Category: Festivals

Fighter (파이터, Jéro Yun, 2020)

August 7, 2021by Hayley Scanlon1 Comment

“My name is Ree Jina. I am a “North Korean Refugee”. This is how South Koreans call us. My fight is not over yet. I will keep fighting until the end. Even if I fail I will rise again.” a young woman insists, finding a new sense of purpose in the boxing ring while attempting to adjust to her new life in the South. As the title implies, Jéro Yun’s indie drama Fighter (파이터) follows one woman’s attempt to fight her way through personal trauma and societal anxiety but is less boxing movie than gentle character study as the heroine gains the courage to begin moving on through reconnecting with the estranged mother who abandoned her to come to the South alone.

After a spell in a readjustment centre, Jina (Lim Sung-mi) is guided to a well-appointed flat by a social worker whose off the cuff remark that apartments like these are out of reach for most South Koreans speaks of a latent resentment. Most of Jina’s rent is subsidised, but she still needs to cover a part of it plus maintenance fees and so she contacts a North Korean fixer who helps her get a job in a restaurant. Needing more money to bring her father, who has escaped the North but remains trapped in hiding in China, to the South she decides to take a second job working as a cleaner at a boxing gym. She’s only there to clean, but despite herself Jina is captivated by the unexpected sight of female boxers. Encouraged to step into the ring herself, she remains reluctant, exclaiming that she doesn’t have time to waste on “fighting”, but eventually decides to give it a go on being told there may be money it if you’re good enough to turn pro.

One of the reasons Jina gives sympathetic sub coach Tae-su (Baek Seo-bin) for her reluctance to box is due to the discrimination she faces from South Koreans who have a stereotypical vision of Northerners as a heavily militarised people as if they were all enemy combatants. She reminds him that ordinary people live there too, like presumably her father whom she’s desperate to save before he gets picked up by the Chinese authorities and sent back. The social worker’s barbed comments meanwhile echo the impression of some that North Koreans have an unfair advantage in the South with better access to a higher standing of living thanks to being taken care of by the government, but this obviously ignores the societal difficulties they face from isolation and discrimination to trouble gaining employment, potential exploitation, and the persistent culture shock of living in a modern capitalist economy. Even the kind and supportive Tae-su can’t help making a minor joke at her expense as she struggles to understand his contemporary Konglish slang. After making a few friendly overtures, the social worker later turns up drunk at Jina’s flat and attempts to proposition her as if he thinks he’s entitled to her attention, both misogynistic and xenophobic, while having the gaul to blackmail her into paying his medical fees when she attempts to defend herself and get away from him.

Life in the South is certainly not easy. But Jina is also battling a sense of abandonment and displacement born of her mother’s defection when she was only 12. Planning to ask for money to help her father, Jina finds herself conflicted on meeting her, feeling a further sense of betrayal on realising her mother married again to a moderately wealthy man and had another daughter living a comfortable life in Seoul while she and her father continued to suffer. Yet as the opening quotation implied, Jina’s salvation lies in finding forgiveness and rebuilding old relationships while allowing herself to build new ones. Anchored by a supportive mentor in her coach, Jina finds a new family at the boxing club who actively care for and support her. Tae-su claims boxing restored his sense of purpose in life and gave him the courage to go on living it, but it’s less the sport with its rigid discipline and clearly defined structure that gives her a sense of safety than the unconditional kindness of her new friends which stands in such stark contrast to the rejection she senses from so many others in the South.

Playing with boxing movie tropes, Yun includes a series of training montages and introduces a fleeting rivalry with a mean girl at the gym, but gradually shifts away from genre norms towards the realms of the family drama as Jina begins to overcome her trauma though reconnecting with her mother. “In life there are times we need to cry”, Jina’s unexpectedly sympathetic coach tells her, giving her the space to be vulnerable even in this most defiantly defensive place as she attempts to process all that life is currently throwing at her, gaining a new determination to keep on fighting no matter who or what tries to knock her down.

