Category: Festivals

Like & Share (Gina S. Noer, 2022)

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Two young women seeking escape from a repressive social culture find themselves betrayed by the hypocrisies and lawlessness of the online society in an infinitely empathetic drama from Two Blue Stripes’ Gina S. Noer, Like & Share. Like many young people, they see internet stardom as a path towards freedom and independence, but are too naive to understand its underlying darkness even when presented with evidence of its misuse in the alarming popularity of an illicit sex tape and its violent sequel. 

Lisa (Aurora Ribero) in particular is strangely fascinated by the video despite realising that in the sequel that followed the woman is crying and appears to have suffered sexualised violence at the hands of the man whose face is never seen. “No face, no case” the girls are fond of saying, naively thinking that they can safeguard themselves from potential harm simply by shooting from the neck down. When nude photos are leaked of another girl at school, she’s able to claim that it’s not her and encourage people to block the sender but still it seems like no one really believes her. Lisa and Sarah (Arawinda Kirana) seem to feel a sense of invincibility, that they’re in control of their online personas and the channel they’ve set up featuring beautifully produced ASMR videos accompanied by a deliberately “sexy” voice over. Though Lisa is unsure, Sarah brushes off some of the more unpleasant comments they get as simply par for the course while reminding her that they’ll get more likes and shares appealing to the sort of people that make them. 

But the girls are largely ill-equipped to understand the world they’re entering, not least because of the repressive atmosphere in which they’ve been raised. Lisa soon becomes fixated on the sex tape, addicted to pornography and masturbation which temporarily replaces ASMR as her preferred method of stress relief. The problem is compounded by the fact that her mother has married an older, quite conservative religious man and converted to Islam. She is very keen that Lisa not upset her new stepfather, who has agreed to pay for her education, mainly because it’s her own “second chance” to atone for the failure of her first marriage and prove herself a good wife and mother. “What sort of good woman are you that has no empathy for other women?” Lisa later asks her but gets little reply. Her mother advises her to read the Quran if she wants to calm herself down, though Lisa counters that she can’t read Arabic anyway.

As Lisa explains, she was merely curious and it’s not as if she could have asked her mother for knowledge or advice. Her addiction partly stems from the illicit nature of the activity, had she had a healthier outlet and better access to sex education she would probably not have reacted to the video in such an extreme way. Sarah later experiences something similar after meeting a boy, Devan (Jerome Kurnia), at a local recreation ground and agreeing to date him without necessarily seeing any red flags in the fact he’s 27 with a full-time job and wants to date a 17-year-old high school girl. Every time she expresses reluctance to take their relationship to the next level he calls her “childish”, later assaulting her and filming it to use as blackmail and potential online clout. “It’s always the girl’s life that’s ruined, never the man’s” he later sneers, certain that he’ll get away with it because it’s his word against hers and as her lawyer cautions her after Devan leaks the video going to the police is risky because there’s a chance she could end up being charged with obscenity under the country’s laws surrounding pornography. 

Misogyny is already deeply ingrained in the system. Ironically enough, the girls’ teacher tells them the school can’t afford to fund group activities so they need to go swimming on their own and film it for him so he can mark them. The videos are shown to the entire class with even the teacher appearing to salivate over the footage of teenage girls in wet swimsuits while their male classmates make inappropriate comments that go largely unchallenged. Sarah is unwilling to accept that what happened to her was rape, firstly brushing it off as a potential fetish for rough sex or suggesting that Devan did not hear her say no despite having previously told her about a too spicy dish at a restaurant that if she doesn’t like or want something she should say so. Lisa meanwhile is forced to accept her partial complicity after crossing paths with the woman from the sex tape and becoming somewhat fixated on her before reflecting on the harm that she had done in having watched it in the first place. It’s she that later helps Lisa come to an understanding of the best way to support her friend through her ordeal which may be simply to be there and to listen. 

Despite the judging eyes of the world around them, the two women have their friendship and the refreshingly progressive support of Sarah’s older brother who stands by his sister rather than blaming her. Even so, it’s other women who often fail her from the conservative judgement of Lisa’s mother to a lawyer at a court hearing who says that Sarah made her choice when she decided to enter the hotel room with Devan and has no right to call her “regret” “rape”. Yet Lisa and Sarah are finally able to repair their friendship and stand up in solidarity against a patriarchal social culture, refusing to let Devan off the hook while reassuming control of their channel by reading out some of the inappropriate messages they’ve been sent by men online. “Thank you for being brave” a message on the website of a woman’s legal organisation reads, once more reinforcing the power of female solidarity against systematised misogyny. 

Like & Share screens March 14/18 as part of this year’s Osaka Asian Film Festival.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Cafune (カフネ, Haruki Kinemura, 2023)

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A pair of teenagers with differing priorities struggle to deal with the discovery of an unplanned pregnancy in Haruki Kinemura’s evenhanded indie drama Cafune (カフネ). Refreshingly progressive, the film is careful never to characterise the pregnancy as a tragedy or in anyway shameful but centres more on the decisions it forces the teens to make about themselves and their futures rather than fixating on the transience or longevity of teenage love. 

