Category: Festivals

Thicker than Water (犬猿, Keisuke Yoshida, 2018)

February 9, 2019by Hayley ScanlonLeave a comment

In the long history of the Japanese family drama, the tensions are generally vertical rather than horizontal. Siblings are often engaged in trying to broker the peace or snatch a little bit of independent living away from an all consuming family environment. Then again, we meet most families when the kids are gown up and struggling with their approaching transition into other families or other lives. Kids fight, but grown up brothers and sisters are supposed to find a degree of civility at least even if the petty resentments of childhood never quite go away. For the parallel pairs of mismatched siblings at the centre of Thicker than Water (犬猿, Kenen), however, the reverse is true.

Older sister Yuria (Keiko Enoue) has taken over the family print shop now that her father is bedridden while her younger, prettier sister Mako (Miwako Kakei) is struggling to make it as an actress. Often resentful of her sister’s domineering, business-like attitude, Mako wilfully targets her weaknesses by making barbed comments about her weight and appearance of which she knows Yuria is insecure. Yuria, meanwhile, treats her sister as a foolish child, immediately taking over rather than let Mako do something “wrong” and thereby chipping into her insecurities about a lack of intelligence.

The spiky dynamic between the two sisters intensifies when Yuria develops a crush on a handsome young salaryman who makes regular visits to the shop to get his posters printed. Kazunari (Masataka Kubota), however, predictably falls for Mako (who is only interested in him as a way of annoying her sister). Meanwhile, he has sibling drama of his own in that his no good, thuggish older brother Takuji (Hirofumi Arai) has just been released from prison and made an unwelcome reappearance in his life.

What exists between the siblings isn’t quite “rivalry”, mostly they aren’t fighting over parental affection or esteem so much reacting against their obviously complimentary characteristics. Yuria envies Mako’s beauty, while Mako secretly envies her sister’s intellectual confidence even if she also resents her bossiness and affectation of superiority in order to mask her insecurity. Kazunari makes a show of his earnestness, that he’s doing everything “properly” – working hard, living within his means, paying off his parents’ debts and saving for his retirement, while underneath it all he envies his brother’s non-conformity even if its risks terrify him. Thus they snipe at each other. The thing about family is they know where all the buttons are and find pressing them extremely hard to resist.

That said, the familial bond is a strong one and perhaps they can snipe cruelly at each other precisely because it is unlikely to break. Nevertheless, when pettiness and cruelty intensify there can hardly be a positive outcome save perhaps to hit the reset button and send our warring siblings back to their idyllic childhoods in which they played together happily free from their adult resentments. Like children fighting over toys, each wants what the other has and seethes over the injustice of not being the one to have it. An extreme situation might seem to clear the air, repair the relationships and restore them to their original condition with each reaching an understanding of themselves and their opposite number, but old habits are hard to break and any thaw in relations is likely to be extremely temporary.

No stranger to extremes, Yoshida opens with a humorous sequence spoofing a trailer for a cheesy Japanese teen romance which is enthusiastically recommended by a series of vox pop champions, not least among them Mako who who somewhat unethically plays the part of a lovestruck young woman who over identifies with the movie’s themes. The trailer promises a “parallel love story” which, in truly Yoshida-esque irony, is more or less what we get as we witness the symmetrical tales of our two sets of warring siblings whose animosity almost tips over into co-dependency. Mirrors of each other, they love and loathe but remain unable to reconcile themselves to the various faults they see reflected in their opposing number and therefore unable to break free from the petty jealousies and resentments which define family life. There may be no escape from the intense self loathing unfairly projected onto an equally burdened sibling, but perhaps there is faint hope in the enduring continuity of their quietly simmering warfare even as it binds them in mutual misery.

Thicker than Water was screened as part of the 2019 Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

My Friend “A” (友罪, Takahisa Zeze, 2018)

February 8, 2019by Hayley Scanlon1 Comment

The Japanese justice system is founded on the idea of confession and atonement, that if you admit your crime and show remorse you will be forgiven. The truth, however, is much more complex and those whose lives have been tainted by transgression are often rejected by a still unforgiving society. Director Takahisa Zeze describes his adaptation of Gaku Yakumaru’s novel My Friend “A” (友罪, Yuzai) as a picture of the world he longs to see at the end of the Heisei era, one which is less judgemental and more compassionate where the bonds between people can perhaps overcome the traumatic past.

In the present day, two very different men – failed journalist Masuda (Toma Ikuta) and the sullen and mysterious Suzuki (Eita), are inducted as probationary workers at a small factory. Suzuki’s determination to keep himself to himself does not endear him to the other workers who become convinced that he is hiding something from them. Suzuki is indeed hiding something, though his reasons for avoiding human contact are various and complex. When a young child is found murdered nearby in a method which echoes a notorious killing from 17 years previously, Masuda is contacted by an old colleague (Mizuki Yamamoto) investigating the case and begins to wonder if the secret Suzuki seems to be burdened by might have something to do with one crime or both.

