philippine cinema’s most international citizens. Five years after playing a high-school student in Auraeus Solito’s 1980s-set Philippine Science, she entered the film industry like a whirlwind with another Cinemalaya competition entry, Marietta Jamora’s 2012 What Isn’t There. Before casting began, Jamora told the festival organizing committee who were seed-funding it, “I just want to discover somebody and hope she looks like a young Winona Ryder.” She got that and more in Dolonius, who played the carefree, music-loving Enid del Mundo who sweeps the virginal protagonist off his feet. After a series of bit parts in commercial films and television, she returned to leading roles last year in Jim Libiran’s high school orgy drama Ninja Party and Mario Cornejo’s Apocalypse Child, for which she won her very first acting award at the Quezon City International Film Festival (QCinema).

MONSTER JIMENEZ Monster Jimenez is a producer, screenwriter, and director who has worked in film, television and print media. She and her partner Mario Cornejo collaborate as the “Monster and Mario Show”: Cornejo directs the duo’s narrative feature films; Jimenez directs their documentaries. Their first partnership was the anarchic comedy Big Time, about the misadventures of the Philippines’ two most useless robbers, which competed at the 1st Cinemalaya Film Festival in 2005. Cornejo directed her own debut feature, the jaw-dropping documentary Kano: An American and His Harem in 2010, which was recognized in Amsterdam, Cinemanila and at the Gawad Urian Awards. Apocalypse Child, which won Best Film at the 3rd Quezon City International Film Festival (QCinema), is also nominated for several Gawad Urian Awards on 21 June, the eve of NYAFF. Jimenez is the presiding chairperson of IFC (Philippine Independent Filmmakers Multi-purpose Cooperative), and co-founder of Arkeo Films and This Side Up.

KIM JIN-HWANG Kim Jin-hwang is a graduate of Sejong University’s Film Department and the Korean Academy of Film Arts’ Department of Directing. After making a series of short films — The Ordinary Moment (2012), A and B (2012), Curtain Call (2014), and Mrs. Hwang (2014) — Kim directed, wrote, edited and co-produced his debut feature, The Boys Who Cried Wolf. The thriller, which doubled as his KAFA dissertation film, explores the ethical boundaries of make-believe when an actor for hire becomes embroiled in a murder case as a fake witness, only to discover layers of pretense. It premiered in the “Korean Cinema Today: Vision” section of last October’s Busan International Film Festival, where it shared the Directors’ Guild Award. After its international premiere at the competitive “Forward Future” section of the Beijing International Film Festival in April, it receives its first screening outside Asia at this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL | 2016

NYAFF 2016 GUESTS

LEE JOON-IK Lee Joon-ik serves up Korean history with black comedy, razor-sharp satire, and plenty of mud and blood. His first commercial hit was the 2003 satire Once Upon a Time in the Battlefield which he followed two years later with one of the ten most successful South Korean films of all time, The King and the Clown, about a Joseon Dynasty king who falls for a young, feminine actor in his court. After contemporary comedies Radio Star and The Happy Life, and the bittersweet Vietnam film Sunny, he returned to historical ground with sword actioner (and NYAFF 2010 closer) Blades of Blood. Battlefield Heroes was his wildest swing yet, a sequel to Once Upon a Time in the Battlefield that plays like an absurdist All Quiet on the Western Front. He vowed to retire if it flopped, which it did... before returning with Hope in 2013 about a horrifying case of child rape. This year we screen his most recent films, which show the impressive range of his cinematic output: lush period drama The Throne, and stirring biopic Dongju; Portrait of a Poet (2016).

SID LUCERO While John Lloyd Cruz is the leading man of Philippines’ mainstream cinema, Sid Lucero is the leading man of the country’s thriving independent film scene. Born Timothy Mark Pimentel Eigenmann, his stage name comes from the role played by his father Mark Gil in Mike De Leon’s Filipino classic Batch ‘81. Since his first feature in 2006, Adolfo Alix Jr.’s Donsol, Lucero has won multiple awards awards, including Best Actor at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival for his role as an imprisoned child-murderer in Ellen Ramos and Paolo Villaluna’s Selda. Directors he has worked with include Raya Martin (Independencia), Brillante Mendoza (Captive) and Lav Diaz (Norte, the End of History, A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery) in films that have defined the image of Philippines’ cinema at Berlin, Cannes, Venice and other international film festivals. With Mario Cornejo’s Apocalypse Child, and the role of man-child surfer Ford, Lucero has perhaps found his career-defining role. He can next be seen as a priest tracking down a serial killer in Martin’s Smaller and Smaller Circles.

SHANJHEY KUMAR PERUMAL Shanjhey Kumar Perumal is a Malaysian director and writer. Since earning a Communication Degree in Film and Broadcasting from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), he has worked in a diverse and wide range of media — from documentaries and short films to musicals and children’s programs — and has written and directed over 300 episodes for Malaysian television. In 2006, his short film Thaipoosam received international recognition at the 36th International Film Festival Rotterdam, and his subsequent films went on to receive similar acclaim across the festival circuit. In 2009, Machai was awarded the Grand Prize at the BMW Shorties Malaysia; his short film Jagat went on to win Best Cinematography at the International Toronto Tamil Film Festival in 2011; and in 2013, his documentary The Day That River Ran Red won the Jury Award at The KOMAS Freedom Film Festival Southeast Asia, Kuala Lumpur 2013. Perumal founded Skyzen (M) Sdn. Bhd in 2013 with the goal of producing high quality narrative, documentary and experimental films for the big screen. Jagat is his debut feature.

HIDEO SAKAKI Hideo Sakaki made his acting debut as the boy next door in Tomoyuki Furumaya’s beloved youth romance This Window is Yours. After several years, he returned as an actor in a series of genre films, notably Ryuhei Kitamura’s Versus, Alive, Azumi, Arigami, and Godzilla: Final Wars. Other genre film directors he has worked with include Yudai Yamaguchi (Battlefield Baseball), Takashi Shimizu (The Grudge), Tak Sakaguchi (Samurai School), Hajime Hashimoto (Flower and Snake: Zero), and Koichi Sakamoto (Girl’s Blood). He has also found small roles in the films of Isao Yukisada (Year One in the North), Eiji Uchida (Sisterhood), Isabel Coixet (Map of the Sounds of Tokyo), and Naomi Kawase (Still the Water). He directed his first feature film, youth drama Grow, in 2007. Since then his films have included anarchic comedy Accidental Kidnapper, politically incorrect romance Disregarded People, and Kiyamachi Daruma, his adaptation of Hiroyuki Maruno’s “unfilmable” novel about a quadruple amputee.

IVY SHAO After starring as a down-on-her-luck wannabe singer in 23-minute Kun Shan University student short Whispers in the Reality, Kaohsiungborn Ivy Shao made her acting debut proper in the television series Confucius (2002), as one of the modern university students of the reincarnated philosopher. She has since worked primarily in television dramas such as Taiwan-China co-production Love at Second Sight (2014), romantic-comedy When I see You Again (2015), and romantic drama Beautiful Secret (2015) before taking the leading role in time-travel romance drama Back to 1989 (2016). In 2015, she played a supporting role as the best friend in Chou Ko-tai’s 1980s-set youth drama First of May. Her daring role in The Tenants Downstairs as the dangerously seductive Yingru, who collects bloodred suitcases in her sparsely furnished room, is one of the most iconic to emerge from Taiwan cinema in the past decade.

NYAFF 2016 GUESTS 39

SHIN YEON-SHICK After dropping out of his Spanish studies major, Shin Yeon-shick turned to filmmaking with his directorial debut Piano Lesson, made for just $300 in 2002. Committed to a career in the movie industry, he next made black-and-white indie A Great Actor, which put him on the cinematic map with screenings at the Busan and Rotterdam festivals. Four years later, Shin received critical acclaim with his controversial inter-generational romance The Fair Love, featuring Ahn Sung-ki as a 50-something in love with a friend’s daughter half his age. In 2012, he again explored the creative process with sophisticated arthouse drama The Russian Novel about a man waking up from a coma to find himself a literary sensation for novels he didn’t write. In Rough Play (2013), Shin adapted a screenplay by Kim Ki-duk that explored the dark side of the Korean film industry. Following road movie The Avian Kind and omnibus Like A French Film, Shin has created his most ambitious work yet in the Lee Joon-ik-directed Dongju; The Portrait of a Poet.

KAZUYA SHIRAISHI After working as an assistant director for Isao Yukisada, Isshin Inudo and Koji Wakamatsu, Shiraishi directed a low-budget, straightto-video horror before made his directorial debut proper, the raw, uncompromising Lost Paradise in Tokyo. The independent film, about a real-estate agent, his mentally-disabled brother, and a prostitute who form an unlikely trio that fantasize about escaping to an imaginary island. Shiraishi’s second feature, crime drama The Devil’s Path is much larger in scope, tackling police incompetence, media ethics, and personal redemption. It stars Takayuki Yamada as a journalist investigating the lives of two serial killers who formed a partnership only for one to betray the other, initiating a cycle of revenge. Shiraishi’s third feature is a natural (and major) next-step, tackling institutionalised corruption in Japan’s police force in the anarchic Twisted Justice in which a wrestler-turned-cop starts dealing drugs so that he can import Russian guns that his bosses can report recovered on Hokkaido’s streets.

ADAM TSUEI Before entering the film industry, Adam Tsui was the CEO of BMG Music Entertainment Greater China and Sony Music Greater China. He launched the careers of some of the region’s hottest music talents including Jay Chou, Wang Leehom, Jolin Tsai and F4. His first film production was Giddens Ko’s adaptation of his own novel, You Are the Apple of My Eye. After its huge commercial success in Chinese-speaking markets, including setting the box office record as the highest grossing Chinese-language film ever released in Hong Kong, he founded Taipei-based Amazing Film Studio. He has since produced Guo Jingming’s landmark Shanghai-set Tiny Times franchise and local romance Café. Waiting. Love. The Tenants Downstairs is his third collaborations with Ko and his debut as a film director in his own right. His company has seven films in various stages of development for release in the next three years, including Ko’s Mon Mon Mon... Monster.

WANG YICHUN Wang Yichun sets her debut film, the coming-of-age drama What’s In the Darkness in a village in China’s Henan province during the 1990s, where and when she herself was a teenager. She began writing the screenplay in 2002, after the death of her father. A year before filming began, she started to collect props to recreate the key period in China’s modern development. Originally conceived as a surreal Lynchian-style drama, she had to accommodate the limits of her sub-$500,000 budget — and her crew — by introducing a different visual aesthetic, one based on disturbed serenity. Yet to be released in China, the film has been optioned to be remade by local actress Zhang Jingchu. Wang won the Best Director Award at the 9th First International Film Festival in Xining before the film made its international debut in the Generations section of this year’s Berlin International Film Festival.

ADAM WONG Adam Wong became a filmmaker while an exchange student at the University of Iowa, borrowing the campus’ cameras and editing equipment to direct his first short films. Upon returning to Hong Kong, he taught creative media at Hong Kong Polytechnic University as a visiting lecturer while directing making-of featurettes for films by Peter Chan and Sylvia Chang. His first feature was When Beckham Met Owen, about two 13-year-old boys whose love of soccer unites them. His second feature, Magic Boy, is a Mongkok-set youth romance that takes place in the world of amateur magicians. Wong spent the next four years looking for an investor to finance his third feature, The Way We Dance. The film also captured the spirit of youth with its tale of hip-hop street dancers. It was an unexpected box office hit on release in the summer of 2013, scoring more than HK$10 million (US$1.3 million) at the Hong Kong box office. With She Remembers, He Forgets, he enters a more mature phase of his career.