Fighter streams in the US Aug. 7 to 12 as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Georama Boy, Panorama Girl (ジオラマボーイ・パノラマガール, Natsuki Seta, 2020) [Fantasia 2021]

August 6, 2021by Hayley Scanlon2 Comments

“As long as you have a girl you can cope with anything. Who cares what’s happening in the world?” the lovestruck hero of Natsuki Seta’s Georama Boy, Panorama Girl (ジオラマボーイ・パノラマガール) blusters floating around on a cloud of adolescent intensity. “Man, you’re crazy” his more mature workmate replies with unconcealed exasperation. Adapted from a manga by Kyoko Okazaki, Seta’s post-modern drama like her previous film Parks recalls the lighthearted teen movies of the Bubble era even as it gleefully subverts rom-com norms as the mismatched youngsters repeatedly glide past each other experiencing parallel though connected episodes of romantic disillusionment in a rapidly deconstructing city.

The heroine, Haruko Shibuya (Anna Yamada), is a dreamy, romantic sort of girl who’s read too many shojo manga and wishes the summer could go on indefinitely because she wants “to dream longer”. Kenichi Kanagawa (Jin Suzuki), by contrast, is a slightly nerdy young man who upends expectation by suddenly standing up mid-class after being forced to take a test on the first day back after the summer holidays to announce he’s quitting school because he’s realised it’s just not necessary for him. As if trying to get his mid-life crisis over as early as possible, Kenichi picks up a skateboard and starts hanging round in Shibuya unsuccessfully trying to pick up girls until he catches the attention of a free spirited older woman, Mayumi (Misato Morita), only to be unceremoniously beaten up by her maybe boyfriend after being spotted together in a cafe. Bloodied, bruised, and collapsed in the street is how he eventually meets Haruko who stops to see he’s OK and then randomly gifts him her combini purchases, keeping hold of his school ID card which is how she figures out who he is.

Being a teenage girl, Haruko, like her friends Kaede (Erika Takizawa) and Maru (Kogarashi Wakasugi), longs to fall in love and thinks meeting Kenichi is her romantic destiny even over investing in its potency in believing their love is probably necessary in order to save the Earth from calamity like the star-crossed lovers from a shojo manga. As their names suggest, Haruko is the city centre whereas Kenichi is the provincial suburbs, but they spend their time dancing around each other living out parallel love stories as Kenichi continues to obsess over Mayumi whose free-spirited frankness is tinged with sadness while her toying with a lovestruck teen has an almost self-destructive quality. Each of them experience a moment of romantic disillusionment realising that their adolescent visions of pure love are essentially unrealistic and that chance meetings are sometimes just that intended to go no further because life thinks nothing of the rules of narrative causality.

The failure of Haruko’s romantic dreams prompts her into a further moment of introspection as she continues to wonder if everything around her is merely an illusion. Meanwhile, the TV news is a catalogue of contemporary anxieties from an early report on a young woman who took her own life rather than return to school because of rampant bullying not to mention exam stress, to a protest over nuclear weapons and conscription, and even one about a potential response to meteors and aliens. The Tokyo the teens inhabit is one of constant uncertainty, a city half-built and in a state of limbo remaking itself for the upcoming Olympics (which ironically we now know will only half arrive). Yet as Kenichi had suggested, the teens barely notice what’s going on in the world around them so caught up are they in their adolescent dramas finding themselves less star-crossed than at cross purposes in their mutual romantic dilemmas.

Just like the teen movies of old, Seta draws inspiration from the French New Wave as the youngsters frequently monologue across each other sometimes in sync and others not their dialogue in a sense pretentious but also filled with the naive intensity of youth as they each attempt to navigate their way towards a more mature adulthood. With a charmingly timeless retro quality, Georama Boy, Panorama Girl embraces the absurdity of teenage love but finally opens the door to something more “real” brokered in a way by twin heartbreak followed by a mutual resetting as the pair walk out into a new dawn now more ready to meet whatever it has waiting for them.