In actuality, Masuda does not seem to believe that Suzuki is involved with the recent killing even if he comes to the conclusion that he is almost certainly the teenager convicted of the earlier crime. Nevertheless, he develops an awkward “friendship” with him which is partly exploitative as he ponders writing an exposé on the injustice that allows someone who committed such heinous acts, even in childhood, to start again with a new identity. “Injustice” becomes a persistent theme as seen in the melancholy tale of taxi driver Yamauchi (Koichi Sato) who is carrying the heavy burden of being the father of a son (Hoshi Ishida) who killed three children as a joy riding delinquent. Hounded by one parent, and accidentally harassing the others through his relentless attempts to apologise for his son’s transgression, Yamauchi has ruined his family through his own need for personal atonement. Having divorced his wife and lost touch with his son, he is enraged to learn that he plans to marry and will soon be a father. Even if his wife-to-be knows of his past and accepts it, Yamauchi believes his son has lost the right to live as other people live and finds it extraordinarily offensive that a man who took the lives of children would have a child of his own.

Yamauchi seems to want to put his family back together but only succeeds in tearing it apart. Corrupted families loom large from the mysterious photograph of the smiling boy surrounded by the scratched out faces of his parents and sibling found among Suzuki’s belongings, to the reform school boy taunted with the accusation that he might not have turned to drugs if only his parents had loved him more. Suzuki fixates on his reform school teacher Shiraishi (Yasuko Tomita), but she in turn has neglected her own daughter in her fierce desire to save the souls of these violent young men many of whom have become the way they are because they believe that they are worthless and no one cares about them. Meanwhile, Miyoko (Kaho) – a young woman drawn to Suzuki’s silent solidarity, struggles to escape her own traumatic past partly because she was shamed in front of her family who then were also shamed by her inescapable transgression.

Unlike Suzuki, Miyoko has committed no crime but is haunted just the same. As is Masuda though his guilt is real enough if of a more spiritual kind as he struggles to accept his role in the death of a friend who committed suicide when they were just children. Then again, Masuda’s struggle, like Yamauchi’s, is perhaps a solipsistic one in which what he is really mourning is not his friend but the vision of his idealised self. On visiting his late friend’s mother, Masuda bristles when she talks about his journalistic career and her hope that he is still “strong and just” like the teenage boy she believes stood alongside her lonely son when the truth is that he abandoned his friend when he needed him most because he was too cowardly to risk becoming a target himself. Despite his high ideals, Masuda had been working at a scandal rag and his only real piece of ethical journalism was a confessional about the destructive effects of high school bullying. He remains conflicted in his friendship with Suzuki not quite because he fears his dark past but because he fears his own moral cowardice – something he is reminded of when a housemate points out that no-one likes Suzuki and that if Masuda sides with him, no one will like him either.

The question that is asked is whether discovering someone’s dark secret necessarily changes who they are now and if it is ever really possible for those who have in some way transgressed to return to society. As Suzuki puts it to Masuda in reflecting on their unavoidable commonality, they’re each men who rarely unpack their suitcases, always on the run from an unforgiving present. Yet there is perhaps hope despite Masuda’s ongoing diffidence in his eventual (self) confession and belated solidarity with a man he later recognises as a “friend” in acknowledgement of the unconditional bonds of genuine friendship.

My Friend “A” was screened as part of the 2019 Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme.

International trailer (English subtitles)

Blindly in Love (箱入り息子の恋, Masahide Ichii, 2013)

February 7, 2019by Hayley ScanlonLeave a comment

Post-war Japanese cinema was intent on investigating whether father really did know best while his children strived to find their place in a changing society. Contemporary Japanese cinema may feel as if the question has been more than well enough answered already but then again Japanese society remains conformist in the extreme and arranged marriage still an option for those who find it difficult to find a match on their own (remaining single, it seems, is still an option requiring intense justification). The protagonists of Blindly in Love (箱入り息子の恋, Hakoiri Musuko no Koi) find themselves in just this position as their well meaning (to a point) parents attempt to railroad them into the futures they feel are most appropriate while perhaps failing to deal with the various ways their own behaviour has adversely affected their children’s ability to function independently.

Kentaro (Gen Hoshino) is 35. He has a steady job as a civil servant and still lives at home with his parents which is hardly an unusual situation in contemporary Japan save for the fact he is not married and seems to have no interest in dating. Rather than eat with his colleagues, Kentaro comes home for lunch every day and returns straight after work, retreating into his bedroom to spend quality time with his pet frog and play video games. His parents, worrying that he may be lonely when they are gone, decide to find him a wife by effectively going speed dating on his behalf with a host of other parents in a similar position.

There they meet the Imais who are keen to marry off their 23-year-old daughter Naoko (Kaho). The elephant in the room is that everyone at this meeting is there because they believe there is something “wrong” with their children that makes them difficult prospects for marriage. Consequently, the Imais have decided not to disclose the fact that Naoko is blind until later in the negotiations.