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL | 2016

NYAFF 2016 GUESTS

APINYA SAKULJAROENSUK

IE EM

SU N

DA NTER Y, JU LY 3

CA LIN

& Q

Apinya “Saiparn” Sakuljaroensuk made a striking acting debut in the title role of Penek Ratanaruang’s Ploy, which premiered in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight in 2007. To age the 16-year-old Sakuljaroensuk, she was given a distinctive afro hairstyle for her role as a young woman stranded at a hotel bar. She has since acted in 25 feature films, working with leading mainstream directors such as Bhandit Rittakol (Boonchu 9), Prachya Pinkaew (4Romance), Paween Purijitpanya (4bia) and Yuthlert Sippapak (Friday Killer). Since Ploy, she has also continued to work in Thai independent cinema, winning award for her keenly-observed performances in Tongpong Chantarangkul’s I Carried You Home and Lee Chatametikool’s Concrete Clouds. She is currently a student at Rangsit University where she also teaches acting. After a twoyear absence - during which she directed three short films - she returns to the big screen in 2016 with social media slasher-horror Grace and Anocha Suwichakornpong’s upcoming, multi-threaded By The Time It Gets Dark. (S.C.)

A AW SA PIN ITH A K Y N ND U A LJ O OR AR G F TH A O 9: RA M 00 C ER EN P E I

NYAFF 15TH ANNIVERSAY SCREENING 41

15TH ANNIVERSARY SURPRISE SCREENING! We can’t tell you what we’re showing, but trust us: you want to see it on the big screen with an audience! This one has special meaning to our founders, and to celebrate we’re hosting a reception for ticket holders before the show… Beer and a Secret Screening: what better way to celebrate the 15th Anniversary of the best film festival in New York City!?

SVA THEATRE

Friday, July 8

8:40pm Beatrice Theater

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL | 2016

Director: Kwok Zune, Wang Fei-pang, Jevons Au, Chow Kwun-wai, Ng Ka-leung Year: 2015 Cast: Peter Chan, Wong Ching, Leung Kin-ping, Tanzela Qoser, Liu Kai-chi Language: Cantonese and Mandarin with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 104 min

Q&A WITH DIRECTORS KWOK ZUNE, WANG FEI-PANG, JEVONS AU, CHOW KWUN-WAI, NG KA-LEUNG, AND PRODUCER ANDREW CHOI

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Monday, July 4

9:00pm Walter Reade Theatre

10 YEARS North American Premiere HONG KONG

How does an omnibus film produced for less than $100,000 become a box-office phenomenon, winner of Best Picture from the Hong Kong Film Awards, and perhaps the most important Hong Kong film of 2015? Simple—by dealing in shock and risk, and in the stuff of political provocation and imagination. 10 Years is a dystopian portmanteau comprised of five fascinating short films describing the (not so) future of Hong Kong under Chinese rule in the year 2025. The government hires two low-level gangsters to stage an assassination attempt in order to justify stricter “security” measures; two archaeologists try to document their vanishing landscape by collecting specimens from present-day demolition sites; a taxi driver loses his livelihood when Mandarin replaces Cantonese as the official language; a faux documentary investigates a case of self-immolation in front of government offices; and a local grocer finds himself at odds with his son’s Youth Guard over the locally produced eggs he sells at his stall.

ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU-CHOU JAPAN

IWAI Shunji’s ode to the wanton cruelty of youth, alienation, technology and the ethereal power of music is just as powerful today as it was when it burst onto the scene at the dawn of a new century. The film meanders through the ever shifting relationships of high school children who are casually cruel to each other, and focuses on Yuichi (Hayato Ichihara), a shy teen who is first glimpsed standing in a rice field vibing to the titular pop star’s music while internet chat room messages cover the screen. Shy and withdrawn, Yuichi doesn’t have many friends, but he does have his love of Lily Chou-Chou, a pop star with a cult-like group of followers who find sanctuary in her music. The apathy of Yuichi and his old friend Shusuke (Shugo Oshinari) turns to viciousness after an incident on summer vacation forms the center of a slowly building storm of violence, tribalism, teenage prostitution, rape, theft and bullying. Beautiful cinematography, remarkable performances, and a haunting score all serve Iwai’s successful attempt at capturing the feeling of being a teenager.

Director: IWAI Shunji Year: 146m Cast: Shugo Oshinari, Hayato Ichihara, Ayumi Ito, Yu Aoi, Yuki Ito, Izumi Inamori, Salyu Language: Japanese with English Subtitles Format: 35mm Running Time: 146 min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Sunday, June 26

2:15pm Walter Reade Theatre

PHOTO CREDIT: COURTESY OF GOLDEN SCENE CO.

42 THE FILMS

APPEARANCE BY IWAI SHUNJI

PHOTO CREDIT: NONGBU FILM. COURTESY OF M-LINE DISTRIBUTION

Director: Park Hong-min Year: 2015 Cast: Lee Ju-won, Song You-hyun, Yoon Young-min, Kim Dong-hyun Language: Korean with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 90 min

SVA THEATRE

Wednesday, July 6 6:30pm Beatrice Theatre

New York Premiere

ALONE

Amateur photography, gentrification, suppressed trauma, nightmarish dream logic, and masked men with hammers blur and blend into a wildly weird mix to create one of the most blazingly daring Korean thrillers released in years. Su-min (intensely played by Lee Ju-won) is a photographer documenting the decay and changes happening to the neighborhood he sees across the street from his apartment. After witnessing the brutal murder of a woman on one of the rooftops, he hides in his apartment, but the masked perpetrators break in and hit him on the head with a hammer. He wakes up across the street in the very neighborhood he was documenting, naked and alone. Soon, he meets a woman and a young boy, and inexplicably ends up in a Möbius strip of dream logic as he struggles to escape the neighborhood in which he regained consciousness. Each time he wakes up in a new spot and faces a new fear or strange connection to his past. How can he escape? And who are these people that appear related to his past? Shot in mesmerizing long takes, the film immerses you into Su-min’s labyrinthine subconscious.

North American Premiere

SOUTH KOREA

APOCALYPSE CHILD

Embracing the unbearable lightness of surfing and idling his days away on the sun-drenched beaches of Baler (the heart of the Philippines’ surfing culture, where Apocalypse Now was shot), Ford (Sid Lucero) coasts along in the arms of his pretty runaway girlfriend (Annicka Dolonius), unburdened by the dustups of modern existence. And yet… there is a restlessness about him that is about to unravel. Named after Francis Ford Coppola, the man may or may not be the illegitimate son of the Hollywood director. As he fumbles for answers and reconnects with an old friend, an anxious love triangle, or rather love hexagon, forms and flounders against a background of seas and skies so blue that they emblazon the screen, Mario Cornejo’s relationship drama, dazzling to behold, not least when the protagonists ride the waves or each other, tells of souls opened up to raw experience, flirting and fighting in flurries of razor-sharp dialogue reminiscent of the golden age of 1990s American indie cinema.

PHILIPPINES

Director: Mario Cornejo Year: 2015 Cast: Sid Lucero, Gwen Zamora, Annicka Dolonius, R.K. Bagatsing, Ana Abad Santos Language: Tagalog and English with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 95 min

Thursday, June 23

6:15pm Walter Reade Theatre

PHOTO CREDIT: ARKEOFILMS

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Q&A WITH MONSTER JIMENEZ, ANNICKA DOLONIUS, SID LUCERO

40 44 THE FILMS PHOTO CREDIT: COURTESY OF M-LINE DISTRIBUTION

Director: E J-Yong Year: 2015 Cast: Youn Yuh-jung, Yoon Kye-sang, Jeon Moo-song, An A-zu Language: Korean with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 110m min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Friday, July 1

6:00pm Walter Reade Theater

THE BACCHUS LADY New York Premiere Poles apart from the South Korean obsession with youth and beauty that reign over both screen culture and society’s everyday dealings, E J-Yong’s new film tells a tale of shame and disgrace that feels as fresh as an open wound. And yet, The Bacchus Lady is as funny and elegant as it is devastating. Youn Yuh-jung, one of Korea’s most revered actresses, gives another masterful performance as a sixty-something prostitute who spends her days in public parks, offering bottles of Bacchus (a brand-name energy drink) to old men as a code for sexual favors. But when a touch of gonorrhea leaves her unable to ply her trade, she is forced to find other services to offer her aged clients and soon turns to a darker business. In the hands of another director, this set-up could go either way: it might be grounds for a low-brow comedy or crass exploitation, but E J-Yong (Actresses) eschews satire for a light-hearted yet incisive examination of several taboo topics, including the U.S. military’s use of prostitutes, Korean men who refuse to acknowledge their children with women from Southeast Asian countries, and most importantly, the shameful neglect of the elderly in contemporary Korea.

SOUTH KOREA

THE BODYGUARD AKA MY BELOVED BODYGUARD New York Premiere HONG MALAYSIA KONG HONG CHINA MALAYSIA KONG

Sammo Hung returns to the directing chair after almost 20 years and stars as Ding, a retired Central Security Bureau member who has settled in a city near the China-Russia border. Ding is estranged from his family and trying to live a quiet life as he is suffering from the onset of Alzheimer’s. He befriends a young girl Cherry (Jacqueline Chan), who is threatened when her father (Andy Lau in a scene-stealing role as a hard-drinking gambler) gets wrapped up with a local crime boss (Feng Jiayi). Soon enough the girl disappears and Sammo Hung’s character has to dust off his very specific set of skills to save her life. Filled with more cameos than you could shake a stick at, the film is far more of a melodramatic examination of a life filled with regret than a bone-breaking action film, but Sammo has a strong screen presence and can still break bones when he needs to.

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Monday, July 4

12:00pm Walter Reade Theater

PHOTO CREDIT: EDKO FILMS

Director: Sammo Hung Year: 2016 Cast: Sammo Hung, Andy Lau, Zhu Yuchen, Li Qinqin, Feng Jiayi, Jacqueline Chan Language: Cantonese with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 99 min

APPEARANCE BY YUE SONG & THE DANIEL A. CRAFT AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN ACTION CINEMA

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Saturday, June 25

8:30pm Walter Reade Theater

North American Premiere

THE BODYGUARD

Channeling the best of old-school Hong Kong action movies into his street-fighting extravaganza, Yue Song is clearly a man who loves action and mindless fun, two things in this film that come together as seamlessly as his character Wu-Lin’s mullet and headband. Ancient kung-fu clans, superhuman powers, colorful characters, gangsters with hundreds of cannon fodder subordinates, laser gates, and secret-training bunkers come together to create an on-screen spectacle that plays like a 1980s kid’s kung-fu fever dream. Wu-Lin is the successor of an ancient clan specializing in the Iron Kick, and after the death of his master he goes to the big city to look for fellow apprentice Jiang Li. Soon he finds himself the bodyguard to spoiled rich girl Faye, who is hiding a softer side. Kidnapping, betrayal, and burial ensue, and Wu-Lin must unleash his clan’s secret techniques to help free Faye. The plot mostly serves as the vehicle to string together some insanely enjoyable and bone-shattering action set pieces. Fists, feet, and that sexy mullet fly across the screen with reckless abandon, barely giving you the chance to catch your breath.