Georama Boy, Panorama Girl streams in Canada until Aug. 25 as part of this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

International trailer (English subtitles)

Anima (莫尔道嘎, Cao Jinling, 2020)

August 5, 2021by Hayley Scanlon1 Comment

“The trees are not yours. You can’t protect them” an adopted son is repeatedly told, except they are his to the extent that they belong to everyone and the consequences of not protecting them, as he will sadly discover, may prove catastrophic. Set mainly in the 1980s in the remote Inner Mongolian mountain region of Moerdaoga National Forest Park, Cao Jinling’s timely eco drama Anima (莫尔道嘎, Mòěrdàogá) asks what happens when you pull the pegs out of the earth and then take them to market, linking the ‘80s economic reforms with the advent of environmental destruction, but eventually finds a kind of serenity in the beauty of the natural world and man’s innate connection with it.

Linzi (Wang Chuanjun), so named because he was found abandoned in the forest as a baby, recounts his tale as a letter to the son he has never met beginning with the moment of childhood trauma which forever altered his destiny and set him at odds with adoptive brother Tutu (Si Ligeng). Out playing one winter while the grownups hunted, Linzi fell into an ice cave and found himself face to face with a bear. Though he felt sure the bear would not harm him, it panicked on hearing his mother’s cries. Hoping to save his brother, Tutu shot the bear but their mother was also killed and, as bears are sacred to the indigenous Ewenki tribe, finds himself an outcast for this act of spiritual transgression. The three remaining family members move to the edge of the forest in order to evade the bear’s curse, eventually joining the local logging industry though Linzi finds himself conflicted in his love of nature while all around him are content to ride roughshod over its majesty.

While Linzi remains a guardian of the forest living a traditional rural life, Tutu is modernity personified falling in with a gang of shady gangsters running an illegal logging and smuggling operation. While the smugglers might be thought of as the bad guys, the logging company are little better. Linzi’s boss expresses exasperation with his reluctance insisting that if they don’t cut the trees down the smugglers will while constantly banging on about his quotas. Obsessed with making money and fearful of an oppressive social order, no one is thinking very much about the long term consequences of deforestation even as Linzi tries to explain to them that it takes a long time to grow a tree and they’re in danger of running out. When the literal flood comes, it will have devastating consequences for all involved.

Aside from their differing views on the tradition/modernity divide, the relationship between the brothers further declines when Linzi encounters a feisty widow living alone in the forest (Qi Xi), herself transgressively killing bears for reasons of revenge seeing as her late husband was eaten by one. Linzi shyly falls in love with her, but so does Tutu who finds it difficult to accept the idea that his awkward younger brother has got himself a wife. “I am cursed forever” Tutu dramatically cries after having committed a double transgression of killing another bear and presenting its pelt as a wedding present, and then attempting to rape the bride. So traumatised is he by a sense of spiritual corruption that Tutu no longer feels connected to nature, an exile from the natural world, and self-destructively embraces the worst aspects of modernity believing that he deserves no better.

Yet even Linzi finds himself betraying his ideals in order to feed his family, falling victim to the “tree breath spell” after participating in the removal of a great old tree. People keep telling him that he doesn’t own the trees and therefore has no right to decide what is done with them, but like everyone else he’s a man of the forest continually displaced while his world is dismantled all around him. He tries to warn the loggers they’re going too far, but they don’t listen to him until it’s already too late. The authorities attempt to fix the problem with a program of “reforestation” but if the price of untempered capitalism is the destruction of the natural world it is nothing more than an act of intense self harm. Linzi attempts to hold back the tide, but is himself exiled from modern society, a sprite bound by the forest unable to leave its boundaries and condemned to watch over it for all eternity as if in penance but also in deep love for the wonders of the Earth which few are now privileged to see.