The Imais’ ambivalent feelings towards their daughter’s disability speak to a persistent social prejudice which views those who have different needs as somehow less. Mr. Imai is a high flying company CEO who puts on a show of only wanting the best for his little girl, but he’s also a snob and a bully. He keeps trying to set Naoko up with “elites” like him, but those elites will also share his own prejudices in feeling that his daughter is “imperfect” and therefore not a prime match in the arranged marriage stakes. Kentaro, who unbeknownst to everyone except Mrs. Imai has already enjoyed a love at first sight meet cute with Naoko, is the only one brave enough to call Mr. Imai out on his hypocrisy when he accuses him of neglecting his daughter’s feelings in favour of asserting his own paternal authority. As you can imagine, Mr. Imai is not happy to have his faults read back to him.

Making the accusation at all is extremely hard for Kentaro who has just spent the last ten minutes getting a dressing down from Mr. Imai who has read out a list of his perceived imperfections from his unbreakable introversion to his lack of career success. Mr. Imai wants to know if a man like Kentaro who has basically been the office coffee boy for the last 13 years can keep his daughter in the manner to which she’s been accustomed. Kentaro has to admit that he probably can’t and that Imai has a point, but unlike Imai he is thinking of Naoko’s happiness. He sees her disability but only as a part of her personality and respects her right to a fully independent life which is something her father seems to want to deny her, not out of a paternalistic (or patronising) worry for her safety but simply as a means of control.

Conversely, Kentaro is attracted to Naoko precisely because he feels as if she might be able to see him in greater clarity in being unable to judge him solely on appearance. In a rare moment of opening up as part of his defence against Mr. Imai, Kentaro reveals the pain and suffering that have led him to withdraw from the world, admitting that after years of being taunted or ignored, branded an oddball and mocked for his rather robotic physicality he simply decided it was easier to be alone. It might be safe to say that Kentaro’s parents are being overly intrusive, that they are trying to impose their idea of a “normal” life on their son who may be perfectly happy playing video games alone for the rest of his days. Kentaro, however, is not quite happy and as is later pointed out to him had merely given up on the idea of any other kind of existence as an unattainable dream.

Giving up has been Kentaro’s problem and one that recurs throughout his awkward courtship. Like his pet frog, Kentaro has been perfectly contained within his own tank and somewhat fearful to crawl outside but is slowly finding the strength thanks to his bond with Naoko who struggles to overcome her conservative patriarchal upbringing and escape her father’s control. Yet it isn’t only the youngsters who have to learn to leave the nest but the parents who have to learn to let them go. Kentaro’s mum and dad have perhaps enabled his sense of disconnectedness by keeping him at home with them as a treasured only son, while the Imais’ problems run deeper and hint at a deeply dysfunctional household with a father who is controlling and eventually violent while Mrs. Imai tries to effect her daughter’s escape from the same patriarchal conservatism which has succeeded in trapping her. Blindly in Love refuses either of the conventional endings to its unconventional romance but edges towards something positive in affirming its protagonists’ continued determination to fight for their own happiness even if opposed at every turn.

Blindly in Love was screened as part of the 2019 Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Yurigokoro (ユリゴコロ, Naoto Kumazawa, 2017)

February 6, 2019by Hayley Scanlon1 Comment

Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it, as they say, but is it better to acknowledge the dark parts of yourself as part of an inherited legacy or ignore a nagging sense of incompleteness in favour of a harmonious existence? The hero at the centre of Naoto Kumazawa’s Yurigokoro (ユリゴコロ), adapted from the mystery novel by Mahokaru Numata, is about to discover a side of himself he might not like just as storm clouds seem to gather over his previously idyllic childhood home.

For Ryosuke (Tori Matsuzaka), everything had been looking up. He’d set up his own business – a charming cafe and summer lodge, with the woman he intended to marry, Chie (Nana Seino). However, no sooner has he introduced his fiancée to his father than she disappears, gone without trace. Meanwhile, his father informs him that he has stage four pancreatic cancer. Suddenly everything is falling apart and the braver the face he tries to put on it, the worse he seems to feel. Perhaps that’s why he can’t resist opening up a mysterious old box hidden in a cupboard in his father’s study that almost calls out to him to be opened. Inside the box is an old exercise book with the title “Yurigokoro” pencilled on the front. Ryosuke only reads the first few pages but they’re enough to disturb and fascinate him. The book, written in the first person, recounts the dark history of a murderess (Yuriko Yoshitaka) from silent, disconnected child to vengeful spirit.

“Yurigokoro” as the diary’s protagonist later explains is a made-up word, one she childishly misheard from the mouth of a well meaning doctor (who probably meant “yoridokoro” which means something like grounding). It could, however, almost translate as a shaking heart – something the doctor seems to imply the child does not quite have which is why she feels disconnected from the world around her and unable, or unwilling, to speak. The girl in the book travels through life looking for something that makes her heart beat and originally finds it only in the strange pleasure of watching something die, at first by accident and later by design. She drifts into an intense relationship with a damaged young woman (Aimi Satsukawa) who, like her in a fashion at least, resorts to self harm in order to feel alive. She thinks she finds her home, but it slips away from her or perhaps changes in form as it succumbs to inevitable disappointment.