Love is the answer Mio gives when her mother quizzes her over the pregnancy test she found shoved into a black plastic bag hidden at the back of a drawer. There’s no getting away from the fact her mother thinks she’s been foolish and is disappointed to have found out this way, but at the same time she’s not exactly scandalised and is clear that it’s Mio who has a decision to make both for herself and for her unborn child without trying to influence her either way. As for the baby’s father, Nagisa, he does not react anywhere near as well, suddenly trashing his room and flailing around in frustration even though his own mother has been almost as sympathetic as Mio’s despite a similar level of disappointment with him. Though part of that may be that she knows he’s also been carrying on with Mio’s friend Natsumi which would explain the dirty look she gives him on meeting Mio on the way out as she leaves in a hurry after failing her first attempt to tell him about the baby. 

Mio certainly has a point when she tells Nagisa that he’s immature and self-centred. He’s been bunking off school for weeks while supposedly studying at home for an important exam and seems to have a mild superiority complex. Just as she was going to tell him about the baby he announces that they should take a break so he can study harder, leaving her to handle all of this on her own while also beginning to suspect that he’s been cheating on her which makes her situation all the more difficult. “Am I the only one who’s been irresponsible?” she asks him when he reacts badly to the news about the baby, blaming Mio for this sudden crisis right before his exam as if he had no part in it at all. Mio already seems to suspect that whatever her decision she can’t rely on Nagisa to take responsibility even while making it clear that it’s not something she feels she can decide unilaterally. 

Then again as she later says, maybe happiness isn’t something you can just decide either. The conclusion that she comes to is that she should make herself happy rather than waiting around for someone else to do it for her and even if Nagisa promises to make her happy in the future it’s partly for selfish reasons, as much for himself as for her in proving a point of masculine pride. In any case, the solution which is found is in itself refreshingly mature requiring no particular sacrifice for either party as each is allowed to pursue their individual hopes for the future without resentment or recrimination.

Mio is also able to repair her relationship with possibly treacherous best friend Natsumi who in the end was only jealous fearing that she would lose Mio as a friend now that she has a lover while failing to realise that there is someone else to whom she’s currently “number one”. Largely free of the sense of judgment that often colours teen pregnancy drama, Kinemura’s gentle coming-of-age tale instead discovers an unexpected well of support across the generations as the teens take centre stage in shaping their decisions not just for the present moment but for their mutual futures in figuring out who they are, what they want out of life, and what is best both for themselves and for the baby. Making the most of its tranquil fishing village setting, the film gradually makes its way towards a kind of serenity as the friends play together on the beach beset as it is by roaring waves but also a gentle kind of happiness.

Cafune had its World Premiere as part of this year’s Osaka Asian Film Festival.

Original trailer (no subtitles)

Museum of the Moving Image Announces Complete Lineup for First Look 2023

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New York’s Museum of the Moving Image has announced the complete programme for this year’s First Look which takes place March 15 – 19. As usual there are a number of East Asian films on offer including a documentary following a streaming star in rural China, the latest drama from Koji Fukada, and an experimental film featuring restorations of footage shot in Palestine in the 1960s and 70s dubbed or subtitled in Japanese for sympathetic audiences in Japan.

Huahua’s Dazzling World and Its Myriad Temptations

Documentary following a middle-aged woman in rural China who has carved out a niche for herself as popular video streamer well known for her cheerful dancing and distinctive outfits.

Love Life

Heartrending familial drama from Koji Fukada in which the cracks in a recent marriage are exposed following unforeseen domestic tragedy. Review.

R 21 aka Restoring Solidarity

Experimental documentary featuring pro-Palestinian footage dubbed or subtitled into Japanese and intended for a sympathetic audience in Japan which felt oppressed by US influence and identified with the Palestinian’s struggle for self-determination.

First Look runs March 15 – 19 at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image. Full details for all the films as well as the complete programme can be found on the official website where tickets are already on sale. You can also keep up with all the latest news by following the Museum on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Where the Wind Blows (風再起時, Philip Yung, 2022)

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Philip Yung’s first film since the acclaimed Port of Call was scheduled for release all the way back in 2018 only to be repeatedly held up by troubles with the censors later compounded by the coronavirus pandemic. For many reasons, it isn’t surprising that Where the Wind Blows (風再起時) would run into trouble with the current censorship regime dealing as it does with the touchy subject of police corruption albeit it in the colonial era, but the most surprising thing may be that it was passed at all given the subversive undertones of a late speech delivered by the voice of reason, ICAC chief George Lee (Michael Hui Koon-man), whose attack on the corrupt practices of the British authorities has obvious parallels with the modern day. 

The film is however set firmly in the past ranging from the 1920s to the 1980s and inspired by the “Four Great Sergeants” of post-war Hong Kong who amassed great personal wealth while working as police officers. Once again, the police is just the biggest gang, or perhaps the second biggest given that the great racket in town is the colonial rule. It is indeed the British authorities who have enabled this society founded largely on systemised corruption, something which as Lee points out they are unwilling to deal with because it suits them just fine and they have no real interest in the good of Hong Kong. 

In any case, flashy cop Lok (Aaron Kwok Fu-shing) started out as an earnest bobby before the war who was shocked by the institutionalised corruption all around him and refused to participate in it. But his law abiding nature only made him a threat to other officers who needed him to be complicit in their crimes to keep them safe. After several beatings, he ended up accepting the culture of bribery just to fit in. In the present day, he and likeminded detective Nam (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) justify their dubious methods under the rationale that they’re helping to “manage” triad society by effectively licensing the gangs in taking protection money to leave the chosen few alone while enriching themselves in the process. 