Anima screens on Aug. 8 at Film at Lincoln Center – Walter Reade Theater as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Sexual Drive (性的衝動, Kota Yoshida, 2021) [Fantasia 2021]

August 4, 2021by Hayley Scanlon

A weird chestnut-bearing spirit of sexual awakening visits three troubled couples in Kota Yoshida’s odyssey of food-themed eroticism, Sexual Drive (性的衝動, Seitekishodo). As the title perhaps implies, Yoshida’s loose thesis seems to be that each of the spouses he counsels is living a dull and unfulfilling life because they’re repressing their authentic selves either unrecognising or rejecting the true nature of their sexual desires. Yet who or what is Kurita (Tateto Serizawa) and what is he really up to? Aside from all that, is he even “real”?

When we first meet Kurita, he’s bearing a box of Chinese chestnuts (“chestnut” being the first character of his name but also a slang term for clitoris) and walking with a pronounced limp. This lends credence to his story of having suffered a stroke three years previously though as we will later discover the cause is likely very different if at least suggesting a healthy corporality. The visit is all the more unusual as it seems he doesn’t know the man he’s come to see, Enatsu (Ryo Ikeda). Just as we’re wondering if this is some kind of hookup while his wife (Manami Hashimoto) works an extra shift at the hospital, we realise that the reverse may be true as Kurita claims to have been having a three-year affair with Enatsu’s spouse having fixated on her after she fitted a catheter for him following an operation. This is a discussion between men, but Kurita soon becomes excitable making lewd gestures with a mostly empty natto carton apparently likening its distinctive taste and odour to the nether regions of Enatsu’s wife. Goading him that their marriage has been sexless for the last five years, what Kurita seems to do is ironically restore Enatsu’s sexual potency through his vicarious enjoyment of his wife’s taste for this famously love it or hate dish of fermented soy beans.

Kurita’s second victim, meanwhile, has apparently committed the crime of making inauthentic mapo tofu, its heat turned down to suit the Japanese palate. This time Kurita claims to have been an elementary school classmate of the nervous Akane (Honami Sato) who has frequent panic attacks and has finally got up the courage to go for her first solo drive. He insists that Akane is a sadist who brokered his own masochistic awakening through her merciless bullying and that the reason she’s so on edge is because she’s living a neutered life with only inauthentic mapo tofu when she should really be making her own loaded with enough spice to burn the roof of her husband’s mouth clean off.

His third case, however, sees him steal a device from Snake of June in communicating with an adulterous husband, Ikeyama (Shogen), claiming that he’s kidnapped his mistress, Momoka (Rina Takeda), and will soon expose his extra-marital affair if he refuses to follow the instructions he gives him. These are mostly surprisingly wholesome and a little bit sad as what Kurita is hoping to teach Ikeyama is what a cad he’s being and how his insensitive treatment of Momoka must make her feel. Accordingly, he sends him to a greasy ramen bar mostly frequented by middle-aged men where talking is very much not allowed in order for him to consume a satisfyingly fatty dish the transgressive energy of which both inflamed Momoka’s desire and forced her into a contemplation of her role as the mistress of a married man. Ikeyama’s awakening is less to sex than to love in being forced to accept Momoka’s personhood in empathising with the loneliness his indifference causes her to feel.

Yet, if it weren’t for the chestnuts, we might wonder if Kurita were real or merely a manifestation of each of his victims’ subconscious fears and desires. Even as it stands, we can’t be sure that anything he says is actually true, nor do we know what motive he has for guiding these frustrated souls towards their sexual release like some strange sex fairy sent from on high. Nevertheless, in satisfying appetites of all kinds he paints the fulfilment of authentic sexuality as a basic human need even as food becomes a kind of displacement activity standing in for the satisfaction of human desire. Strangely absurd in Kurita’s rather creepy demeanour coupled with his victims’ crumbling wholesomeness, Sexual Drive even if ironically presents a refreshingly positive message of embracing kink while remaining mindful of its effects on others.