Yet, in the grownup crimes at least, there is a kind of love in amongst grudging resentment. Ryosuke reads the diary and declares he does not relate to it at all but something about it gets under his skin and he can’t let it rest. He hears from an older woman (Tae Kimura) that Chie may have a past he knew nothing about, largely because he failed to ask, and that she may be in danger. He begins to feel rage surfacing within him like the dark violence of the diary’s protagonist and it both frightens and enthrals him.

The owner of the diary likens her experience of existing in the world to being prickled by hundreds of tiny thorns. She seeks relief through bloodletting and violence, as if she could shake herself free of the tiny stings that remind her of nothing other than her sense of emptiness. Later she discovers that love too can shake the heart, but the old darkness remains and even the most positive of emotions may require an act of violence in order to sustain it. The diarist remains ambivalent, knowing that there is no salvation for her except death and that any attempt to stave off the darkness with light will eventually fail, but determined to cling on to her brief moment of wholeness however inauthentic for as long as it lasts.

Ryosuke, meanwhile, who’d apparently never sensed in himself the kind of gaping emptiness that the diary’s owner describes, is forced to wonder if the diary is legacy and destiny, if he too is destined to commit random acts of inescapable violence as someone unfit for living as a human being among other human beings. Love might not have “cured” the darkness inside the diarist, but it did change it in quite a fundamental way, a way that eventually provided him with the means of his “salvation” perhaps at the cost of her own if only he is willing to accept it. Ryosuke might wish he’d never opened that particular box, but in doing so he discovers not only the path towards a fully integrated self but that his own darkness can be tempered precisely because of the sacrifice that was made on his behalf.

Yurigokoro was screened as part of the 2019 Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme.

Original trailer (no subtitles)

Dad’s Lunch Box (パパのお弁当は世界一, Masakazu Fukatsu, 2017)

February 4, 2019by Hayley Scanlon1 Comment

Lunch is serious business in Japan, but perhaps those adorable character bento have a dark side, forcing already frazzled mothers to get up before dawn in order to ensure their child’s lunch box will be sufficiently “cute” or risk being made to feel like a cold and unloving parent. It goes without saying that it’s usually mums who are expected to take care of food preparation, salaryman dads are a rare sight in a kitchen, but then a recent phenomenon known as “papaben” has been taking the internet by storm and somewhat normalising the idea that fathers too can channel their love for their kids into visually appealing, nutritionally balanced meals.

Dad’s Lunch Box (パパのお弁当は世界一, Papa no Obento wa Sekai Ichi), the debut feature from Masakazu Fukatsu, is inspired by a viral Tweet posted by a high school girl on her graduation which thanked her father for taking the trouble of making a handmade bento for her every day of her high school life. The Tweet also included a photo of his risible first effort and his final high school lunch box crafted after three years of trial and error. Fukatsu’s film version follows a recently single salaryman known only as “Father” (Toshimi Watanabe) who decides to make the creation of bento his primary method of demonstrating that he is perfectly fine bringing up his teenage daughter Midori (Rena Takeda) all alone.

The film does not dwell on the circumstances which led to Father’s wife leaving and there does not appear to be any animosity between himself and his daughter on account of it, nor does Midori suffer any particular stigma at school because of having a single dad save for the unfortunate quality of her daily bento. Father, having lived a regular salaryman life, is not exactly a great cook and has an uphill journey ahead of him when it comes to mastering the basics let alone creating the Instagrammable lunches of his daughter’s dreams. Taking a few tips from a friendly lady at work, Father eventually realises that for a teenage girl bento are an important social signifier and must, in all cases, be cute. Nevertheless, he struggles with fundamental hygiene concerns that leave him unaware of why you shouldn’t put sashimi in a lunch box which is going to be sitting around at room temperature all day.

The most important component in a bento is, however, love which is why Father started making them in the first place. It’s not so much that he eventually masters the art of cooking, nor that of learning how to make his dishes aesthetically pleasing, but that he is able to connect with his increasingly distant teenage daughter as he does so. Midori, having grown to like her dad’s previously embarrassing lunchtime fare, tricks him into making two bento lunches passing one off as her own work in order to give to a boy she likes and sort of (though incorrectly) assumes is her boyfriend. The boyfriend is, it has to be said, quite cheeky and extremely ungrateful when one considers he’s getting a 100% free lunch every day, but in any case his decision to rudely criticise Father’s by now beautiful bento is the one which finally sets alarm bells ringing in the mind of the romantically naive Midori and her supportive friends. Father remains oblivious until the lady at work helps him out again by keying him in to Midori’s likely source of teenage angst. When giving her a gentle opportunity to open up doesn’t yield results, Father realises he needs to give his daughter space to figure things out, leaving tiny notes of encouragement along with the food to make sure she knows he’s there if she needs him.