CHINA

THE BOYS WHO CRIED WOLF

North American Premiere

The Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA) has produced many of Korea’s top directors—including Bong Joon-ho, Choi Dong-hoon, and Kim Tae-yong—but none of them ever won a major award for their dissertation film. Meet KAFA’s latest prodigy, Kim Jin-hwang, who shared the Directors Guild Award at the 2015 Busan Film Festival for The Boys Who Cried Wolf. The story revolves around Wan-ju, a failed stage actor who makes ends meet by playing “real-life” parts as someone’s boyfriend or wingman. Desperate for money, Wan-ju takes on his most challenging “role” ever when he agrees to pretend to have witnessed a murder. But after realizing that the woman who hired him isn’t who she claims to be, Wanju takes it upon himself to exonerate the very man whom he is testifying against. In addition to directing, Kim Jin-hwang also wrote, edited, and co-produced the film (and got an A+).

Director: Kim Jin-hwang Year: 2015 Cast: Park Jong-Hwan, Cha Rae-hyeong, Yoon Jeong-il, Song Ha-joon Language: Korean with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 79 min

SVA THEATRE

Saturday, July 9

2:15pm Beatrice Theatre

(PHOTO CREDIT: KAFA/(KOREAN ACADEMY OF FILM ARTS; COURTESY OF M-LINE DISTRIBUTION)

PHOTO CREDIT: COURTESY OF ALL RIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT)

Director: Yue Song Year: 2016 Cast: Yue Song, Xing Yu, Collin Chou, Michael Chan Language: Mandarin with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 90 min

SOUTH KOREA

APPEARANCE BY KIM JIN-HWANG

APPEARANCE BY IWAI SHUNJI & THE LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD PRESENTATION

Director: IWAI Shunji Year: 2016 Cast: Haru Kuroki, Go Ayano, Cocco, Go Jibiki, Hideko Hara, Soko Wada, Tomoko Mariya Language: Japanese with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 179 min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Friday, June 24

6:15pm Walter Reade Theater

A BRIDE FOR RIP VAN WINKLE New York Premiere JAPAN

How far would you go for human connection? How far would you go for love? IWAI Shunji’s newest masterwork probes at these questions, the themes of modern isolation and technological (dis)connection that he has explored throughout his career. Unassuming and a bit aimless, Nanami (Haru Kuroki, playing the role with a marvelous and subtle complexity) has no friends and only connects via social networks and online chats. She can’t even get respect from her students, who tease her relentlessly. We first meet her on a blind date with Tetsuya (Go Jibiki) and when things go well in the relationship they decide to get married. With no one to invite to the wedding, and embarrassed by her divorced parents, Nanami turns to online all-around fixer Amuro (Go Ayano, half Sganarelle, half Mephistopheles) for help. For a large fee he fills her wedding party with actors and strangers and Nanami’s fall from grace begins... Mysteries unfold slowly and suspensefully in this film that invites us to lend these broken, moorless characters not just our pity but our love.

CREEPY New York Premiere Based on the award-winning novel by Yutaka Maekawa, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s newest film is a return to the horror hallmarks of his early works. After narrowly escaping with his life after encountering a psychopath, cool and brooding detective (is there any other kind in a Kurosawa film?) Koichi Takakura (Hidetoshi Nishijima) turns in his badge for a new start in the suburbs with his wife Yasuko (Yuko Takeuchi). Not quite satisfied with his new position as a criminal psychology professor at the local university, Takakura becomes interested in a cold case involving a missing family and the daughter they left behind. Yasuko tries to befriend her neighbors, only to be bluntly rebuffed until she meets the strange Nishino (Teruyuki Kagawa, in a scene-stealing performance). As the plot threads converge, and the mysteries of the past bleed into the present, the film becomes a horrific exercise in Kurosawa’s signature atmosphere and dread. Truly terrifying, the film delivers on the skin-crawling promise of the title.

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa Year: 2015 Cast: Hidetoshi Nishijima, Yuko Takeuchi, Teruyuki Kagawa, Haruna Kawaguchi, Masahiro Higashide Language: Japanese with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 130 min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Wednesday, June 29 6:00pm Walter Reade Theater

MALAYSIA JAPAN

(PHOTO CREDIT: LUZ Y SONIDOS; COURTESY OF M-LINE DISTRIBUTION

Q&A WITH LEE JOON-IK & SHIN YEON-SHICK

Director: Lee Joon-ik Year: 2015 Cast: Kang Ha-neul, Park Jung-min, Kim In-woo, Choi Hee-seo Language: Korean and Japanese with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 110 min Q&A With Lee Joon-Ik and Shin Yeon-Shick FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Tuesday, June 28

9:15pm Walter Reade Theater

New York Premiere

DONGJU: PORTRAIT OF A POET

Director Lee Joon-ik (The King and the Clown, The Throne) has made a career of vibrant historical films, visual operas splashed with color, but he takes a more intimate, chamber music-like approach for this charged depiction of the life of SOUTH Yun Dongju, a beloved poet who died young at the hands of Japanese colonialists. Dongju (Kang Ha-Neul) never wanted KOREA to be a revolutionary, but in a time when the Korean language was banned and Koreans were forced to adopt Japanese names, his clarion verses are regarded by the authorities as an act of dissent, and he is inexorably drawn into the struggle by his fiery cousin, Song Mong-Gyu (Park Jung-Min). Wisely opting for subtlety over sensationalism, Lee shot the film in sober and misty black-and-white, and the result is an impressive piece of cinematic poetry that embodies the spirit of the title character. Presented with the support of Korean Cultural Center New York, and as part of the Korean Movie Night New York Master Series: Lee Joon-ik

New York Premiere

FOURTH PLACE

We watched 29 movies at South Korea’s Busan Film Festival last year, and only three of them excited us enough at the time to bring them to New York. One is The Boys Who Cried Wolf. The others are Alone and Fourth Place. A two-hour drama about a 12-year-old kid, his mom, and his swimming coach sounds like boredom squared, but this flick is a take-no-prisoners examination of winning and losing. Gwang-Su (Park Hae-Jun) is a one-time Olympic swimmer who never lived up to his potential, now coaching kiddie swim teams. Jin-Ho (Yoo Jae-Sang, himself scouted from a school swim team) is his latest victim. Hired by the kid’s Tiger Mom, Gwang-Su believes that beating his students is the best way to win. And the more he beats Jin-Ho, the better the kid swims. There are no bad guys here. Jin-Ho likes finally being a winner, his mom is genuinely terrified her son won’t be prepared for the real world, and Gwang-Su is coaching the same way he was taught: with an iron fist. Whether it’s indulging in a beautiful sequence of a kid swimming alone after dark, or a furious mom trying to run someone down with the family minivan, Fourth Place is a raw, urgent masterpiece. And we don’t use that word lightly around here.

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Saturday, July 2

3:05pm Walter Reade Theater

PHOTO CREDIT: OURTESY OF FINECUT

Director: Jung Ji-Woo Year: 2015 Cast: Park Hae-Jun, Yoo Jae-Sang, Lee Hang-Na Language: Korean with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 119 min

SOUTH KOREA

48 THE FILMS

PHOTO CREDIT: KANTANA MOTION PICTURES

Director: Pun Homchuen, Onusa Donsawai Year: 2016 Cast: Apinya Sakuljaroensuk, Napasasi Surawan, Latthgarmon Pinrojnkeerathi, Nutthasit Kotimanuswanich Language: Thai with English Subtitles Running Time: 90 min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER Q&A WITH APINYA SAKULJAROENSUK

Sunday, July 3

9:00pm Walter Reade Theater

GRACE North American Premiere THAILAND

This cyber-stalking thriller from Thailand spins a violent tale of internet fame gone awry and innocence gone down the tubes. Bubbly school girls Care and Ple set up a Facebook fan site for the former (Napasasi Surawan) in an attempt to turn her into an idol. Her looks and positive outlook rapidly gain her followers, but Care’s newfound popularity attracts the attention of unhinged ex-idol Grace (Apinya Sakuljaroensuk), who devises a diabolical kidnapping plot with her number-one fan Jack (Nutthasit Kotimanuswanich) to teach Care a thing or two about the real world. Sakuljaroensuk is an absolutely fabulous villain: stunning, smart, and sassy, she brings an undercurrent of dark humor and clearly relishes playing the role of the psychotic teen. Flashing between Grace’s backstory and the violently escalating kidnapping, the film enters some pretty gnarly territory and certainly has a bone to pick with our social-media-obsessed culture.

HAMOG (HAZE) North American Premiere PHILIPPINES MALAYSIA

Ralston Jover, the director of the excellent Bakal Boys and Brillante Mendoza’s former screenwriter, delivers an empowering, thrilling, and impassioned tale of a gang of street kids, made up of Rashid (Zaijian Jaranilla), Jinky (Teri Malvar), Tisoy (Sam Quintana), and Moy (Bon Lentejas). The foursome may be ruthless scam artists who make a living stealing money and goods (mostly in broad daylight) from motorists, but they still have a stronger moral code than the corrupt society around them. After one of their heists goes horribly wrong, the film splits into two main narratives. The first half follows one of the boys as he doggedly arranges the funeral of another in the face of vast indifference. In the second, Jinky (a fiery Malvar, in a performance that blew us away and earned her a Rising Star Award) is kidnapped and forced to work as a maid in a twisted household. Anchored by absolutely stunning turns by the young cast and made from the stuff of the great tragedies, this poetic film lays bare the sad reality of an ill-ridden society but also offers some hope for the future.

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Friday, July 1

8:15pm Walter Reade Theater

PHOTO CREDIT: CINEMA ONE ORIGINALS

Director: Ralston Jover Year: 2015 Cast: Teri Malvar, Zaijan Jaranilla, Samuel Quintana, Bon Lentejas, Ana Luna Language: Tagalog with English Subs Format: DCP Running Time: 92 min

PHOTO CREDIT: GMM TAI HUB

Director: Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit Year: 2015 Cast: Sunny Suwanamethanon, Davika Hoorne, Violette Wautier Language: Thai with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 125 min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Sunday, July 3

6:30pm Walter Reade Theater

New York Premiere

HEART ATTACK AKA FREELANCE

Offbeat, stylish, and surprisingly meditative, Heart Attack is a multilayered comedy that takes a satirical but compassionate look at the lives of work-from-home creatives who substitute the often dull routine of office employment with the pressure of working off a laptop all the time. It’s also an intensely moving study of what happens when you stop numbing yourself with work and start living. Yoon (Sunny Suwanmethanon) is a warrior of the Photoshop age; practically shackled to his computer, the thirtysomething freelance designer constantly fights deadlines retouching and endlessly revising... boobs, butts, and hot bods for ad campaigns and the like. The biggest and only pleasure (and pride) in his shut-in existence is in seeing his calendar chock-full of gigs. But after five straight days of labor without sleep, and ironically for a guy who removes pimples for glossy pictures, Yoon develops a worrisome skin condition: a strange, unsightly rash that appears on his body. At the hospital, he makes an encounter of the hot kind in the person of Doctor Imm (Davika Hoorne). But wait... it’s not as romantic or sexy as it sounds.