Sexual Drive streams in Canada Aug. 5 – 25 as part of this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Escape from Mogadishu (모가디슈, Ryoo Seung-wan, 2021)

August 3, 2021by Hayley Scanlon2 Comments

“You think we can accomplish more together?” the North Korean ambassador incredulously asks of the South, realising that if they’re to escape their desperate situation they will temporarily have to put ideology aside. Ryoo Seung-wan’s latest big budget action drama Escape from Mogadishu (모가디슈, Mogadishu) finds the diplomatic staff of a newly democratic South Korea ironically caught up in another nation’s much less peaceful revolution while perhaps confronted by the duplicities of their globalising ambitions even as they realise the North may already have the upper hand when it comes to cultivating relationships with authoritarian regimes.

As the opening title cards explain, having successfully transitioned into democracy and fresh from its Olympic success the South Korea of 1991 was keen to claim its place on the global stage by joining the UN. Knowing that African votes are important in the process, the ambassador to Somalia, Han (Kim Yoon-seok), is determined to ensure he has that of President Barre in the bag before he finishes out his term. Unfortunately, his attempts are frustrated firstly by a lack of cultural knowledge in his home nation as witnessed by the inappropriate gifts they’ve prepared for the president which include expensive alcohol despite the fact Somalia is a muslim nation, and secondly by the North Koreans who seem to have cultivated a closer relationship with the ruling regime and are keen to ensure South Korea does not get its seat at the UN.

Meanwhile, it becomes increasingly clear that there is unrest in the country with rebel forces intent on deposing the despotic regime of a military dictator and installing full democracy. The circumstances are in a sense ironic, the rebels and the ordinary citizens who later stage an uprising are only doing the same thing South Korea itself has recently done only they are of course doing it in a much less defensible way with widespread violence culminating in an entrenched civil war. The staff at the embassy therefore find themselves in a difficult position. “At home they turn innocent students into communist spies, think they can’t do that here?” a conflicted staff member advises uncertain as to what to do on realising they may unwittingly be harbouring a rebel soldier while diplomatically unable to declare a clear side. All they can think to do is play a tape from their welcome event describing themselves as friends of the Somalian people in the hope of deflecting rebels’ the anger.

Nevertheless, the rebels have declared all foreign presences as their enemies for their tacit support of Barre’s regime. Han is certainly guilty of that in cosying up to the government in the hope of winning their vote, while the North Koreans fare little better despite being accused of secretly trafficking weapons to the rebel army while the rebels complain that foreign aid has only been used to facilitate Barre’s ongoing oppression. When the North Korean Embassy is destroyed and the Chinese have already left, the North Koreans are left with no choice other than the unthinkable, asking the South for help. The South, however, is conflicted. If they let them in they’re in danger of breaking the National Security Law and in any case they aren’t sure they can trust the North. “I hear they’re trained to kill with their bare hands” one of the ladies exclaims even doubting the children. But if they refuse to open the gate it means certain death for those who are, if not their fellow countrymen, then in a sense fellow Koreans.

Based in historical fact, Ryoo’s high tension drama is in essence a division film which makes a strong case for the united Korean family even as the two sides remain somewhat distanced despite making the practical decision to trust each other in order to survive and escape. To do so they each have to make unpalatable political decisions, the South Koreans allowing others to believe the Northerners intend to defect in the hope of additional help from their own side and the wider diplomatic community. Given the opportunity to leave alone, Han nevertheless insists on making space for the North Koreans too unwilling to simply leave them behind. The North Koreans, meanwhile, reveal the reasons they could not defect even if they wanted to in that many of them have been forced to leave children behind in Pyongyang as hostages to ensure their continued obedience to the regime. Han may have gained a degree of enlightenment in realising there are sometimes “two truths” but there’s also an undeniable poignancy on realising that however much they’ve shared, the two men will never again be able to acknowledge each other in public, escaping Mogadishu but forever divided. Shooting in Morocco, Ryoo fully recreates the terror and desperation of being trapped in an unpredictable, rapidly devolving situation while allowing his divided Koreans to find a sense of commonality as they band together in order to escape someone else’s civil war.