Then again, the balance of triad society is disrupted by the arrival of a bigger Mainland outfit which later ends up backing Lok, with the assistance of his Shanghainese wife (Du Juan), to place him in a position which is the most beneficial to themselves. To quell riots by supporters of the KMT in 1956, Nam lies to the protestors that he secretly supports their cause and that if they do not disperse there is a chance the British Army will forcibly disperse them which he also describes as an inappropriate outcome because this is a matter that should be settled among the Chinese people not by foreigners. In the final confrontation with ICAC chief Lee, the British authorities rule out military or police action, though the rioters in that case are in fact policeman angry about increasing anti-corruption legislation. Ironically enough, Lee’s speech advocates for something similar to that which Nam had suggested, essentially saying that the Hong Kong people should decide their own future and that society in general should be more mindful as to the kind of Hong Kong their children and grandchildren will eventually inherit. 

In any case, the four sergeants are soon eclipsed by changing times while Lok and Nam are mired in romantic heartbreak in having fallen for the same woman who brands Nam an over thinker and implies she may have married Lok less out of love than in the knowledge he’d be easy to manipulate. For his part, Lok is damaged by wartime trauma which has left him cynical and nihilistic while filled with regret and longing for a woman he lost during the war in part because he did not have the money to pay for medical treatment which might have saved her. In this sense, it’s money that is the true corrupting force in a capitalist society in which, as Lee suggests, it might eventually become necessary that you’d have to bribe a fireman to save your house or an ambulance driver to get your ailing mother to a hospital. Then again, as Nam says power lies in knowing there are those weaker than yourself. Yung’s sprawling epic apparently rant to over five hours in its original cut before being reduced to three hours forty-five and then finally to the present 144 minutes leaving it a little hard to follow but nevertheless filled with a woozy sense of place and an aching longing for another Hong Kong along with a melancholy romanticism as a lonely Nam dances alone to a ringing telephone bearing unwelcome news. 

Where the Wind Blows screens in Chicago on March 14 as part of the 16th season of Asian Pop-Up Cinema.

Original trailer (Traditional Chinese / English subtitles)

The Sunny Side of the Street (白日青春, Lau Kok-rui, 2022)

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Dualities abound in the stories of two frustrated fathers and the sons who vow to be nothing like them in Malaysian director Lau Kok-rui’s paternal drama, The Sunny Side of the Street (白日青春). The fathers are in their way looking for a place in the sun but struggle to find it, while the sons want nothing but their affection and approval but remain resentful for their repeated failures. Each affected by the legacies of geographical displacement, they remain free floating if looking for safe harbour though perhaps in all the wrong places. 

The parallels between embittered taxi driver Yat (Anthony Wong Chau-sang) and former lawyer turned refugee Ahmed (Inderjeet Singh) are amply demonstrated by the opening sequence in which each is late for a wedding after Yat rams into the van Ahmed had borrowed from store owner Ali to transport a secondhand fridge. Yat arrives just in time to see his son, Hong (Endy Chow Kwok-yin), make the toast at his wedding but thank his father-in-law, a senior policeman at his precinct, while looking daggers at Yat whom he only invited a few days before out of a sense of obligation. Ahmed meanwhile was supposed to be a witness at a wedding between a Pakistani man and an Indonesian woman at the refugee camp not far from where Yat lives which the officiant is keen to remind them is binding in the eyes of Allah but not so much the government of Hong Kong. 

As a somewhat prejudicial radio show playing in Yat’s car explains, Hong Kong is a point of transit. If their claims are upheld, the refugees will not settle there but be moved on to other countries such as Canada where a family at the wedding are about to travel taking the best friend of Ahmed’s son Hassan (Sahal Zaman) with them. The radio show talks about “fake refugees” describing them as a drain on resources depriving local people of services they should otherwise be entitled to while it’s clear that many don’t seem to see the refugees as equals and think of them as lazy shirkers with criminal proclivities. Yat repeatedly uses a racial slur to refer to Ahmed and immediately tries to pin the accident on him assuming the policeman will also jump to the conclusion that it must be Ahmed’s fault for being a bad driver only the policeman doesn’t quite play along even when pulling Ahmed aside for an ID check. 

The irony is that Yat is also a refugee who swam to Hong Kong from the Mainland and is still carrying trauma from his flight in the same way many like Ahmed are yet cannot find it within himself to empathise with him, only to act with entitlement and absolve himself of blame through manipulating his connections with the police. He has quite clearly lost his moral compass as the repeated motif of him looking the one which led him to Hong Kong but now appears to be broken makes plain. Hong pointedly refuses to help his father and is clear they should go by the book, but his less rigorous friend is only too keen to help. In any case the petty vendetta between the two men, Ahmed sticking to his principles and refusing to lie to make the situation go away and Yat insisting on enforcing his privilege by forcing him to back down, escalates with tragic results eventually forcing Yat to wrestle with the consequences of his actions and not least the causes of his estrangement with his son. 

Hong tells him that he doesn’t want to be a man like him who is unable to protect his family, while Hassan snaps at Ahmed that his acts of petty thievery are better than being poor like his father. Yet while Hong has swung in the opposite direction, raising himself to be a man who is compassionate and dedicated to justice, Hassan is in danger of going off the rails not least because he has bad eyesight and is falling behind at school because even as something as simple as glasses for their son is not in the family’s reach. Ahmed’s dodgy friend Numen is forever trying to get him into crime, knowing that refugees are not permitted to work or even accept monetary gifts, but he refuses while Hassan begins to see a way of taking control of his situation though thievery and rebels against his father as he does so. 