THAILAND

CENTERPIECE PRESENTATION

Q&A WITH TERI MALVAR; MALVAR WILL BE PRESENTED WITH A SCREEN INTERNATIONAL RISING STAR ASIA AWARD

50 THE FILMS PHOTO CREDIT: ©KEISYU ANDO/SHUEISHA 2016 HK2 PRODUCTION COMMITTEE

Director: Yuichi Fukuda Year: 2016 Cast: Ryohei Suzuki, Fumika Shimizu, Yuya Yagira, Tsuyoshi Muro, Ken Yasuda Language: Japanese with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 117 min

Q&A WITH APINYA SAKULJAROENSUK

SVA THEATRE

Wednesday, July 6 8:30pm Beatrice Theater

HENTAI KAMEN 2: THE ABNORMAL CRISIS North American Premiere JAPAN

The Mac with the nutsack is back, proving that we will always have weird Japan, which beats Batman v Superman any day. Kyosuke Shikijo (a singularly beefy Ryohei Suzuki) tries to find a healthy balance between his new life as an ordinary college student and his secret pervy heroics as Hentai Kamen, whose superpowers—a result of the combined genetic legacy of his masochistic detective father, who died in the line of duty, and his mother, a deranged, sadistic dominatrix— are triggered by wearing his cute girlfriend Aiko’s panties on his head. But after a lover’s quarrel, Aiko (Fumika Shimizu) demands the return of her underwear. Bad timing: there is a worldwide disappearance of panties. Unable to transform into Hentai Kamen, Kyosuke falls into the doldrums just as he is challenged by a dangerous new foe. Crotch-based martial arts, fishnets, pathos, humor, mankinis, and a literal panty storm are all on perverted display in this sequel to the 2013 NYAFF Audience Award winner.

HONOR THY FATHER New York Premiere PHILIPPINES MALAYSIA

After hitman thriller On the Job, Matti turned down offers from Hollywood to shoot the seemingly very local Honor Thy Father, about the corruption at the heart of religion, capitalism and broader society in the Philippines. Life imitated art when the film was disqualified from the Best Picture category of last December’s Metro Manila Film Festival, leading to hearings in Congress that exposed corruption at the heart of the festival itself. The film is an immorality tale about a father who sheds the skin of civility he has dressed himself in when his savings are lost in his father in-law’s pyramid scheme, his family besieged by mob violence, and his daughter kidnapped by creditors. With no hope of sanctuary from an uncharitable church, he returns to the violent criminality of his former life. It features a career-best performance by John Lloyd Cruz, the Philippines’ most popular movie idol, here revealing his own darker depths.

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Saturday, July 2

8:15pm Walter Reade Theater

PHOTO CREDIT: REALITY ENTERTAINMENT

Director: Erik Matti Year: 2015 Cast: John Lloyd Cruz, Meryll Soriano, Tirso Cruz III, Dan Fernandez Language: Tagalog and English with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 115 min

Q&A WITH JOHN LLOYD CRUZ; CRUZ WILL BE PRESENTED WITH A STAR ASIA AWARD

Photo credit: © 2016 TOHO CO., LTD. / Hakuhodo DY Media Partners Inc. / Shogakukan Inc. / AMUSE INC. / CROSS COMPANY INC. / Magazine House Co., Ltd. / Lawson HMV Entertainment , Inc. / Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc. / KDDI CORPORATION / GYAO Corporation / NIPPON SHUPPAN HANBAI INC

Director: Akira Nagai Year: 2016 Cast: Takeru Sato, Aoi Miyazaki, Gaku Hamada Language: Japanese with English Subtitles Format: HD Cam Running Time: 100 min FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Friday, June 24

4:00pm Walter Reade Theater FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Monday, June 27

9:00pm Walter Reade Theater

IF CATS DISAPPEARED FROM THE WORLD North American Premiere

A thirtysomething postman (Takeru Sato) who can’t get rid of a stubborn cold goes to the doctor only to find out he is dying JAPAN from a brain tumor. Stumbling home, where he lives alone with his beloved cat, he is shocked to meet a man (Sato again) who looks exactly like himself. Claiming to be the devil, the stranger offers to extend the postman’s life by one day for every thing he chooses to erase from the world. So begins a bizarre week spent in a world without phones, movies, and clocks… And as these mundane objects disappear, they spark memories of the past, and reveal the deeper connections between the everyday items we take for granted and the moments that make us human. The postman seeks out people from his past, including his ex-girlfriend (Aoi Miyazaki), as he retraces these threads. Like the best of Haruki Murakami, the film is about dying, the connections we make in life, cute cats, and letting go.

New York Premiere

INSIDE MEN

Director: Woo Min-ho Year: 2015 Cast: Lee Byung-hun, Jo Seung-woo, Baek Yoon-sik, Lee Kyoung-young Language: Korean with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 130 min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Tuesday, July 5

8:30pm Walter Reade Theater

PHOTO CREDIT: SHOWBOX; COURTESY OF DREAMWEST PICTURES

Based on a webtoon by Yoon Tae-ho, Inside Men—the highest grossing R-rated film in South Korean history—infiltrates and exposes the seedy alliances between politics, media, and the country’s chaebol (mega-corporations), the triumvirate that holds the nation’s real power. Congressman Jang Pil-woo is on the doorstep of the Korean presidency, thanks to strong support (i.e., piles of money) from the CEO of a major car company and an influential newspaper editor. But Jang’s path is blocked by an unlikely pair of obstacles in Ahn (Lee Byung-hun), a one-handed thug motivated by revenge, and Woo, a fiery prosecutor with his own dreams of power. Not that long ago, it was almost unthinkable to openly criticize the almighty chaebol in Korea, but Inside Men is the latest in a string of films (including Ryu Seung-wan’s Veteran) to portray the leaders of major corporations as demon despots from the foulest hell.

INTRO AND Q&A WITH LEE BYUNG-HUN WILL BE PRESENTED WITH A STAR ASIA AWARD.

SOUTH KOREA

PHOTO CREDIT: SKYZEN STUDIOS

52 THE FILMS

Director: Shanjhey Kumar Perumal Year: 2015 Cast: Harvind Raj, Jibrail Rajhula, Kuben Mahadevan, Marup Mustapah Language: Tamil and Malaysian with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 86 min

APPEARANCE BY SHANJEY KUMAR PERUMAL

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Sunday, June 26

7:30pm Walter Reade Theater

JAGAT (BRUTAL) International Premiere Malaysia

First-time director Shanjhey Kumar Perumal channels the spirit of Satyajit Ray in this coming-of-age story about a boy growing up in a community of Tamil immigrants in Malaysia during the 1990s. The film introduces us to Appoy (a magnificent performance by young Harvind Raj), a spirited kid who would rather watch gangster films and make prank calls than memorize his multiplication tables. Desperately trying to keep his son on the straight path, Appoy’s hardworking father gets increasingly abusive, as the boy is inexorably drawn to the criminal lifestyle of his uncle, a henchman for a local gang. Like the best debut films (think Pick Pocket meets As Tears Go By), Jagat has the tang and intensity of personal experience, saturated with style and charm, while being a little rough around the edges. But the roughness of it all only heightens the panache and emotional impact of the film, which signals the arrival of a major cinematic talent.

KEEPER OF DARKNESS North American Premiere HONG MALAYSIA KONG

Nick Cheung became one of Hong Kong’s biggest stars on the strength of leading roles in action comedies (The Conman), Triad flicks (Election), and boxing dramas (Unbeatable). So naturally his first two films as a director have been…ghost movies? Doubling down on his debut Hungry Ghost Ritual (2014), Cheung plays Fatt, a Triad gangster who moonlights as an exorcist. Since childhood, Fatt has been blursed (that’s “blessed” + “cursed”) with the ability to see and communicate with the spirits of the deceased. But when called on to arbitrate disputes between the dead and the pre-dead (i.e., the living), Fatt doesn’t bother with cryptic chants or rituals; instead, he practices gangster diplomacy by making the spirits an offer they can’t refuse. Filled with wild special effects and superstar cameos, Keeper of Darkness isn’t just a movie; it’s a full-body visceral experience.

SVA THEATRE

Saturday, July 12 9:00pm Beatrice Theatre

PHOTO CREDIT: ONE COOL FILM PRODUCTION

Director: Nick Cheung Year: 2015 Cast: Nick Cheung, Amber Kuo, Louis Cheung, Sisley Choi Language: Cantonese with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 103 min

PHOTO CREDIT: “DARUMA” FILM PARTNERS

Director: Hideo Sakaki Year: 2015 Cast: Kenichi Endo, Masaki Miura, Yuichi Kimura, Rina Takeda Language: Japanese with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 114 min

APPEARANCE BY HIDEO SAKAKI

International Premiere

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Tuesday, July 6

5:00pm Walter Reade Theater

KIYAMACHI DARUMA

For most career paths, the absence of any arms and legs would be something of an impediment, but who knew that limblessness could be an advantage if you’re employed as a debt collector for the Yakuza. Veteran character actor Kenichi Endo gives a tenacious performance as Katsuura, a former boss in the Kyoto Yakuza who had his arms and legs removed after an act of betrayal by one of his henchmen. With the help of underling-turned-nursemaid Sakamoto (Masaki Miura), Katsuura terrifies people into paying back their debts in truly unsettling ways. Adapting a banned novel by Hiroyuki Maruno, Hideo Sakaki politically incorrect gangster fable alternates scenes of cringing corporeal violence with moments of even more shocking tenderness, united by an underlying tide of black humor. The title refers to a Daruma doll, the Japanese equivalent of those inflatable bounce-back clowns.

New York Premiere

THE LAUNDRYMAN

Taipei Cultural Center of TECO in New York

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Saturday, June 25

12:30pm Walter Reade Theater

PHOTO CREDIT: SHOWBOX; COURTESY OF DREAMWEST PICTURES

Lee Chung’s poppy feature debut throws the horror-comedy and the action film into a blender and creates a fun-filled cocktail fueled by manic energy, actors playing against type, and absolutely stunning imagery. Joseph Chang stars as the laundryman, a nameless hitman who kills people at the orders of sublime femme fatale A-gu (Sui Tang) and brings the bodies back to A-gu’s laundromat at night for processing. Plagued by the ghosts of his victims, he seeks help from Lin (Wan Qian), a cynical psychic who becomes a vessel to air their grievances and desire for revenge. Hot on his trail is Yang (Yeo Yann Yann), a police detective determined to stop the tide of violence left in his wake. Darkly funny, and with some amazing cinematography and crazy fight choreography, The Laundryman is a fun and viscerally entertaining ride.

Director: Lee Chung Year: 2015 Cast: Joseph Chang, Sonia Sui, Wan Qian, Yeo Yann Yann Language: Mandarin with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 110 min

JAPAN

TAIWAN

54 THE FILMS

PHOTO CREDIT: MAKING FILM

Director: Luk Yee-sum Year: 2015 Cast: Kwok Yik-sum, Fish Liew, Mak Tsz-yi, Tse Sit-chun, Gregory Wong, Susan Shaw Language: Cantonese with English Subtitles Running Time: 100 min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Saturday, June 25

6:15pm Walter Reade Theater

LAZY HAZY CRAZY North American Premiere HONG KONG

Luk Yee-sum (a.k.a. Jody Luk), Pang Ho-cheung’s screenwriting collaborator, gives a saucy, sincere and non-judgemental spin on the coming-of-age story. Virginal and nerdy Tracy (Kwok Yik-sum) moves into an apartment owned by Alice (Fish Liew) who sells sex via WeChat. Tracy’s friend Chloe (Mak Tsz-yi) also moves in with the pair and bonds with Alice over their shared side business. Tracy wants sexual experience so she can pursue Andrew (Tse Sit-chun), a hunky jock that all the girls have eyes for. She gets cold feet about joining the trade until she meets Raymond (Gregory Wong) who wants her services for a month. The beautifully shot film combines roiling emotions, frank depictions of teenage sexuality and a side of Hong Kong rarely seen into an incredibly smart (and often blunt) film about female relationships between young women on the verge of adulthood.