In a strange turn of events, actor Toshimi Watanabe who plays the father (previously known as a ‘90s hip hop star) himself made quite a splash in the papaben world when he released a book of his own bento recipes in 2014 crafted for his teenage son through his high school years. Dad’s Lunchbox may be low on plot detail, but it’s high on heart in its earnest tale of a doting dad just so happy to be making headway in conquering the most of domestic of tasks while finding the way to his daughter’s heart through her stomach.

Dad’s Lunchbox was screened as part of the 2019 Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme.

Original trailer (no subtitles)

New York Asian Film Festival Launches First Ever Winter Showcase

January 25, 2019by Hayley ScanlonLeave a comment

A regular summer fixture in the New York film calendar, the New York Asian Film Festival is launching its first ever winter showcase set to run Feb. 1 – 3 & 8 – 10 at SVA Theatre. Running under the title “Crazy Broke Asians” the festival will present 15 films showcasing the lives of ordinary people from across the region.

Miss Baek

Han Ji-min will be in attendance for a Q&A following the film.

Han Ji-min stars as a salty, aloof ex-con who struggles to move past childhood trauma until she makes the fateful decision to save a neglected little girl who reminds her so much of herself. Review.

Fly By Night

The debut feature from Zahir Omar, Fly By Night takes place in the Kuala Lumpur underworld where a gang of taxi drivers has clubbed together to extort well off passengers they pick up from the airport.

Mee Pok Man

A Singaporean classic, Eric Khoo’s debut follows the awkward proprietor of a noodle shop with a crush on one of his customers, a sex worker who dreams of escaping her pimp and the city itself.

Have a Nice Day

Liu Jian’s indie animation puts the modern China under the spotlight as a missing bag of money brings a collection of desperate souls together in the search for a way out of a dead end wasteland. Review.

After this Our Exile

Aaron Kwok stars as a deadbeat dad whose wife eventually leaves him alone with their young son. When loansharks come in pursuit of gambling debts, father and son are forced on the run and into a life of dubious moralities.

Crying Fist

Ryoo Seung-wan’s boxing drama stars Choi Min-sik as a former olympic silver medalist who now makes ends meet getting beaten up for money on the streets of Seoul. Meanwhile, a troubled young man (played by Ryoo Seung-Bum) who learned to box inside is also looking for a way out. The pair meet in the ring where a more than cash is at stake.

Breathless

Actor turned director Yang Ik-June stars as a brutal gangster whose sentimental heart is restarted by a high school girl with a difficult home life only to discover life’s essential tragedies.

100 Yen Love

Sakura Ando stars as a 32-year-old slacker still living at home with her parents. A part-time job in a 100 yen store gives her new purpose when she strikes up a relationship with an amateur boxer and winds up entering the ring herself. Review.

7 Grandmasters

Jack Lung stars as a veteran kung-fu master about to retire when a young buck begs to become his disciple so that he can learn the skills to avenge his father.

The Mystery of Chess Boxing

7 Grandmasters’ Li Yi-min returns as another youngster seeking revenge! Originally the kung-fu school’s dunce he gets his game on when the chef teaches him how to fight, eventually teaming up with the inventor of chess kung fu to take down the mysterious Ghost Face Killer.

The Swordsman of All Swordsman

A top swordsman out for revenge against the bandits that killed his father runs into sword enthusiasts Black Dragon and Flying Swallow who may be enemies or allies.

Secret Screening

The clue is in the name…

King of Beggars

Stephen Chow stars in Gordon Chan’s loose retelling of the life of 19th century martial artist So Chan who finds himself joining the Beggars’ Sect after being caught cheating on his imperial exams and causing his family to be stripped of all their wealth.

Merantau

Indonesian action star Iko Uwais stars in Gareth Huw Evans early cult hit in which a young man embarks on his “merantau” – a coming of age ritual in which he must leave his village for the city where he rescues a brother and sister from a gang and finds himself at war.

The Raid Redemption

The sequel to Gareth Huw Evans phenomenally successful The Raid once again stars Iko Uwais as an intrepid SWAT member who finds himself having to fight his way out when a raid goes wrong.

Lunar New Year Party

A party to close out the event taking place right after the final screening.

The New York Asian Film Festival Winter Showcase runs February 1 – 3 & 8 -10 at SVA Theatre. Tickets and passes are currently on sale via Eventbrite where you can also find full details for all the films along with screening times. You can also keep up with all the latest news including the upcoming summer season via the festival’s official website, Facebook page, and Twitter account.

Early Korean Cinema: Lost Films from the Japanese Colonial Period

January 9, 2019January 9, 2019by Hayley Scanlon8 Comments

Classic Korean cinema is making a long awaited return to the BFI this February with a fantastic season of rarely screened (and sadly just rare) films produced during the Japanese colonial period.

Crossroads of Youth + season introduction

The oldest extant Korean film, Crossroads of Youth follows the adventures of a young man who travels to the city to find work after his arranged marriage falls through only to fall for a girl who is about to be sold to a money lender in payment for a debt.