When Yat begins to take an interest in Hassan it’s mainly to assuage his guilt in knowing that he ruined Ahmed’s life and has left a boy without a father for whom he is now responsible. Yet it’s also in a way an attempt to repair the relationship he could not rebuild with his son while addressing the latent trauma from his own escape from Mainland China which he has otherwise buried through heavy drinking that finally resulted in a liver transplant from Hong that only seemed to deepen the sense of debt and obligation between them. Perhaps Hong Kong is a transitory place after all, each of them in some way displaced and not least from each other while continuing to hope for a better place in the future only to discover nothing more than loneliness and uncertainty if tempered by love and the shades of a frustrated hope.

The Sunny Side of the Street screens March 12/17 as part of this year’s Osaka Asian Film Festival.

Original trailer (Traditional Chinese / English subtitles)

Images: (C) Petra Films Pte Ltd

Daruma (極道系Vチューバー達磨, Daiki Matsumoto, 2022)

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Times are hard for yakuza. The footsoldier who comes out of prison and discovers everything has changed (and from his point of view not for the better) while he’s been inside is a stock character of the post-war gangster movie but the yakuza has been in decline for decades so you’d think there might not be so much of a culture shock on emerging into the world of 2022 after 15 years away. The hero of Daiki Matsumoto’s Daruma (極道系Vチューバー達磨, Gokudokei VTuber Daruma) is however plunged straight into the deep end when his late boss’ wife (Junko Ohshita) who now heads the operation puts him in charge of a moribund film studio currently being used by the previous owner’s daughter, Shoko (Sayumi Haga), to livestream as a VTuber. 

Daruma (Rikiya Kaido) hasn’t even heard of YouTube so it’s a quite a learning curve for him when the assistant he’s given, IT nerd Sampei (Sanpesanpei), explains that a VTuber is a live streamer who appears as an animated avatar, in this case a cute high school girl. When a miscommunication about dates causes Shoko to miss an important stream, Daruma has no choice but to step in himself but though some viewers respond positively to the obvious incongruity of a grizzled old man’s voice coming out of a cute high school girl’s animated mouth others are soon flooding the comments section with anti-yakuza sentiment. Nevertheless, he eventually finds an audience after leaving his mic on accidentally while sharing prison anecdotes with Shoko and Sampei. 

There’s no question that Daruma is intended as an example of good old school yakuza while the young guys who surround the lady boss are definitely of the new generation who no longer care about things like honour or humanity. Avuncular in nature, he may be intimidating when needed but is generally cheerful and pleasant to be around which makes it difficult to accept that he was in prison for 15 years for stabbing a man to death on the orders of his gang. Even so, after after getting out, he’s quick to spring into action to help out some of his old buddies most of whom now run legitimate businesses which are suffering under the constraints of the pandemic-era economy. It’s clear the yakuza game has changed even while he’s been away, Daruma noticing one of their guys riding a delivery bike and asking if even yakuza need a side hustle these days (though as it turns out he may have been working his main job after all). As he arrives at HQ, the youngsters are busy trying to teach a veteran how to run an “ore ore” scam which he can’t seem to manage because he can’t drop his classic yakuza speech to sound like a teenager in trouble to con money out of vulnerable old people. 

Daruma’s crisis comes when he realises that the gang has shifted into lines of work prohibited by their old moral code including the manufacture and trafficking of drugs which is not something Daruma can condone. While he leaves to start his own “gang” with Sampei and Shoko, factional tensions arise between the old school veterans and the amoral youngsters with Daruma’s protege Nishimura (Kaiba Taka) caught in the middle. Meanwhile, he’s left wondering if and when he’ll have to deal with reprisals for the killing of 15 years ago as he reflects on his new found happiness as an improbable VTuber surrounded by people who love and respect him as if he really were a member of their family. 

A daruma is a round, red, figure with a rounded bottom so that it can not fall over and just like his namesake Daruma does try to keep going trying to rebuild his life in the new yakuza environment while taking care of friends and family and genuinely moved by the support of his new internet community. In the film’s gory finale he even takes on the form of a daruma, covered in red and rolling around but finally getting back up again to carry on with the help of his friends as if to symbolise his resilience and rebirth as a yakuza VTuber offering strange stories from his life of violence along with acting as a kind of agony uncle. Matsumoto frequently references classic cinema in giving Daruma the surname Mifune and having him belong to the Kurosawa clan, while Sampei claims he became a yakuza after seeing Battles without Honour and Humanity and the films of Takeshi Kitano even suggesting their lady boss reminds him of Shima Iwashita in a series of films about yakuza wives directed by Hideo Gosha in the 1980s. His gently humorous tale of yakuza redemption, found family, and unexpected new beginnings eventually comes full circle in its surprisingly bloody climax, in some ways quite literally, allowing Daruma to put the past to rest and then get back up again to rejoin his new family. 

Daruma screened as part of the 2022 Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Osaka Asian Film Festival 2023 Announces Complete Lineup

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The Osaka Asian Film Festival returns for its 18th edition from 10th to 19th March bringing with it some of the best in recent East Asian Cinema. This year’s edition will open with the world premiere of a dark comedy from the director of The Sparring Partner, Over My Dead Body, and close with another world premiere in the Kentaro Sakaguchi-starring drama Side By Side.