LOVE IN THE BUFF Back in 2010, Pang Ho-cheung released Love in a Puff about two people who meet in the alley behind their office during smoke breaks and fall in love. Shot fast, with a sharp-edged script, and two likeable, scruffy lovebirds at its core—Miriam Yeung (Hong Kong’s comedy queen) and Shawn Yue (Infernal Affairs 2)—the breezy pleasant film became an unlikely hit. This semi-sequel examines what happens after as the two lovers try to make their relationship work. When we last saw beauty products salesgirl Cherie (Miriam Yeung) and ad man Jimmy (Shawn Yue), everything was hearts and flowers. Now they’ve moved in together and are driving each other crazy, so they start a cycle of breaking up, getting back together, and then breaking up again. Soon work sees them moving north to Beijing, both with new relationships. Despite the assurance that Beijing’s size means they won’t ever run into each other, they keep stumbling over each other, and suddenly they’re cheating on their new partners. They still fight, they still argue, they still have flaws so irritating they feel like fiberglass poured down a sweaty back, but the kids can’t help it: they’re in love. Unlike the sloppy, lazy “romantic” comedies coming out of Hollywood these days, Love in the Buff is a movie that believes in true love, but it also believes that it takes more than a musical montage and a race to the train station to achieve it. Real love is worth fighting for, and in Buff, the two leads fight for it with everything they’ve got. Director: Pang Ho-cheung Year: 2012 Cast: Miriam Yeung, Shawn Yue, Mini Yang, Xu Zheng Language: Cantonese and Mandarin with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 106 min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Thursday, June 30

6:00pm Walter Reade Theater

PHOTO CREDIT: CHINA FILM MEDIA ASIA AUDIO VIDEO DISTRIBUTION CO.

HONG KONG

APPEARANCE BY MIRIAM YEUNG

PHOTO CREDIT: DREAMOSA FILM

Director: Cheng Wen-tang Year: 2015 Cast: Chris Wang, Chuang Kai-Hsun, Huang Teng-hui, Jian Man-shu, Gin Oy Language: Mandarin and Hoklo with English Subtitles Running Time: 117 min

Taipei Cultural Center of TECO in New York

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Sunday, June 26

9:30pm Walter Reade Theater

North American Premiere

MAVERICK

What chance does a rookie cop have in a corrupt world? Yeh (Chris Wang) is assigned to a group trying to take down a gambling den. Bursting in, they discover a city councilman’s son Black Monkey (Huang Teng-hui) high as a kite and essentially bulletproof from any legal action. Headstrong and unable to handle the corruption he sees around him, Yeh keeps picking at the case despite warnings from above. He tries to recruit veteran cop Ming (Chuang Kai-Hsun) to his cause, as he looked up to him in the academy. Ming has his own issues though, and is trying to pay off loan shark debts of the brother of his bar-hostess girlfriend Ann (Jian Man-shu). Money and power corrupt absolutely, but maybe there is a chance that Yeh’s innocence will allow different choices to be made. Powered by charismatic performances from the lead actors, a love story between Ann and Ming that gives the film a heart, and an unusual (for the genre anyway) sense of optimism, Maverick is one impressive Taiwanese films we watched this year.

TAIWAN

THE MERMAID

Director: Stephen Chow Year: 2016 Cast: Jelly Lin, Deng Chao, Kitty Zhang, Show Luo Language: Mandarin with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 94 min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Saturday, July 2

5:30pm Walter Reade Theater

Q&A WITH JELLY LIN; LIN WILL BE PRESENTED WITH A SCREEN INTERNATIONAL RISING STAR ASIA AWARD

CHINA

HONG KONG

Stephen Chow is the King of Comedy! And his crown is confirmed with this slapstick deconstruction of The Little Mermaid featuring mer-kind launched from giant slingshots, assassination by sea urchin, China’s worst museum, jetpacks, and a rousing sing-off. It’s the highest-grossing Chinese movie of all time. Liu (Deng Chao) is a rapacious businessman using sonar to kill off all the dolphins so he can reclaim the Green Gulf coastal zone and develop it into luxury condominiums. Unfortunately, the sonar is also killing the mermaids who secretly live there, and one of them, Shanshan (Jelly Lin), is selected to dress up like a hoochie mama, infiltrate Liu’s luxury lifestyle, and assassinate him. With her character’s tail shoved into shoes, Jelly Lin hops through her scenes, constantly upping her physical comedy game as the emotional stakes get higher and higher when she falls for Liu, dooming her people to their deaths. This delirious, sprawling comedy includes some of the funniest set pieces ever put on film—and you have to admit that the story of an endangered community of half-fish, half-humans living off the southern Coast of China, who face extinction at the hands of wellarmed capitalists who want to steal their land might just be a sly statement about Chow’s hometown of Hong Kong.

Director: Keiichi Hara Year: 2015 Voice Cast: Anne Higashide, Yutaka Matsushige, Gaku Hamada, Shion Shimizu, Michitaka Tsutsui Language: Japanese with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 90 min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Sunday, July 3

2:30pm Walter Reade Theater

MISS HOKUSAI New York Premiere JAPAN

One of the finest recent examples of the animated art form, Miss Hokusai is an absolute treat to behold on screen. Based on Hinako Sugiura’s manga series Sarusaberi the film offers episodic glimpses into ukiyo-e master Katsushika Hokusai’s daughter O-ei’s (Anne Higashide) life, who was an accomplished artist herself. The film is a masterclass examination of the struggles of artistic genius and offers a complex and interesting look into the father-daughter relationship of two artists, who the film posits were more co-creators than history may suggest. O-ei may conform to social mores outside the home, but within she is as bold and brash as her father and has no qualms about the popular erotic content they create. Grounded in reality the film does allow for some fantastical metaphors for the artistic process, including a marvelous scene where O-ei has to tame a dragon before she can get it right on paper. Filled with small scenes that can only be described as visual poetry, delightfully animated and delicately structured, the film is as mesmerizing as the art that inspired it.

THE MOBFATHERS New York Premiere

Director: Herman Yau Year: 2016 Cast: Chapman To, Gregory Wong, Anthony Wong, Philip Keung, Bonnie Xian Language: Cantonese with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 94 min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Monday, July 4

6:30pm Walter Reade Theater

PHOTO CREDIT: COURTESY OF GOLDEN SCENE CO.

The Mobfathers is the quintessential Hong Kong gangster flick, featuring disputes between larger-than-life bosses, vicious street fights employing arsenals of sharp metal objects, and a raspyvoiced master villain (Anthony Wong) ominously stroking a fluffy white pet. Chapman To (Infernal Affairs) stars as Chuck Lam, a MALAYSIA mid-level gangster who is released from prison just as his Triad gang is about to elect a new Dragon Head. He enters the election against Wulf, Gregory Wong’s flamboyantly gay ex-cop upstart. As the two men face off for control of the Triads, they realize that their strings are being pulled by a shadowy committee of bosses led by Anthony Wong’s terminally-ill godfather. The heady mix of vulgar entertainment and social commentary could only come from Hong Kong most politically astute chronicler, Herman Yau, who more than

justifies its adult-only rating with splashes of sleaze and bloody violence.

Screening With:

KILLER AND UNDERCOVER Director: Lau Kar-Leung Year: 2016 Cast: Patrick Tam, Philip Keung Language: Cantonese with English Subtitles Format: Digital Projection Running Time: 11 min

HONG KONG

Director: Guan Hu Year: 2015 Cast: Feng Xiaogang, Kris Wu, Zhang Hanyu, Xu Qing, Li Yefeng, Liu Hua, Liang Jing Language: Mandarin with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 136 min

SVA THEATRE

Thursday, July 7

8:30pm Beatrice Theatre PHOTO CREDIT: HUAYI BROTHERS & TAIHE FILM INVESTMENT

MR. SIX Guan Hu completely charmed NYAFF audiences back in 2010 with his bovine World War II epic, Cow, and now he’s back to totally kick our asses. The weapon of our butt destruction is China’s blockbuster director (and occasional actor) Feng Xiaogang, here playing the titular Mr. Six, a reformed gangster entering middle age and running a neighborhood shop. When some young punks kidnap his son for scratching their Lamborghini, Mr. Six doesn’t buckle in the face of their cartoonish fronting. They’re just spoiled children pretending to be hard men; Mr. Six is a hard man. He tools up, gets his old gang back together, and sets out on the road to revenge. Then things take a turn, because Mr. Six isn’t an action movie but a raw and rocky story of a man grown old in a world that no longer has any room for him. This is not just a film about a man who wields a sword (although it’s about that, too), it’s about respect: who earns it, who commands it, and who loses it. And it constantly twists our expectations as we’re shown what happens to the original gangsters like Mr. Six, who actually stand for something.

CHINA

THE PRIESTS

Director: Jang Jae-hyun Year: 2015 Cast: Kim Yun-seok, Kang Dong-won, Park So-dam, Don-don (as the pig) Language: Korean with English subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 103 min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Thursday, June 23

9:00pm Walter Reade Theater

SOUTH KOREA

PHOTO CREDIT: ZIP CINEMA; COURTESY OF UNITED PICTURES

The Priests is an exorcism film that delivers all of the expected tropes: spurts of blood, swarms of vermin, and a young girl tied to a bed, belching out vulgar threats in dead languages. But this is a Korean exorcism film, so it plunges even farther into the abyss with allusions to teen suicide and clerical molestation, together with a dash of shamanism. The head priest is played by Kim Yun-seok (The Chaser), who excels as a world-weary man with a personal moral crusade, while Kang Dong-won (Woochi) plays a fresh-eyed acolyte with demons of his own to exorcise. Park So-dam steals the film from under them as the possessed girl, devouring her every scene. If you want to witness one of South Korea’s biggest heartthrobs dashing through the streets of Seoul with a demon-possessed piglet, then this is the film for you.

58 THE FILMS

Photo Credit: Beijing Going Zoom Media)

Director: Ding Sheng Year: 2015 Cast: Andy Lau, Wang Qianyuan, Cai Lu, Lam Suet, Liu Ye, Wu Ruofu Language: Mandarin with English Subtitles Running Time: 106 min

SVA THEATRE

Saturday, July 9

4:00pm Beatrice Theatre

SAVING MR. WU The real life abduction of Wu Ruofu (who plays the cop in charge of rescuing himself, played by Andy Lau here) is the basis of this wildly fun kidnapping film. Jumping between the abduction, the interrogation (18 hours after the kidnapping), and the arrests, Saving Mr. Wu is as lean and mean as the sociopathic kidnapper Zhang Hua (played with reckless abandon by Wang Qianyuan). The ticking clock of a ransom deadline with murderous consequences if missed gives the film a breathless pace as the police race to connect the dots, while Wu races to use his acting skills to find a way out of his situation. The cat-and-mouse interplay between Zhang and his interrogators Xing Feng (Ding regular Liu Ye) and Cao Gang (Wu Ruofu), and the humane and touching relationship Wu builds with his fellow kidnap victim Xiao Dou (Cai Lu) anchor a film without an ounce of fat and one that has some serious acting chops on display.

CHINA

SEOUL STATION North American Premiere SOUTH MALAYSIA KOREA

Zombies and social criticism have gone together since George Romero reinvented the genre for a modern era. Now the walking dead are everywhere in pop culture, but Korea has always missed the flesh-eating undead train (now Busanbound). Until now. Suk-gyu is desperately looking for his daughter, a teenage runaway named Hae-sun. He follows a lead, only to discover her trapped in a life of forced prostitution. As he gets closer to finding her the nearby Seoul Station is having a bit of a zombie problem among its homeless population. An old man who died during the day is now chowing down on societyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s outcasts, and the infection rapidly spreads. As the government works to seal off the area it becomes a fight for survival with nowhere to go for the people running from the growing horde. A biting look at one of Koreaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s biggest social issues, Seoul Station is bleak, emotionally compelling and relentlessly political; it earns its place in the zombie movie pantheon.