The screening will be preceded by an illustrated lecture from the Korean Film Archive’s Chung Chong-hwa. As at the screening at the Barbican back in 2012, the silent film will be screened in the original fashion with live music and performances and narrated by a byeonsa.

Sweet Dream + Fisherman’s Fire

The Korean Film Archive’s Chung Chong-hwa will introduce the films at the Friday 15th screening.

Acclaimed film editor Yang Ju-nam made his directorial debut with 1936’s Sweet Dream – a melodrama revolving around a vain housewife who abandons her daughter and moves in with a lover at a hotel after her husband throws her out.

Co-produced by Shochiku and supervised by Yasujiro Shimazu, Ahn Cheol-young’s Fisherman’s Fire follows the melancholy fate of fisherman’s daughter In-soon who is faced with being sold in payment of a debt but escapes to Seoul only to wind up being forced to become bar girl.

Military Train + Volunteer + intro by Baek Moonim, Yonsei University

The only film directed by Suh Kwang-je, Military Train is also accounted as the first pro-Japanese government film, which is a fairly unfortunate legacy whichever way you look at it. Intended to boost recruitment, the film follows two best friends and roommates whose lives are disrupted when one is approached by resistance agents seeking info about the military train.

Another recruiting film, Anh Seok-young’s Volunteer follows a poor farm boy who is thrown off his land and resents his meagre prospects. He sees entry to the Japanese army, which has recently relaxed regulations to allow Korean men to join, as a path to making something of himself…

Tuition

One of the many films inspired by a child’s essay Tuition is a mildly subversive propaganda melodrama about a little boy struggling to pay his school fees who goes on a perilous adventure when his grandma is taken ill. Full review.

Spring of the Korean Peninsula + discussion

The directorial debut of Lee Byung-il (The Love Marriage), Spring on the Korean Peninsula (adapted from Kim Seong-min’s award winning 1936 novel Artists of the Peninsula) follows a young film director struggling to film a new version of the Chun-hyang story. When he loses his lead actress, he hires his friend’s little sister but then makes a disastrous choice to facilitate his artistic dreams.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Korean film scholars Baek Moonim (Yonsei University), Lee Hwa-jin (Inha University) and Chung Chong-hwa (Korean Film Archive), and chaired by season co-curator Kate Taylor-Jones.

Hurrah! For Freedom

Sadly incomplete and, ironically enough, a victim of censorship in the Park Chung-hee era, Hurrah! for Freedom (also known as Viva Freedom!) is the appropriately titled first film to have been released after the liberation and follows a betrayed resistance fighter who escapes from Japanese capture and hides out in a nurse’s apartment while covertly continuing his resistance activities.

Early Korean Cinema: Lost Films from the Japanese Colonial Period runs at the BFI Southbank from 7th February. Tickets are currently on sale to members with public sales beginning on 15th January.

Missing Johnny (強尼．凱克, Huang Xi, 2017)

January 7, 2019January 7, 2019by Hayley ScanlonLeave a comment

“When people are too close they forget how to love each other” – so claims a lonely soul at the centre of Huang Xi’s debut Missing Johnny (強尼．凱克, Qiáng ní. Kǎi kè). A Taipei tale of urban disconnection, Missing Johnny is defined by mysterious absences and dangling connections as its three melancholy protagonists try to break free of their various obstacles to move towards a more fulfilling future. Family becomes both tether and support, a source of friction for all but very much a part of a the vice-like grip the traditional society is wielding over their lives. Yet there is hope for genuine connection and new beginnings even if you have to get out and push.

Casual labourer Feng (Lawrence Ko) has returned to Taipei after a failed venture only to see his car repeatedly break down, forcing him to seek help from a childhood friend. Meanwhile, Hsu (Rima Zeidan), a young woman living alone, fills her life with colourful birds which attract the attention of her landlady’s son, Li (Sean Huang) – a mildly autistic young man who finds it difficult to manage his life but resents his mother’s attempts to manage it for him. When Hsu’s newest parrot makes a bid for freedom, she enlists Li and Feng who has taken a job working on a nearby apartment to help her “rescue” it, sparking a series of connected epiphanies among the otherwise disparate group.

Each of them is, in someway, trapped. Feng is trapped by his difficult familial circumstances and resultant lack of social standing. His parents divorced when he was young and he came to the city alone for high school, forming a close bond with his teacher, Chang (Chang Kuo-chu), and his son, Hao (Duan Chun-hao). Feng is now welcomed as a member of their family but the Changs are not a happy bunch. Mr and Mrs Chang argue endlessly, usually ending with one of them asking for a divorce and Mr. Chang certainly seems to be a “difficult” older gentleman who requires all around him to walk on egg shells lest they say the wrong thing and set him off. Most of his scorn is reserved for Hao whom he regards as a disappointment in not having repaid on his investment. Divorced with a son and boomeranged back home, Hao resents his father’s moodiness and longs to move back out again but with things as they are, possibilities seem slim.