Escape from Mogadishu opens this year’s New York Asian Film Festival on Aug. 6 and will thereafter screen at cinemas across the US courtesy of Well Go USA

International trailer (English subtitles)

Fantasia International Film Festival Confirms Complete 2021 Programme

August 2, 2021by Hayley Scanlon14 Comments

Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary with a hybrid edition in theatres and streaming across Canada Aug. 5 – 25 showcasing the best in global genre cinema. Here’s a look at the East Asian features included in this year’s programme:

China

Back to the Wharf – A wounded young man’s attempts to start over in the shadow of his crime are doomed to failure in Li Xiaofeng’s moody, fatalistic neo-noir. Review.

Japan

Kakegurui 2: Ultimate Russian Roulette – sequel to the hit high school gambling manga adaptation.
Remain in Twilight – six former high school friends reunite for a funeral in a poignant drama from Daigo Matsui.
Wonderful Paradise – An impromptu going away party descends into a psychedelic rave of death and rebirth in Masashi Yamamoto’s defiantly surreal nighttime odyssey. Review.
Caution, Hazardous Wife – big screen outing of the TV drama starring Haruka Ayase as a former assassin turned regular housewife.
Not Quite Dead Yet – A resentful young woman comes to understand her awkward scientist dad only after he becomes temporarily deceased in Shinji Hamasaki’s delightfully zany comedy. Review.
Art Kabuki – filmed kabuki performance
Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes – A diffident cafe owner faces an existential dilemma when trapped in a time loop with himself from two minutes previously in Junta Yamaguchi’s meticulously plotted farce. Review.
Love, Life and Goldfish – musical manga adaptation in which a salaryman is demoted to a rural town after insulting his boss.
Poupelle of Chimney Town – animated adaptation of the picture book by Akihiro Nishino.
Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko – animated adaptation of the much loved book by Kanako Nishi centring on the sometimes difficult relationship between a serious young girl and her cheerful mother.
It’s a Summer Film! – A jidaigeki-obsessed high schooler sets out to make her own summer samurai movie in Soshi Matsumoto’s charming sci-fi infected teen rom-com. Review.
Jigoku-no-Hanazono ~ Office Royale ~ – delinquent office lady comedy drama.
Sakura – nostalgic family drama adapted from the novel by Kanako Nishi and directed by Hitoshi Yazaki.
Pompo: the Cinéphile – anime adaptation of the movie-themed manga.
Satoshi Kon, the Illusionist – documentary by Pascal-Alex Vincent on the late director of Perfect Blue.
Junk Head – new theatrical edit of the sci-fi horror stop motion animation.
Dreams on Fire – A country girl comes to the city to become a dancer and finds a sense of solidarity in subculture in Philippe McKie’s refreshingly positive drama. Review.
Georama Boy Panorama Girl – teen romance adapted from the manga by Kyoko Okazaki and directed by Natsuki Seta.
Hold Me Back – latest from Akiko Ohku in which a happily single 31-year-old woman’s peaceful life is disrupted by romance.
Ora, Ora, Be Goin’ Alone – latest from Shuichi Okita starring Yuko Tanaka as an older woman reflecting on her younger self (Yu Aoi) and surrounded by the “voices of her heart”.
Sexual Drive – three tales of food and sex from Kota Yoshida
Great Yokai War: Guardians – Takashi Miike’s sequel to The Great Yokai War in which an elementary school student inherits the blood of the legendary monster hunter in order to save the world from rampaging yokai.
Tokyo Revengers – manga adaptation in which a freeter discovers his first love was murdered by gangsters.
Follow the Light – sci-fi-inflected coming-of-age story in which a crop circle appears in a quiet rural village.
The Deer King – animated feature in which a former soldier and a young girl attempt to escape a deadly plague.
Grand Blue Dreaming – manga adaptation in which a straight-laced college student is pulled into the debauched life of the local diving club.
The 12 Day Tale of the Monster that Died in 8 – black & white COVID kaiju drama from Shunji Iwai.
Under the Open Sky – A pure-hearted man of violence struggles to find his place in society after spending most of his life behind bars in Miwa Nishikawa’s impassioned character study. Review.
Uzumaki – 2000 horror movie adaptation of Junji Ito’s manga in which mysterious spirals engulf a small town.
Funky Forest – 2005 quirky anthology film
Warped Forest – 2011 sequel to Funky Forest from Shunichiro Miki
All About Lily Chou Chou – Shunji Iwai’s 2001 school bullying drama
April Story – Shunji iwai’s charming 1998 mid-length film starring Takako Matsu as a young woman moving to Tokyo for uni.