Director: Yeon Sang-ho Year: 2015 Cast (Voices of): Ryoo Seung-ryong, Shim Eun-kyung, Lee Joon Language: Korean with English subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 92 min

Friday, June 24

9:45pm Walter Reade Theater

PHOTO CREDIT: FINECUT

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Director: Adam Wong Cast: Miriam Yeung, Jan Lamb, Neo Yau, Cecilia So Language: Cantonese with English Subtitles Running Time: 110 min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Wednesday, June 29 8:45pm Walter Reade Theater

PHOTO CREDIT: EYES FRONT PRODUCTION

SHE REMEMBERS, HE FORGETS Hollywood has pretty much given up on making romantic comedies, which means we have to import them from Asia. And that’s okay, because Asia has perfected the genre, delivering She Remembers, He Forgets a precision-calibrated, laserguided, weapons-grade weepie about young love, faltering marriages, and people trying to remember who they were back when they thought that kissing the right boy could lead to a better tomorrow. Miriam Yeung (recipient of our Star Asia Award) plays Gigi, a middle-aged travel agent married to Shing-Wah (Hong Kong fave and former festival guest Jan Lam). Their marriage is on the rocks, and no matter how hard they try it just keeps getting worse. Cut to: flashbacks to their high school days in sunny, 1990s Hong Kong when there was a third point to their love triangle, Bok-Man. Convinced that her husband is having an affair, Miriam Yeung turns in a conflicted, challenging performance as a woman who thought she married the prince but might have wound up with the frog. Running parallel to her present day story is the tale of her future husband, the challenger for his affections, and what really happened to the three of them on Ying Yan College Open Day. A movie for anyone who’s ever been in love, been married, been disappointed, and needed to find a way back home, She Remembers, He Forgets demonstrates what a romantic comedy can be when it’s handled by professionals.

North American Premiere

HONG KONG

THE SOUND OF A FLOWER

“Cry all you want; you’ll be laughing again soon enough. That’s pansori.” Apparently, this adage also applies to films about pansori, a Korean traditional form of musical storytelling that plays like a crazy type of hardcore blues with an air of eastern opera (especially after a few cups of soju). With plenty of tears, laughs, and cheers, The Sound of a Flower provides a stellar showcase for the angelic face and voice of Bae Suzy (member of the K-pop group Miss A), who plays Jin Chae-Sun, the first female pansori singer, who risked her life to pursue her dream at a time when it was forbidden for women to sing in public. Disguised as a man, Chae-Sun gains entry to the illustrious pansori academy run by master Shin Jae-Hyo (Ryoo Seung-Ryong), but when her ruse is exposed, she must literally sing for her life in front of the Prince Regent Heungseon Daewongun (Kim Nam-Gil). Does she have what it takes or will she be killed in disgrace?

SOUTH KOREA

SVA THEATRE

Thursday, July 7

6:15pm Beatrice Theatre

(PHOTO CREDIT: CJ ENTERTAINMENT

Director: Lee Jong-pil Year: 2015 Cast: Bae Suzy, Ryoo Seung-ryong, Song Sae-byeok, Kim Nam-gil Language: Korean with English subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 109 min

60 THE FILMS

Director: IWAI Shunji Year: 1996 Cast: Andy Hui, Atsuro Watabe, Ayumi Ito, Chara , Hiroshi Mikami, Kaori Momoi, Mickey Curtis, Nene Otsuka, Tomoko Yamaguchi, Yoriko Doguchi, Yosuke Eguchi Language: Japanese with English Subtitles Format: 35mm Running Time: 147 min FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Q&A WITH IWAI SHUNJI

Saturday, June 25

2:45pm Walter Reade Theater

SWALLOWTAIL BUTTERFLY 20th Anniversary Screening JAPAN

Occupying pretty much the same cultural territory in Japan that Pulp Fiction occupies in America, Shunji Iwai’s Swallowtail Butterfly was a seismic shockwave of sci-fi cool that exploded onto the Japanese film scene and electrified a generation. Shot with handheld cameras and edited to a twitchy rhythm, Swallowtail posits an alternate history where an economically flush Japan has attracted millions of immigrants who live in the YenTown ghettos, working on the margins, always on the hustle, constantly trying to score that yen. Pop star Chara plays, well, a pop star who achieves fame when her YenTown comrades co-opt a Yakuza cash scam and become rich enough to open a nightclub and release albums. Fueled by composer Takeshi Kobayashi’s exuberantly moody J-pop soundtrack, shedding ideas at the speed of light, violent, sexy, propulsive and young, it’s smart about identity, ethnicity, and the way money makes families, and breaks them, how it builds, and how it destroys. Watching it today is like re-reading your high school diary: the way it wears its heart on its sleeve can be cringe-inducing, but you have to admire its bravery, its willingness to lay it all on the line, it’s dedication to honesty. You watch Swallowtail in awe and wish that today’s filmmakers took these kind of risks, these kind of chances, had this kind of courage that you can only have when you’re young, and in love with film.

THE TAG-ALONG U.S. Premiere MALAYSIA TAIWAN

Inspired by an eerie video that became a web sensation, The Tag-Along emerged out of nowhere to become one of the most popular horror films in Taiwan history. In the viral video, a ghostly young girl in red can be seen following a group of hikers up a mountain path, shortly before the hikers met with disaster. Is this a sighting of a mo-sien, a mountain demon who preys on fear? Debut director Cheng Wei-hao lulls the audience with a set-up taken straight from the rom-com playbook: Wei is a young real estate broker who works too much and can’t convince his quirky girlfriend to get married. But things take a dark turn when Wei’s grandmother disappears, and the only evidence is a girl in red who mysteriously appears on the surveillance footage. The Tag-Along jolts your heart with the requisite frights and starts, but also taps into your head by revealing the devastating regret that can result from taking loved ones for granted. PHOTO CREDIT: VIE VISION PICTURES; COURTESY OF ABLAZE IMAGE

Director: Cheng Wei-hao Year: 2015 Cast: River Huang, Tiffany Ann Hsu, Liu Yin–shang, Yumi Wong Language: Mandarin with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 93 min

Taipei Cultural Center of TECO in New York

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Sunday, July 3

12:30pm Walter Reade Theater

Director: Michael Arias Year: 2006 Voice Cast: Kazunari Ninomiya, tYu Aoi, Masahiro Motoki, Min Tanaka Language: Japanese with English Subtitles Format: Digital Projection Running Time: 110 min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Sunday, June 26

5:15pm Walter Reade Theater PHOTO CREDIT: ANIPLEX; COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES

10th Anniversary Screening

TEKKONKINKREET

Celebrating its 10-year anniversary, Michael Arias’ adaptation of Taiyo Matsumoto’s Tekkonkinkreet manga is an exquisitely animated action film. Deep in Treasure Town the tough, violent Black and the far more innocent White are orphans who soar through the twisted streets like pint-sized superheroes. Black decides that he needs to rule Treasure Town and protect White and starts going after the yakuza trying to raze Treasure Town and turn it into an amusement park. Snake, the yakuza boss, is angry at Black’s victories over his men and decides to hire three almost super human hitmen to take him out. Soon it is up to White to save Black, and perhaps all of Treasure Town, from Black’s own dark nature. Filled with virtuoso animation and surreal flourishes, Tekkonkinkreet is a masterpiece of animation that is a brutal and beautiful tale of love and friendship in the face of urban and human decay.

JAPAN

Mired in controversy before he gained a cult following, Seijun Suzuki’s story lends context to his avant-garde films, which continue to inspire contemporary filmmakers. Freer|Sackler Curator of Film Tom Vick delves into Suzuki’s personal history and professional output in this first major Englishlanguage study of the Japanese director’s work. Available wherever books are sold! washington.edu/uwpress Check out our films: asia.si.edu

PHOTO CREDIT: AMAZING FILM STUDIO

2016 NYAFF CLOSING FILM

Q&A WITH ADAM TSUEI, IVY SHAO, LI XING

THE TENANTS DOWNSTAIRS International Premiere

MALAYSIA TAIWAN

The most hotly anticipated Taiwanese film of the year is a lurid fantasy of wounded flesh and accursed lives that entwine and separate in a building run by none other than Simon Yam. The Tenants Downstairs is a study in dark fixation, focusing on a landlord (Yam) who rents out apartments. Driven by his desire of peeping into the darkest aspects of human nature, what he sees through the eyes of the omnipresent cameras ainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t prettyâ&#x20AC;Ś but it gives him the wry, abject satisfaction, of a dark god lording over and leering at the souls of the damned, his imagination hungering toward them. A devil-like figure, he patiently tends to the needs of a barbecue pit of more or less deranged tenants: Chang, a gymnastics teacher with a record of domestic abuse, Boyan, a shut-in college student who spends his days and nights in front of his computer screen, Wang, a sexually frustrated single father with his innocent young daughter, a mysterious ghostly girl in white, Yingru, the gay couple, Lin Hu and Kuo Li, and Ms. Chen, a sexy office lady caught in an endless spiral of seedy love affairs. Sex, violence, and perverse desires come together in a writhing narrative based on a controversial book by writer (and previous NYAFF guest) Giddens Ko and The Tenants Downstairs recalls the golden age of Category III in the sweaty confines of Taiwanese cinema.

Director: Adam Tsuei Year: 2016 Cast: Simon Yam, Lee Kang-sheng, Shao Yu-Wei, Kaiser Chuang, Yu An-Shun, Hou Yan-Xi, Bernard, Li Xing, Angel Ho Language: Mandarin with English Subtitles Format: DCP

Taipei Cultural Center of TECO in New York

SVA THEATRE

Saturday, July 9

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL | 2016

9:00pm Beatrice Theatre

64 THE FILMS

Director: Shinya Tsukamoto Year: 1989 Cast: Tomorowo Taguchi, Kei Fujiwara, Shinya Tsukamoto Format: DCP Running Time: 67 min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Saturday, June 25

11:00pm Walter Reade Theater

TETSUO: THE IRON MAN NYAFF 15th Anniversary Screening JAPAN

We’re using our 15th Anniversary to screen a 27-year-old film we’ve never shown before, but since when did we follow any rules? This hard rocking audio visual bullet to the brain puts the punk in cyberpunk and we’ve wanted to show it for years, so why not now? Shinya Tsukamoto’s black and white first feature is a pulsing, heavy metal nightmare about a man who is driven insane with pleasure when he sticks a piece of metal into his leg, and a salaryman who wakes up with metal spikes growing out of his cheek. From there on it’s all swooning lo-fi cinematography, drill penises, and some of the most nightmarish imagery ever put on film. Unlike anything that had ever come out of Japan, Tetsuo wiped the floor with all other Japanese movies when it was released, spawned two sequels, and made Tsukamoto one of world cinema’s biggest stars. We’d say it’s like David Lynch’s Eraserhead remade by David Cronenberg, but that doesn’t even begin to describe the high weirdness this movie will cause to explode out of your brain like a biomechanical orgasm.