Money becomes a bone of contention for all. Hsu is involved in a long distance relationship with a controlling salaryman who tolerates her love of birds but doesn’t really want to be involved with them. It’s obvious the relationship has all but run its course and Hsu probably wants to end things but doesn’t quite have the energy so just doesn’t make as much time for him as perhaps she once did. Eventually we discover the boyfriend is married to someone else – a wealthy woman he married for her money which he now uses to “support” Hsu, her birds, and her business. Hsu’s boyfriend thinks the money he’s “invested” in the relationship means he’s bought something concrete, throwing it back in Hsu’s face just as Mr. Chang did to Hao. All he can offer her is a mistress’ life but he resents her desire to be free and expects her to be available to him whenever he wants as part of a reciprocal relationship. Mistaking the passage of money for genuine connection may be an ancient failing, but it seems one unlikely to go away.

Feng wants to build a family, despite himself, just a happier one than those he’s known while Hsu and Li are trying to assert their independence in a world which doesn’t quite want to give it to them. Li is almost a grown man but he can’t deny his mother’s suggestion that he needs some help here and there just to get by and that his life really does become confusing when he fails to read the notes she leaves for him reminding him what it is he’s supposed to do today. Like any young man, however, he wants to be free of his mother’s control to pursue his own destiny even if it might mean he gets lost along the way. His mother understands this, but she worries. She doesn’t stop him going but is hurt by his selfish refusal to accept that he causes her pain by wandering off for days on end without sign or warning.

And then what of “Johnny”? Hsu keeps getting calls on her mobile from various people looking for “Johnny” – presumably the same Johnny but really there’s no way to tell. Someone is missing him, anyway. Li asks Feng a philosophical question. He wants to know if birds in flight are still or in motion. A bird, flying, seems to be moving but it occupies a fixed point and is therefore “still” from moment to moment. The same could be said of our three protagonists, each living lonely lives of spiritual inertia carried along only by the rhythms of city life. Thanks to a missing parrot, however, they might finally find the courage to take flight even if they seem to stall at the beginning of their journeys.

Missing Johnny was screened as part of the 2018 New York Asian Film Festival.

Promo video (English subtitles)

Looking for Lucky (寻狗启事, Jiang Jiachen, 2018)

December 29, 2018by Hayley ScanlonLeave a comment

A literal shaggy dog story, Jiang Jiachen’s Looking for Lucky (寻狗启事, Xún Gǒu Qǐshì) is not just the tale of one hapless young man’s attempt to regain his mentor’s approval in the form of his prize pooch, but of that same man’s desperation for a “lucky” break that will set him on a path to middle-class success without the need to debase himself through bribery. A melancholy exploration of the perils and pitfalls of youth in Modern China Jiang’s indie dramedy finds little to be optimistic about, save the faith that nature will run its course and perhaps you will end up where you’re supposed to be even if you have to go on a wild dog chase to get there.

Zhang Guangsheng (Ding Xinhe) is an ambitious grad student from a humble background. With graduation looming, he’s preoccupied about turning his educational investment into a solid job opportunity. Luckily he’s spent the last three years playing errand boy for his professor, Niu, who has all but promised him a cushy faculty job as long as he continues to play his cards right. Everything starts to go wrong when Guangsheng is asked to dog-sit while Niu is away and unwisely delegates the responsibility to his drunken grumpy father (Yu Hai) who loses him after the dog supposedly bites a stuck up little boy who was teasing him. Guangshang does his best to find the dog before Niu gets home, even succumbing to buying a new dog just in case, but all to no avail.

The reason Guangshang needs to find the dog isn’t just guilt and embarrassment at having potentially caused emotional distress to someone he respects, but because he knows that the failure to cope with this minor level of responsibility may ruin his relationship with Niu. Again, the relationship itself is not what’s important so much as what it can do for his career prospects. Guangshang is from a humble background and lacks the resources to buy his way to success as other young people often do – an endorsement from someone like Niu is his only chance to catapult himself into a steady middle-class life. Thus he’s spent the last three years bowing and scraping, debasing himself to be Niu’s go to guy and now it’s all going to out of the window thanks to his dad’s mistake.

A neurotic intellectual, Guangshang’s relationship with his polar opposite of a father is already difficult even before the dog incident. Guangshang’s dad is one of China’s many “laid off workers”, unceremoniously made redundant from a job for life as part the nation’s longterm economic modernisation. An embittered, angry man Guangshang’s dad quarrels with everything and everyone, sees scams everywhere, and has a much more cynical, world weary belief system than his kindhearted, idealistic son. The pair do, however, have something in common in their striving to live “independently” on their own skills alone. Abhorring the corruption of their society in which nothing is done fairly and money rules all, they each stubbornly refuse to give in and do things the “normal” way, not wanting the kind of success than can be bought.