Hong Kong

Time – an ageing hitman takes up a new career in euthanasia in Ricky Ko’s black comedy.
Septet – HK-themed anthology featuring instalments by Patrick Tam, Ringo Lam, Ann Hui, Johnnie To, Yuen Woo-ping, Tsui Hark, Sammo Hung
Hand Rolled Cigarette – A cynical former British soldier and a South Asian street thief find unexpected solidarity in Chan’s gritty neo-noir. Review.
One Second Champion – A dejected single-father with a “useless” superpower finds a new lease of life in the boxing ring in Chiu’s plucky social drama. Review.
Raging Fire – Benny Chan action drama starring Donnie Yen as a by the book cop facing off against Nicholas Tse’s maverick gone rogue.

Korea

Voice of Silence – A mute farmer begins to dream of a different life after being charged with minding a kidnap victim in Hong Eui-jeong’s strangely warmhearted crime caper. Review.
The Slug – A woman in her ’30s struggles to overcome a sense of toxic inadequacy born of teenage trauma in Choi Jin-young’s whimsical drama. Review.
Collectors – a tomb raider prepares a daring heist to retrieve a precious artefact.
Devil’s Deal – political drama in which a slighted politician steals classified information
Midnight – thriller in which a deaf woman becomes a target for a killer after witnessing a murder.
Fighter – a North Korean refugee pins her hopes on boxing to bring her father to the South
Josee – Korean adaptation of Seiko Tanabe’s short story Josee, the Tiger and the Fish in which a student befriends a young woman isolated by her disability.
Seobok – big budget sci-fi starring Gong Yoo as a former government agent teaming up with the first human clone

Kazakstan

Sweetie You Won’t Believe It – after arguing with his wife a husband gets more than he bargained for while fishing with friends.

Malaysia

The Story of Southern Islet – a wife embarks on a perilous journey to save her ailing husband.

The Philippines

Midnight in a Perfect World – dejected youngsters contemplate the costs of their newly “utopian” society in Dodo Dayao’s eerie, sci-fi inflected horror take on the legacy of martial law. Review.

Singapore

Tiong Bahru Social Club – An earnest young man experiences an existential crisis while living in the “happiest neighbourhood in the world” in Tan Bee Thiam’s whimsical satire. Review.

Taiwan

The Sadness – an office worker and her filmmaker boyfriend attempt to escape a deadly epidemic of rage and violence in Robert Jabbaz bloody horror

Most films will be available to stream in Canada from 5th – 25th August with some also screening in Montreal. “Tickets” for online movies are limited in number comparable to the size of a physical auditorium and while much of the programme is available on demand selected films will stream live only. Full details for all the films are available via the the official website, and you can also keep up with all the latest news via the festival’s official Facebook page, Twitter account, Instagram, and Vimeo channels.