THE THRONE SOUTH MALAYSIA KOREA

Two of South Korea’s best actors—Yoo Ah In and Song Kang-ho—give stand-out performances in this sumptuous 2015 blockbuster, which dramatizes one of the most notorious and tragic episodes in the nation’s history. King Yeongjo, the longest-ruling monarch of the Joseon Dynasty, held the throne for more than 50 years, but as he himself predicted, he is remembered primarily for one single event of his reign: the brutal execution of his own son Prince Sado, who was locked in a rice chest for eight days before he died of suffocation and dehydration. According to historical accounts, Sado was a madman who committed sexual crimes and murdered his own attendants, but the film takes a more sympathetic view, portraying him as a free spirit with an artistic soul, who eventually crumbled under the relentless pressure of his father’s fanatical expectations and strict adherence to Confucian doctrine. Director Lee Joon-ik (The King and the Clown, Dongju) is already an acclaimed master of the historical drama, but The Throne (which was this year’s proud South Korea bid for the foreign-language Oscar) may be his crowning achievement. PHOTO CREDIT: COURTESY OF SHOWBOX

Director: Lee Joon-ik Year: 2015 Cast: Song Kang-Ho, Yoo Ah-In, Moon Geun-Young, So Ji-Sub (cameo) Language: Korean with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 125 min Presented with the support of Korean Cultural Center New York, and as part of the Korean Movie Night New York Master Series: Lee Joon-ik

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Thursday, June 30

8:30pm Walter Reade Theater

APPEARANCE BY LEE JOON-IK

Director: Kankuro Kudo Year: 2016 Cast: Tomoya Nagase, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Kenta Kiritani, Nana Seino, Aoi Morikawa, Machiko Ono, Rie Miyazawa Language: Japanese with English Subtitles and tons of profanities Format: HD Cam FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Friday, July 1

3:30pm Walter Reade Theater SVA THEATRE

Saturday, July 9

6:15pm Beatrice Theatre Photo Credit: “TOO YOUNG TO DIE!” © 2016 Asmik Ace, Inc. / TOHO CO., LTD. / J Storm Inc. / PARCO CO., LTD. / AMUSE INC. / Otonakeikaku Inc. / KDDI CORPORATION / GYAO Corporation

North American Premiere

TOO YOUNG TO DIE!

“Motherf**ker!” is the war cry of director/writer Kankuro Kudo’s new extravaganza, Too Young To Die!, a heavy metal comedy that features hairstyles that could easily be mistaken for exploding crows and enough all-around bad-assery to send the whole current J-Rock scene back to study in Thatcher-era Birmingham. Kudo turns in a simple and sometimes deeply affecting tale of love and life choices. The story follows a high school student, Daisuke (Ryunosuke Kamiki), literally down to hell. The bus that the boy was on crashed, dragging the entire class to death. Daisuke is rudely awakened by the guitar-shredding demon Killer K (Tomoya Nagase) and his headbanging devil bandmates in a psychedelic version of Buddhist hell. Determined to reunite with his classmate and sweetheart Hiromi (Aoi Morikawa), who might still be alive, Daisuke makes a pact with Killer K to escape Inferno. But heaven and earth, it seems, are a few reincarnations away.

JAPAN

TRIVIS.A

Director: Frank Hui, Jevons Au, Vicky Wong Year: 2016 Cast: Lam Ka Tung, Richie Jen, Jordan Chan Language: Cantonese with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 97 min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Monday, July 4

4:15pm Walter Reade Theater

HONG KONG

PHOTO CREDIT: MILKY WAY IMAGE COMPANY; COURTESY OF MEDIA ASIA

Before Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997, it was hunting grounds for some of China’s most notorious criminals, men so brutal that they inspired numerous films. Here, Johnnie To oversees a project wherein three of his protégés (Frank Hui, Jevons Au, and Vicky Wong) each filmed a separate story about one of these criminals, and To and his editors fused them together into one shimmering, bleak, black portrait of a city whose future is on fire. Cheung Tze-keung kidnapped the son of Hong Kong’s richest man, and was eventually executed in China for offenses too numerous to list. Here he’s bored and looking to pull off the crime of the century. Kwai Ping-hung, once called Hong Kong’s most-wanted criminal is seen trying to pull off a new venture with a pair of Mainland crooks. Yip Kai-foon, famous for knocking over jewelry stores and staging AK-47 battles with cops in the middle of crowded city streets is attempting to restart his career as a smuggler. The word “trivisa” comes from the Buddhist notion of the “three poisons” that lead to suffering: delusion, desire, and fury. And It’s an appropriate title for a movie about men trying to shoot, claw, stab, and scream their way out of hell.

6/22 - KAZUYA SHIRAISHI AND YOSHINORI CHIBA IN ATTENDANCE 6/28 - Q&A WITH GO AYANO

TWISTED JUSTICE World Premiere

MALAYSIA JAPAN

Taking his inspiration from the biggest scandal in Japan’s police history, Kazuya Shiraishi has created a massive and sinister crime epic, a saga about the grand forces of corruption that brings to mind the best of Kinji -Fukasaku’s yakuza movies (Cops Vs. Thugs among others). Starting in 1970s Hokkaido like a nervous Japanese Starsky and Hutch-chan, the film charts the moral descent of detective Moroboshi (Go Ayano) over three decades. Green in years but already hard-grained and ready to play rough, the young cop quickly gets a bit too cozy with the other side of the law when his senior colleague Murai (Pierre Taki) teaches him the ropes and ruts of the police business, Soon, he swaggers and rants through the streets of Sapporo, a lean, mean, sex-crazy bully, indistinguishable from a yakuza. Burning with the same blaze as the hardboiled classics of yore, Twisted Justice scorches away the sleekness and macho selfcongratulation of the genre.

Director: Kazuya Shiraishi Year: 2016 Cast: Go Ayano, Shido Nakamura, Young Dais, Yukio Ueno, Pierre Taki Language: Japanese with English Subtiles Format: DCP Running Time: 135 min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Wednesday, June 22 7:00pm Walter Reade Theater

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Tuesday, June 28

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL | 2016

6:00pm Walter Reade Theater

2016 NYAFF OPENING FILM

68 THE FILMS

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Showbox / Dreamwest Pictures

Director: Lee Il-hyeong Year: 2015 Cast: Hwang Jeong-min, Kang Dong-won, Lee Sung-min, Park Seong-woong Language: Korean with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 126 min

SVA THEATRE

Friday, July 8

6:15pm Beatrice Theatre

A VIOLENT PROSECUTOR So far, A Violent Prosecutor is Korea’s #1 box-office hit of 2016 in a landslide, crushing all competition in the first half of the year. The set-up is simple yet compelling: after pissing off the wrong people, an ace prosecutor is framed for murder and sent to prison putting him at the mercy of the thugs that he himself put behind bars. The title role goes to superstar Hwang Jeong-min, but make no mistake, the film belongs to Kang Dong-Won. Playing an adorable con man who tries to help the prosecutor restore his good name and his freedom, Kang steals every scene. Then he feels bad, apologizes, gives the scene back, looks at you with those puppy-dog eyes, and steals it again. Like a really, really good-looking chameleon, Kang effortlessly transforms himself into a wide spectrum of alter-egos: a tough-as-f**k thug, a perfect boyfriend, a dimwitted kyopo, a wealthy entrepreneur, a hot-shot lawyer, and, perhaps most memorably, a particularly exuberant political supporter.

SOUTH KOREA

WEEDS ON FIRE International Premiere HONG MALAYSIA KONG

It’s not that unusual to see baseball bats in Hong Kong movies, but they’re normally used to crack heads. But sometimes, apparently bats are used for their intended purpose, as evidenced by Weeds on Fire, a fantastic re-telling of one of the most legendary baseball games in Hong Kong history. In the mid-1980s, a school principal in Shatin, one of the “new towns” hurriedly constructed to combat overpopulation, defied all logic to form Hong Kong’s first youth baseball team. Not surprisingly, the team was dreadful at first, but through the will of their principal/coach and the golden arm of one player, they eventually made it all the way to the championship game to face the baseball juggernaut of Japan. Although based on actual events, the film is not constricted by the bounds of reality, as first-time director Chan Chi-fat freely incorporates elements of fantasy to create a memorable coming-of-age story. And don’t worry, Hong Kong film fans, there’s still room for a machete fight. PHOTO CREDIT: FIRST FEATURE FILM INITIATIVE; COURTESY OF GOLDEN SCENE CO.

Director: Chan Chi-fat Year: 2015 Cast: Lam Yiu-sing, Tony Wu, Liu Kai-chi, Hedwig Tam Language: Cantonese with English subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 105 min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Monday, July 4

2:10pm Walter Reade Theater

點五步

Director: Yoji Yamada Year: 2016 Cast: Isao Hashizume, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Yu Aoi Language: Japanese with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 108 min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Sunday, June 26

U.S. Premiere

WHAT A WONDERFUL FAMILY!

After over twenty years, Yoji Yamada returns to comedy with brisk energy and exhilarating grace and chooses to show the distress of a family in all its dysfunctional glory. Not exactly a concept you would expect hilarity from, but the light-hearted sense of humor elevates the film above any melodramatic mush and turns it into one of the best comedies of the year. Enjoying the comfort of a hard-earned retirement, which he spends golfing and boozing himself up at the local hostess bar, Japanese patriarch (sort of) Shuzo (Isao Hashizume) understandably has a bit of a shock when Tomiko (Kazuko Yoshiyuki), his dutiful wife of 50 years, decides she’s actually mad as hell and isn’t going to take it anymore: which in Japanese means she politely hands him the paperwork for a divorce. As family-wide panic sets in, their three adult children are forced to deal with their own relationship hang-ups and intergenerational (mis)communication.

JAPAN

WHAT’S IN THE DARKNESS

A coming-of-age fable mapped onto an unsolved crime story, at once dream-hazed and sharp-edged with suspense, Variety called this film “the most acute and uncompromisingly grim murder mystery to come out of China in years…”, but writer/ director Wang Yichun’s outstanding debut owes as much to Diary of a Teenage Girl as it does to Diary of a Serial Killer. What’s In The Darkness brilliantly evokes the perils of repressed desire, while equating China’s transition to capitalism with the prurient confusion of puberty. In a semi-rural village of Henan Province in the early 1990s, someone is raping and killing young women, and carving a cross into their flesh. Following the case with perverse fascination, Jing (Su Xiaotong) struggles to harness her emerging sexuality while her father (Guo Xiao), a low-level cop, futilely tries to convince his incompetent colleagues of the merits of forensic investigation.

Director: Wang Yichun Year: 2015 Cast: Su Xiaotong, Guo Xiao, Lu Qiwei, Deng Gang Language: Mandarin with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 98 min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Monday, June 27

6:15pm Walter Reade Theater Q&A WITH WANG YICHUN

CHINA

PHOTO CREDIT: CHINA FILM (SHANGHAI) INTERNATIONAL CO.

North American Premiere

Photo Credit: Galaxy Studio; Courtesy of Fortissimo Films

70 THE FILMS

Director: Victor Vu˜ Year: 2015 Cast: Thi.nh Vinh, Tro.ng Khang, Thanh My˜ Language: Vietnamese in English subtitles Running Time: 103m min

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Saturday, July 2

1:00pm Walter Reade Theater

YELLOW FLOWERS ON THE GREEN GRASS New York Premiere VIETNAM

~ ~ Based on Nguyên Nha ˆt . Ánh’s award winning book, Victor Vu directs a film of pure poetry, telling a breathtakingly beautiful tale of childhood, innocence, and brotherhood. As the title indicates, there is something deeply elemental and timeless about this story, which could have been set a thousand years ago or in any time period (although it takes place in the late 1980s in the Vietnamese countryside). The film is the almost biblical tale of Thieu (Thi.nh Vinh) and his younger brother Tuong (Tro. ng Khang). Thieu, as he finds himself at the threshold of adulthood, is experiencing the first pangs of love and jealousy. Tuong’s youthful purity and innocence sets his older brother, just like Cain to Abel, into a jealous rage over the attentions of the young, equally pure, girl next door, Moon (Thanh My˜). As jealousy eats away like the green-eyed monster it is, violence erupts, innocence is lost, and redemption must be sought.