Hong Kong

  • Hong Kong Family – a fracturing family struggles to repair itself after a traumatic holiday gathering in Eric Tsang Hing-Weng’s autobiographically inspired familial melodrama. Review.
  • Life Must Go On – sporting comedy in which a social worker teams up with a washed up coach to lead unruly teens to dodgeball glory.
  • Lost Love – a couple who have recently lost a child decide to foster, but the decision places additional strain on their relationship.
  • Over My Dead Body – chaos reigns when an ordinary family discover a corpse on their property and set about trying to pass the buck before it impacts the value of their home.
  • The Narrow Road – an earnest middle-aged man and a cynical young woman become unlikely friends in pandemic Hong Kong in Lam Sum’s melancholy drama. Review.
  • The Sunny Side of the Street – Anthony Wong stars as a retired taxi driver who takes in the son of a refugee after a traffic accident.

Indonesia

  • Like & Share – two teenage girls fall foul of the false promises of the online society after starting an ASMR video channel.

Japan

  • The Burden of the Past – docudrama from Atsushi Funahashi following a series of people trying to reintegrate into society after spending time in prison.
  • Cafune – gentle seaside drama in which a pair of teens attempt to deal with an unplanned pregnancy.
  • December – powerful drama from Anshul Chauhan in which bereaved parents attempt to prevent their daughter’s killer from getting her sentence reduced.
  • Is This Heaven? – mid-length seaside drama from Shinji Imaoka.
  • NEW RELIGION – supernatural horror in which a woman struggles to deal with her grief following the death of her daughter.
  • People Who Talk to Plushies Are Kind – adaptation of the novel by Ao Omae in which dejected students join the Plushy Club to bear their souls to stuffed toys.
  • Saga Saga – mystery drama from Jeux de Plage’s Aimi Natsuto in which a young woman returns home to Saga after leaving to become an actress.
  • Side by Side – a young man with the power to sense spirits is forced to reflect on the past after reading the thoughts of a friend from high school who went to Tokyo to become a musician.
  • When Morning Comes, I Feel Empty – a young woman who quit an exploitative job is much happier working at a convenience store but also burdened by a deep sense of guilt and inadequacy.
  • Where Love Goes – snowbound drama in which scattered teenagers struggle to deal with the death of a friend.

Korea

  • Jiseok – documentary focussing on Kim Jiseok, former director of the Busan International Film Festival, who passed away unexpectedly while attending the Cannes film festival in 207.
  • Remember – an elderly man suffering with Alzheimer’s and a brain tumour sets out on a quest for vengeance against the men who destroyed his family during the colonial era.

Philippines

  • Leonor Will Never Die – a grief-stricken screenwriter resolves to write her way out of self-imposed inertia while trapped in a world of her own creation in Martika Ramirez Escobar’s meta dramedy. Review.
  • YIELD Final Version – documentary exploring the lives of working class children.

Taiwan

  • Bad Education – a night of post-graduation celebration goes awry when teenage boys unwisely assault a gangster in the directorial debut from actor Kai Ko.
  • Day Off – a veteran hairdresser embarks on a road trip when the family of an old client who had moved far away and has since become bedridden ask her to come and cut his hair.

Thailand

  • OMG! Oh My Girl – a pair of youngsters fall for each other in high school but somehow never get together.
  • You & Me & Me – millennial drama in which the relationship between a pair of twins is disrupted when they fall for the same boy.

Vietnam

  • Sister Sister 2 – drama set in the 1930s in which an aristocrat falls victim to a plot by a flower girl.

The Osaka Asian Film Festival runs from 10th to 19th March at venues across the city. Full details for all the films as well as ticketing links are available via the official website. You can also keep up with all the latest details by following the festival on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Long Goodbye (さようなら, Yuuji Nomura, 2022)

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“No matter where we go nothing will change” according to a dejected factory worker in Yuuji Nomura’s adaptation of stage play Long Goodbye (さようなら, Sayonara), yet it seems change might be possible no matter where they are if only they had the will to pursue it. Set at a small factory on a small island, the film reflects a sense of small-town ennui but also the concurrent anxiety that even if you managed to escape it life may not be so much better in the city and you’d have lost the illusionary hope that a better life is possible. Still, what each of them learns is that money alone won’t solve their problems but will definitely create a set of new ones. 

The crushing dull nature of life at the factory is rammed home in a looping series of events that begin with Miyazaki (Kouji Kawazoe) and Shibata (Yuuji Nomura) singing karaoke at local bar run by mama-san Tomiko (Kyou Mikamoto) where they appear to be the only customers before waking up early and returning for a group radio taiso session of morning callisthenics. Prone to throwing his weight around, Miyazaki doesn’t like it when Shibata invites co-workers Sueda (Naoyo Ichinose) and Chen (Syunkurou Itoh) to join them but is even more irritated by their refusal. A mousy young woman, Sueda has recently lost her parents in an accident and dreams of leaving the island to pursue a fashion career in Tokyo, while Chen came to Japan from China at 10 years old and has a habit both of comically repeating his name whenever someone else says it and of inappropriately talking about sex workers and masturbation at every given opportunity.  