Guangshang might be prepared to humiliate himself by playing servant, but he has his pride and doesn’t like seeing his poverty deployed as a weapon against him – especially by a “wealthy” friend who has looked at all the files and “admires” Guangshang’s perseverance, nor by his mother and her immensely calm second husband who are only too happy to give him the money to “buy” a university position, but not to help his father when he gets himself into trouble (again). Yet what Guangshang eventually discovers is that he has not lived as far from the systems of corruption as he had assumed – a realisation that both bolsters and destroys his sense of self confidence as he begins to understand his father’s true feelings while his sense of security in his academic prowess threatens to implode.

Everybody wants something – usually money, sometimes advancement, but no one can be trusted and nothing is done for free out of the goodness of one’s heart. Guangshang, without money, pays in other ways and then is cruelly undercut by someone else forced to do the same only in a sadder, even more morally dubious fashion as Niu is exposed for the corrupt figure he really is despite his “scholarly” standing. “Let nature take its course” Guangshang is urged by a fortuneteller he turns to in desperation for an indication of the whereabouts of his missing dog, but Guangshang is a young man in a hurry and has no time to wait around for a less than enticing fate. Yet for all the suffering and petty disappointments, justice is eventually served, patience rewarded and the virtuous victorious. Maybe it does all come right in the end, so long as you’ve the patience to let the dog off the leash and enough faith to see him safely home.

Looking for Lucky was screened as part of the 2018 New York Asian Film Festival.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Sid & Aya (Not a Love Story) (Irene Villamor, 2018)

December 19, 2018by Hayley Scanlon3 Comments

In an increasingly commodified society can there still be room for genuine connection? Sid and Aya attempt to find out in Irene Villamor’s deceptively titled Sid & Aya (Not a Love Story). Sharing much in common with Peter Chan’s Comrades: Almost a Love Story (save for the obvious political allegories), Villamor’s film is a refreshing antidote to the sometimes saccharine, soap opera influenced romantic comedies which often dominate the Philippine box office, swapping classic melodrama for low key indie feels. Yet as much as Sid & Aya is a “love story”, just not of the usual kind, it’s also a perfect encapsulation of a modern social relations as its cynical, amoral hero begins to rediscover his soul through getting to know the tough as nails, wounded but persevering heroine.

Workaholic stockbroker Sid (Dingdong Dantes) is a chronic insomniac. He doesn’t really know what keeps him up at night. He’s read that the causes of sleeplessness include regret, self blame, overthinking, anger, depression, and loneliness but those are things Sid doesn’t particularly want to engage with and so he just muddles through, wasting time in all night coffee shops. It’s in just such a shop that he first runs into Aya (Anne Curtis) – a waitress, and as we will later discover, dry cleaner and performer in a theme park. Aya’s life is very busy but she could always use more cash seeing as she is supporting most of her family including a sickly father and pregnant younger sister while her mum has been working in Japan for almost 20 years, and so she finds herself giving in to Sid’s unusual business proposition – that he pay her for her time while she chats to him to keep his mind off the fact he’s not sleeping so he doesn’t have to keep torturing himself over why that is.

There’s no getting around the fact that it’s an usual arrangement. Money can’t help but complicate everything, but it also makes it easier for the impossibly repressed Sid to begin opening up seeing as this is all transaction and not connection. The pair inevitably grow closer despite the unusual genesis of the relationship, falling in love despite themselves, but Sid is still too busy dealing with the ghosts of the past and his greedy, success hungry insecurity to be willing to take a “risk” on real love rather than take his soulless relationship with his equally soulless “girlfriend” to the next level.

Sid and Aya come from completely worlds. He has an extremely well paid job as a stock broker, she is working three (now four if you count spending time with Sid) jobs just to get by, barely sleeping and still having no money left over to spend on herself. Sid wastes no time letting Aya know that he “fucks people over” for a living, and though he professes to feel no guilt for his part in perpetuating the shadier aspects of capitalism, his world weary voice over betrays a conflict he doesn’t quite want to voice. He starts off thinking he can buy anything, that his money buys him infinite power over people and things. Sid tries to buy Aya, but Aya can’t be bought – she takes his money, but she remains free.

Attempting to escape familial legacy of failure and abandonment, Sid has closed his heart and committed himself to achieving conventional success while Aya has run in the opposite direction – trying to repair her broken family by making enough money to bring her long absent mother back from Japan. Aya’s family has been scattered by the same forces that Sid has chosen to uphold, forces which also threaten to destroy their nascent romance through a series of conflicting world views coupled with personal insecurities and social expectations. Yet the connection forged between them is real enough to have each of them running scared.

Sid claims he has no time for people he doesn’t “need”, while Aya claims she’s tired of loving the people she “needs” to love. Though they perhaps mean very different things with the word “need”, both remain nervous about addressing what it is they might “want” when acquiring it requires so much risk. Love is not something a cynical man like Sid would feel inclined to bet on, but there’s no prize without risk and no sense in taking the chance if you’re not going to bet it all. A messy, grown up romance Sid & Aya (Not a Love Story) is a refreshingly clear eyed look at modern love which finds that true connection is possible but only when you decide to change the game.

Sid & Aya (Not a Love Story) was screened as part of the 2018 New York Asian Film Festival.

Original trailer (English subtitles)