ZINNIA FLOWER New York Premiere TAIWAN MALAYSIA

Death is at the heart of every human fear, but who among us would not rather die ourselves than grieve for a loved one? Made by director Tom Lin in the wake of his wife’s death in 2012, Zinnia Flower follows two strangers who are devastated by unthinkable loss after a deadly car accident: Ming, played by Karena Lam, was days away from marrying her fiancée when he was killed in the crash, while Wei (a startling performance by Shih Chin-hang, aka Stone, lead guitarist of the rock band Mayday) loses his pregnant wife. As they each struggle in very different ways to repair their shattered hearts, they are united by the Buddhist mourning process, bringing them together every seven days to chant and pray for the soul of the deceased. By the time the meaning of the film’s title becomes apparent, you’ll be wiping away the tears.

Photo Credit: Atomcinema Corporation; Courtesy of Ablaze Image

Director: Tom Lin Year: 2015 Cast: Karena Lam, Shih Chin-Hang (aka ‘Stone’), Bryan Chang, Nana Lee Language: Mandarin and Japanese with English Subtitles Format: DCP Running Time: 96 min

Taipei Cultural Center of TECO in New York

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Sunday, July 3

4:30pm Walter Reade Theater

333 East 47th Street New York, NY 10017

11 days of impossible-to-see-anywhereelse screenings of the best new movies from Japan with special guest filmmakers “No other film showcase on Earth can compete with its culture-specific authority—or the quality of its titles.”

—Time Out New York

and stars, post-screening Q&As, parties, giveaways and much more!

ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES CONGRATULATES THE NY ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL ON 15 YEARS OF INNOVATIVE, EXCITING PROGRAMMING! Coming up this summer at Anthology Film Archives:

MONDO MONDO July 22-31 A 10 day survey of the Mondo Film craze that reared its head in the 1960s and beyond, including the classic MONDO CANE as well as precursors and follow-ups from BLOOD OF THE BEASTS and MONDO TOPLESS to DES MORTS and THE KILLING OF AMERICA.

THE FILMS OF CURT MCDOWELL August 12-18 The Films of Curt McDowell: an extensive retrospective devoted to the irrepressible San Francisco filmmaker responsible for such outrageous underground gems as THUNDERCRACK!, STINKY-BUTT, BEAVER FEVER, and PEED INTO THE WIND.

ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES • 32 Second Ave (@2nd St) NYC • anthologyfilmarchives.org

Jia Zhangke Speaks Out The Chinese Director’s Texts on Film “The award-winning filmmaker’s impressive body of writings on contemporary cinema are finally available to English readers. These thoughtful, insightful, and sometimes controversial essays, interviews, and film notes are a must-read for anyone interested in Chinese cinema or the work of this brilliant director.” ―Michael Berry, author of Jia Zhangke’s Hometown Trilogy

Transnational Chinese Cinema

Paperback 978-1-62643-028-0

Corporeality, Desire, and Ethics of Failure “An impressive body of extraordinary scholarship . . . unique and highly recommended contribution to academic library Cinematic Studies and Chinese Popular Culture reference collections and supplemental studies reading lists.” ―Roy Lee, MBR Booklist Paperback 978-1-62643-010-5

ebook editions are available worldwide Distributed by

orders@transactionpub.com www.transactionpub.com

“Dr. Koufman’s Acid Reflux Diet is two great books in one. First, it provides an informative, iconoclastic, and bluntly honest scientific viewpoint and the opportunity for a cure for millions of people suffering from misdiagnosed respiratory diseases. Second, as a cookbook, it offers terrific reflux-friendly recipes that are also vegan and gluten-free.” Dr. Edythe Heus, Founder and Director, Revolution in Motion

Dr. Jamie Koufman’s latest books, Dr. Koufman’s Acid Reflux Diet and Dropping Acid: The Reflux Diet Cookbook & Cure, are available for purchase on Amazon.

17,000 square feet of full-service sound stages, grip and electric equipment, locations, offices, and other production amenities in Bushwick, Brooklyn. brooklynfireproofstages.com

stages@brooklynfireproof.com

718-456-7571

N E W Y O R K A S I A N F I L M F E S T I VA L 2 0 1 6 I S A P R E S E N T A T I O N O F S U B WAY C I N E M A A N D T H E F I L M S O C I E T Y O F L I N C O L N C E N T E R . NO FILMS WERE HURT IN THE PROCESS.

NYAFF 2016 ABOUT 77

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL

Subway Cinema is America’s leading 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to the exhibition and appreciation of Asian popular film culture in all forms, building bridges between Asia and the West. With year-round festivals and programs, the organization aims to bring wide audience and critical attention to contemporary and classic Asian cinema in the U.S. In 2002, Subway Cinema launched its flagship event, the annual New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF), which is North America’s leading festival of popular Asian cinema. Subway cinema’s other events and initiatives include Old School Kung Fu Fest (OSKFF), and yearround special screenings and filmmaker tributes. Board of Directors: Grady Hendrix (Co-founder/ President), Paul Kazee (Co-founder), Kenneth A. Cowin (Secretary); Goran Topalovic (Co-founder). Staff: Samuel Jamier (Executive Director), Stephen Cremin (Senior Programmer), Rufus de Rham (Programmer & Senior Manager), Claire Marty (Programmer), Karen Severns & Koichi Mori, Kismet Productions, Consulting Programmers, Lisa Wisely / Blue Spark Consulting, LLC. (Accounting Manager), Frank Djeng, Hospitality & Operations Manager & Associate Programmer) Gigi Na Kyong Yoon (International Operations Manager), Rob Domingo (Operations), Gregory Chang (Operations), David Powers (Operations), Patrick Nance (Operations). Elaine Y. Sheng (Development), Sonia Huang (Development), Michael Herman (Development), Emma Griffiths / Emma Griffiths PR, Public Relations Subway Cinema receives generous, year-round support from the Kenneth A. Cowin Foundation. For more information, visit www.subwaycinema.com, www.facebook.com/NYAFF, and follow @subwaycinema on Twitter.

ABOUT SUBWAY CINEMA

Now in its 15th year, the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) is North America’s leading festival of popular Asian cinema, which The Village Voice called “the best film festival in New York” last year, and The New York Times has called “one of the city’s most valuable events.” Launched in 2002 by Subway Cinema, the festival selects only the best, strangest, and most entertaining movies to screen for New York audiences, ranging from mainstream blockbusters and art-house eccentricities to genre and cult classics. It was the first North American film festival to champion the works of Johnnie To, Bong Joon-ho, Park Chan-wook, Takashi Miike, and other auteurs of contemporary Asian cinema. Since 2010, the Festival has been produced in collaboration with the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

ABOUT THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, the Film Society of Lincoln Center works to recognize established and emerging filmmakers, support important new work, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility, and understanding of the moving image. The Film Society produces the renowned New York Film Festival, a curated selection of the year’s most significant new film work, and presents or collaborates on other annual New York City festivals including Dance on Camera, Film Comment Selects, Human Rights Watch Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, New York African Film Festival, New York Asian Film Festival, New York Jewish Film Festival, Open Roads: New Italian Cinema and Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. In addition to publishing the award-winning Film Comment magazine, the Film Society recognizes an artist’s unique achievement in film with the prestigious Chaplin Award, whose 2015 recipient was Robert Redford. The Film Society’s state-of-the-art Walter Reade Theater and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, located at Lincoln Center, provide a home for year-round programs and the New York City film community. The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from American Airlines, The New York Times, HBO, Stella Artois, The Kobal Collection, Variety, Loews Regency Hotel, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts. For more information, visit www.filmlinc.com and follow @filmlinc on Twitter. 2016 NYAFF DESIGN TEAM: Natalee Newcombe, Manager of Graphic Design & Production Chris Simpson, Design | Patrick Nance, Design Michael Krouse, Digital Media Design & Web

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL | 2016

NYAFF 2016 THANK YOU! AND CREDITS 79

AN TH K U!

CREDITS: Curated by executive director Samuel Jamier, senior programmer Stephen Cremin, and programmers Rufus de Rham and Claire Marty. Randy Watts, Tonee Acejo, Valerie Martinez, Adam Tsuei, Karen Severns, Koichi Mori, Ronald Arguelles, Ice Idanan, Anthony Sanchez, Sonia Huang, Simone Zhang, Kelunni Melon, Chris Simpson, Courtney Ott, Aliza Ma, Jake Perlin, Nicholas Kemp, Haley Mednick, Matt Bolish, David Goldberg, Karen Weeks, Jamie Kaufman, Michael Lieberman, Aymeric Contat Desfontaines, Anna Page, Emily Ting, Sophia Shek, Mark Adams, Claudia Yeung, Crystal Decker, Dylan Marchetti, Jean Noh, Jerome Michaux, Judy Ahn, Rachel Joo, Mathilda Lee, Michelle Son, Jamie Seo, Nicolas Archambault, Paige Barr, Roger Garcia, Tony Chan, Choi Eun-Young, Derek Elley, Glenn Raucher, Gurjeet

Chima, Irene Richard, Eugene Kim, Pearl Chan, Robert Lundberg, Janice Chung, Andy Lung, Jack Lee, Gee Poon, Felix Tsang, Winnie Tsang, Olivia Leung, Julian Chiu, Mia Sin, Lau Ho Leung, Ida To, Queenie Li, CY Leung, Michelle Liu, Alice Leung, Tony Yin, Giselle Gilbert, Ko (Kotaro) Mori, Clay Martin, Atsumi Shibata, Fumiki Yamazaki, Tomoharu Kusunoki, Sae Nakazawa, Francesco Prandoni, Maggie Lee, David Jennings, Michael Arias, Matt Harvey, Emico Kawai, Mami Furukawa, Taku Kato, Kim Hawon, Cho Hanbit, Dana Kim, Luna H.Y. Kim, Kyu Young Angela Kim, Azusa Taki, Kiwamu Sato, Soyoon Ahn, Namyoung Kim, Daegil Youn, Bumsu Lee, Daniel Hong, Alice Kang, Tong Kaljaruek, Geraldine Flaviano, Stacey Bascon, Dondon Monteverde, Erik Matti, Chloe Yap, Jennifer Lee, Eric Chou, June Wu, Kulthida Nityasuddhi.

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL | 2016

SUMMER MOVIE GUIDE MARK YOUR CALENDAR WITH THESE UPCOMING NEW RELEASES. VISIT FILMLINC.ORG.

Opens June 24 Right Now/Wrong Then . Opens July 1 Private Property Opens July 8 Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You + Indian Point . Opens July 22 Summertime Opens July 29 On the Silver Globe . Opens August 5 Little Men + Neither Heaven nor Earth Opens August 19 Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World . Opens August 26 Fatima

Right Now/ Wrong Then

F I L M L IVES H E R E

SM M

Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center 144 W 65th St · filmlinc.org · @filmlinc · #filmliveshere OFFI CI A L

P R E MI U M

M EDI A

H O S P I TA L I TY

A D D IT IO N A L S U P P O RT