The crisis occurs when Sueda and Chen discover that their boss has been fiddling his taxes and has a large amount of cash stored on the premises because he obviously can’t deposit it in a bank. Realising that he couldn’t go to the police if someone robbed him, they decide to steal the money and are eventually forced to rope Miyazaki and Shibata in to help by keeping their boss drinking at the karaoke bar while they carry out the heist. 

Of course, nothing quite goes to plan partly because Chen is a bit of a loose cannon but also because none of them are really the heist-planning sort and they have no idea what they’re doing. Sueda double-crosses Miyazaki and Shibata by leaving with all the cash while she and Chen take a taxi to Osaka station to realise when they get there they’ve missed the last train. Meanwhile, Chen has also stolen a watch from their boss’ home which places them all in danger as it gives him an opportunity to go to the police without necessarily revealing his tax evasion operation. The money represents for each of them the possibility of changing their lives or at least of leaving the island and its dearth of opportunities, but as Sueda keeps cautioning Chen you also have to know how to use it to best achieve your dreams. 

Shibata is seemingly the only one who’s more or less happy with his life as it is, constantly reminding the others that actually their lives are fine as they are, unable to understand their sense of desperation and resentful of having his life messed up by their unrealised desire for change. He challenges Sueda that the money is an irrelevance because if she really wanted to change her life she could have done it on the island but she counters him with her feelings of insignificance certain that no one really cares about her or would notice if she tried to change herself. No one can be fully satisfied with their life, he warns her, perhaps suggesting he thinks she’s asking for too much and is simply existentially restless which isn’t something she could cure through crime and a sudden flight to the city. After all, she didn’t earn the money herself, she’s just stolen it from someone else which isn’t a particularly good foundation for self-reinvention. 

After being accused of plotting the crime, Miyazaki is then forced to face his own feelings of dissatisfaction, which his arrogant belligerence was intended to cover, along with his frustrated romance with Tomoki who like everyone else just wants to run away hoping that Miyazaki will finally pay off his tab when they get the money. His attitude changes to the extent he offers to bow down to Shibata in exchange for assistance, but he similarly asks him if he really wants to change or is going to settle for his small-town existence too afraid to take the risk of gambling on something better. Their boss cautions Shibata that finding the meaning of life might not be a good thing if you end up discovering that all that awaits you is death, but it seems some do begin to find new direction thanks to their failed heist even if it’s not necessarily the direction you’d expect. 

Long Goodbye screened as part of the 2022 Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival.

International trailer (English subtitles)

Anemone: A Fairy Tale for No Kids (아네모네, Jung Ha-yong, 2021)

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“Betrayal is betrayal” according to a jaded grandmother (Park Hye-jin) reading a children’s story that’s clearly not for children to a curious little girl in Jung Ha-yong’s extremely dark comedy, Anemone: A Fairytale for No Kids (아네모네, Anemone). Later someone asks what the difference is between treachery and betrayal before conceding there might not be any, but whatever betrayal is there’s certainly a lot of it going around as a winning lottery ticket causes discord between an otherwise unhappy couple, their friends, relatives, and just about everyone else. 

As the grandmother relates reading to the little girl, Yongja is a wife and mother of one who once had an illustrious career as a martial artist and is now an aspiring children’s author. Her husband, meanwhile, is a no-good layabout and the family is in constant financial difficulty dependent on Yongja’s part-time job in the kitchen of a bar. When she has a dream about winning lottery numbers, she writes them down and tells her husband to buy a ticket before going to work. Hearing the draw on the radio, she realises she’s won and abruptly walks out on her job getting into a physical altercation with her boss as she goes, but on arriving home her husband seems confused. Eventually he admits he forgot all about buying a ticket but Yongja doesn’t believe him and is convinced that he’s stashed it somewhere and plans to keep the money for himself.  

That would obviously be quite a big betrayal, but maybe not all that difficult to understand given the relationship dynamics in play between the obviously unhappy couple. Sending their daughter to her grandmother’s, Yongja goes to great lengths torturing her husband, making him wear a nappy and trying him to a rocking horse, in an effort to get him to reveal what he’s done with the ticket only to threaten murder suicide when he continues to say he can’t give her what he never bought. Just as we’re starting to feel sorry for him, and to be honest the constant “did you or did you not buy the ticket” conversation goes on for an incredibly long time, the husband manages to escape, expanding the search for the ticket across the wider area while Yongja ropes in her gangster brother and his dodgy friend to come to her aid. 

The ticket appears to have exposed the cracks within the family unit which are largely attributed somewhat uncomfortably to a misalignment of gender roles in which the husband is feckless and useless while Yongja essentially bullies him and is consumed by a sense of resentment that she is forced to shoulder the financial burden of supporting the family. The words the grandma reads from the picture book are often at odds with the reality, presenting Yongja as having achieved success with her children’s books but showing her dismissed by an editor who ironically points out the story’s not suitable for children. The grandmother further explains that poor people buy lottery tickets because it’s their one source of hope for a better life, no longer believing they have any possibility of improving their circumstances independently, which is perhaps the case for Yongja who hopes the money can help them fix their “train wreck of a family” for a happier future. 

Then again it may be the ticket that betrays them in proving so elusive. Because of the ticket, Yongja is forced to realise that she doesn’t trust her husband and that she is right not to because he is indeed keeping something from her. Other people she can’t trust include her brother’s shady friend while he is also a liability preventing her from calling the police because there’s a warrant out on his name. The problem is that everyone wants the ticket from themselves, except perhaps for Yongja who had obviously intended to use the money for the family as a whole though it seems unlikely that a simple injection of cash could fix these toxic relationships or restore their happy home if that is ever what it was. Fairy tales are often dark and this is no exception though the reason a child shouldn’t read it is not because it’s crude or violent but simply because it would crush their tiny spirit with the overwhelming disappointment of life. 

Anemone: A Fairy Tale for No Kids screened as part of the 2022 Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival.

Asian Pop-Up Cinema Returns for Season 16!

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Asian Pop-Up Cinema returns for its 16th season in cinemas across Chicago March 18 to April 16. The season will kick off with a special pre-launch screening of Philip Yung’s highly anticipated 1960s crime drama Where the Wind Blows with lead actor Aaron Kwok scheduled to attend in person. It will then present films from Japan, South Korea, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, while a selection of Korean films will also be available to stream in the US and Canada via Eventive along with Vietnamese LGBTQ+ drama Song Lang and gritty Chinese neo-noir Old Town Girls.

Festival Pre-Launch Special Event 

Tuesday, March 14, 7:00 PM: Where the Wind Blows (風再起時, Philip Yung, 2023)

AMC NEWCITY 14 

Lead Actor Aaron Kwok is scheduled to attend for the award ceremony and introduction of the film.  

Long-awaited latest film from Port of Call’s Philip Yung starring Aaron Kwok and Tony Leung Chiu-wai as policemen who forge dangerous alliances with organised crime in ’60s Hong Kong.

Japan Week

AMC Evanston 12 (1715 Maple Ave, Evanston, IL)

Opening Film 

Saturday, March 18, 2:30 PM : A Man (ある男, Kei Ishikawa, 2022)

©2022 "A MAN" FILM PARTNERS

The latest film from Kei Ishikawa (Gukoroku: Traces of Sin, Arc), A Man stars Satoshi Tsumabuki as a lawyer who is pulled into a web of intrigue when a former client asks him to investigate her late husband who had been living under an assumed identity.

Saturday, March 18, 5:30 PM: She Is Me, I Am Her (ワタシの中の彼女, Mayu Nakamura, 2022)

Career Achievement Award recipient lead actress Nahana and director Mayu Nakamura are scheduled to attend in person to introduce the film and have a Q&A after the film presentation moderated by Mark Schilling.

Mayu Nakamura’s anthology film spins four of tales of contemporary loneliness exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic each starring actress Nahana as a conflicted housewife meditating on past regret, a lonely woman who takes a liking to a takeaway delivery driver, a sex worker displaced by the pandemic, and a blind woman who offers a hand of salvation to a telephone scammer. Review.

Sunday, March 19, 2:30 PM: Before They Take Us Away (Antonia Grace Glenn, 2022)

Presenter/Producer Evelyn Nakano Glenn and Writer/Director Antonia Grace Glenn are scheduled to attend in person to introduce the film and have a Q&A after the screening moderated by Mark Schilling.

Antonia Grace Glenn’s documentary focuses on the Japanese Americans who evacuated voluntarily in the wake of Executive Order 9066 and avoided entering the internment camps but became refugees in their own country.

Sunday, March 19, 5:30 PM: Convenience Story (コンビニエンス ストーリー, Satoshi Miki, 2022)

Surreal Lynchian adventure based on a story by film writer Mark Schilling and directed by Satoshi Miki following a blocked writer (Ryo Narita) who becomes trapped in a weird alternate reality after entering a mysterious convenience store. Review.

Wednesday, March 22, 6:30 PM: Umami (Slony Sow, 2022)

Alliance Française de Chicago (54 W Chicago, Chicago, IL 60610) 

French-Japanese co-production starring Gérard Depardieu as a chef who has a near death experience and embarks on an existential journey to Japan haunted by his defeat in a culinary competition decades earlier at the hands of a Japanese ramen master.

Singapore and China

Michael Paul Galvin Tower, Schulz Auditorium at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT)  (10 W. 35th St., Chicago) 

Saturday, March 25, 2:30pm: Ajoomma (아줌마, He Shuming, 2022)

 Drama in which a middle-aged woman from Singapore chases her obsession with Korean TV dramas all the way to Seoul only to become lost and embark on a journey of unexpected self-discovery,

Saturday, March 25, 4:30 PM: Ping Pong: The Triumph (中国乒乓之绝地反击, Deng Chao & Baimei Yu, 2023)   

True life sporting drama starring Deng Chao as a table tennis coach tasked with putting together a new national team.

March 25 – 31, 2023: South Korea Streaming Week

Streaming available for U.S./Canada viewers at https://watch.eventive.org/apuc16 

Please Make Me Look Pretty (니얼굴, Seo-Dong-il, 2020)

Documentary following a young woman who was born with Down Syndrome and is often on the receiving end of societal prejudice but has found release in drawing portraits of others which express a deep love and respect for all she meets despite not receiving the same in return.

Good Morning (안녕하세요, Cha Bong-ju, 2022)

Drama in which a young woman raised in an orphanage considers taking her own life but is prevented by a hospice nurse who paradoxically tells that she will show her how to die.

A Home From Home (아이를 위한 아이, Lee Seung-hwan, 2022)

Do-yoon, a young man planning to travel to Australia, reunites with his estranged father and agrees to live with him and his younger brother, Jae-min. When his father dies suddenly, Do-yoon gives up his plans of going abroad to become his brother’s guardian but later discovers an earth-shattering secret.

Rolling (말아, Kwak Min-seung, 2022)

Quirky indie dramedy following 25-year-old drop out Juri who is charged with looking after her mother’s kimbap shop during the pandemic while she travels to care for her own mother in the country. Review.

Hong Kong Week

AMC NEWCITY 14 (1500 N Clybourn Ave, Chicago, IL 60610)

Centerpiece Film

Friday, March 31, 7:00 PM: A Guilty Conscience (毒舌大狀, Jack Ng, 2023)

Bright Star Award recipient Renci Yeung and the director Jack Ng Wai Lun are scheduled to attend the award ceremony and Q&A in person.

A cynical lawyer’s existence is upended when a case he’d assumed would be easy ends in a bereaved mother being sent to prison for seventeen years for a crime she almost certainly did not commit in this often hilarious courtroom drama which puts social inequality on trial. Review.

Saturday, April 1, 12:00 PM: The Sparring Partner (正義迴廊, Ho Cheuk Tin, 2022)

Incredibly dark true crime courtroom drama inspired by a notorious case from 2013 in which a man murdered his parents with the help of a friend who has learning difficulties and then went on TV to appeal for information on their disappearance. Faced with conflicting testimonies, the jury must examine their own prejudices and the mechanisms of the justice system as they attempt to weigh guilt and innocence. Review.

Saturday, April 1, 5:30 PM: Remember What I Forgot (曾經擁有, Chui Tze Yiu, 2022) 

The producer of a reality TV show decides to investigate a local film buff known as Lil’ Kim (Philip Keung) who somehow shows up uninvited on movie sets or crashes premieres and press conferences though nobody seems to know anything about why or where he came from.

Saturday, April 1, 7:30 PM: Port of Call (踏血尋梅, Philip Yung, 2015)

Electric 2015 crime drama/state of the nation address in which a world-weary policeman is charged with investigating the death of a young woman in which the prime suspect has already confessed but claims that he killed her only because she asked him to. Review.

Sunday, April 2, 2:30 PM: Lost Love (流水落花, Ka Sing Fung, 2022)

Director Ka Sing Fung is scheduled to attend for INTRO and Q&A. 

A couple who have recently lost a child decide to foster, but the decision places additional strain on their relationship as the father drifts into an affair feeling pushed out by his wife’s dedication to the children under their care.

April 3 – 9, 2023: Movies You May Have Missed Streaming on Eventive

Streaming available for U.S./Canada views at https://watch.eventive.org/apuc16 

Song Lang (Leon Le, 2018)

Beautifully tragic romance set in ’80s Saigon in which a conflicted street punk falls in love with a Cai Luong opera singer. Review.

Old Town Girls (兔子暴力, Shen Yu, 2020) 

The left behind children of decaying industrial China find themselves at the mercy of a corrupted parental legacy in Shen Yu’s gritty neo-noir. Review.

April 3 – 9, 2023: Movies You May Have Missed Streaming on MUBI.com

Streaming available for U.S. and Canada viewers at MUBI.com. (Registration is required first to access the free trial link).

Family Romance, LLC (Werner Herzog, 2019)

Meta documentary-style drama from Werner Herzog following controversial “rental family” figure Yuichi Ishii as the lines between fantasy and reality begin to blur when he’s tasked with playing father to a lonely little girl.

The Case of Hana and Alice  (花とアリス殺人事件, Shunji Iwai, 2015)

Animated prequel to the much loved Shunji Iwai film Hana and Alice featuring the voices of original actresses Yu Aoi and Anne Suzuki as Alice transfers to a new school and ends up investigating the disappearance of the previous occupant of new friend Hana’s home.

Taiwan Week

AMC NEWCITY 14 (1500 N Clybourn Ave, Chicago, IL 60610)

Saturday, April 15, 2:30 PM: Day Off (本日公休, Fu Tien-Yu, 2023) 

A veteran hairdresser embarks on a road trip when the family of an old client who had moved far away and has since become bedridden ask her to come and cut his hair.

Saturday, April 15, 5:30 PM: Marry My Dead Body (關於我和鬼變成家人的那件事, Cheng Wei Hao, 2022)

A police officer discovers a red wedding envelope but soon realises the proposal comes from the other side and it is the ghost of a murdered man who wants to marry him!

Sunday, April 16, 2:30 PM: GAGA (哈勇家, Laha Mebow, 2022)

Lighthearted drama in which the lives of an indigenous family are thrown into turmoil when the grandfather passes away suddenly. Review.

Season Finale 

Sunday, April 16, 5:30 PM: Lost in Forest (山中森林, Johnny Chiang, 2022)

Director Johnny Chiang and lead actor Lee Kang Sheng are scheduled to attend to introduce the film and have a Q&A afterwards.   

Crime drama starring Lee Kang Sheng as a former gangster who served 12 years in prison after saving his friend who has since become the boss in their former territory. Though he had intended to leave the world of crime behind, he is soon pulled back in when his friend is murdered by a petty footsoldier.

Asian Pop-Up Cinema runs March 18 to April 16 at cinemas across Chicago with select films available to stream online throughout the US and Canada. Further details can be found on the official website where tickets are already on sale and you can also keep up with all the latest news by following Asian Pop-up Cinema on Facebook, Twitter,  Instagram, and Vimeo.