Equinox Flower (彼岸花, Yasujiro Ozu, 1958)

August 1, 2021by Hayley Scanlon

Japanese golden age cinema is famed for its centring of female stories, but while it’s true that many of Yasujiro Ozu’s family dramas revolve around a young woman’s feelings towards marriage, the perspective is often surprisingly male. Equinox Flower (彼岸花, Higanbana), his first film in colour, marks something of a change in direction in its spirited defence of the young, but at heart is still a story as much about impending old age, the responsibilities of fatherhood, and changing times as it is about contemporary family dynamics or female agency.

The father in question, Hirayama (Shin Saburi), is a high ranking executive with two daughters. The older, Setsuko (Ineko Arima), is working at another company, and the younger, Hisako (Miyuki Kuwano), is still in school. Marriage is on his mind because he’s just attended the wedding of an old school friend’s daughter at which he gave a speech, with his wife Kiyoko (Kinuyo Tanaka) sitting awkwardly next to him, describing the arranged marriage he had with her as “pragmatic, routine” while he envies the young couple’s “fortunate opportunity” to indulge in romance. He and Kiyoko idly discuss the idea of Setsuko’s marriage, it seems as if there is a promising match on the horizon, with Hirayama conflicted while Kiyoko is very much in favour of doing things the traditional way. She’s already mentioned it to her daughter, but all she does is smile demurely which seems to provoke different interpretations from each of the parents.

While thinking about all of that, Hirayama receives a visit from an old friend who was a notable absence at the wedding asking him to check up on his daughter Fumiko (Yoshiko Kuga) who ran away from home two months ago to live with a musician after he tried to veto her intention to marry without consulting him. Hirayama is sympathetic, perhaps thinking his friend has acted foolishly and pushed his daughter away. After visiting the bar where she works, he comes to the conclusion that as long as she’s happy with her choice then everyone else should be too. That all goes out the window, however, when a young man, Taniguchi (Keiji Sada), visits him unexpectedly at work and asks for permission to marry Setsuko. Hirayama quite rudely asks him to leave and then irritatedly talks the matter over with Setsuko before petulantly refusing his consent, not because he objects to Taniguchi, but because he is hurt on emotional level that she hadn’t talked to him about this first (not least so that they stop worrying about arranging a marriage) while resentful that she’s gone behind his back and undercut his patriarchal authority.

In addition to the changing nature of family dynamics, Hirayama is perhaps conscious of his advancing age, feeling himself increasingly obsolescent and therefore additionally wounded by this assault on his authority as a father. The generation gap, however, is all too present. Both Setsuko and Fumiko feel as if they simply cannot talk to their parents because they wouldn’t listen and will never understand. Yukiko (Fujiko Yamamoto), the daughter of another friend, feels something similar in her exasperation with her well-meaning single mother who keeps hatching plans to set her up with various men she isn’t interested in. Intellectually, Hirayama sides with the young, envying them their freedoms and advising Yukiko firstly not to marry at all, and then encouraging her desire to resist arranged marriages despite trying to foist them on his own daughters.

Even Kiyoko eventually describes her husband’s continuing petulance as “inconsistent”. It seems obvious that Kiyoko is siding with her daughter, immediately taking a liking to Taniguchi who politely brought her home after she stormed out following an argument with her father, but she continues to behave as a “good wife” should, politely minding her husband while gently hoping that he will eventually come round. Only once pushed does she try to explain to him, again politely, that he’s being selfish and unreasonable, but he continues on in resentment while causing his daughter emotional pain simply for trying to find her own happiness rather letting him decide for her. Kiyoko is afraid that if it carries on like this, then Setsuko will, like Fumiko, eventually leave and they’ll lose her completely, something which Hirayama either hasn’t fully considered or is actively encouraging through his petulance.

In the end the conclusion he comes to is that the parents will eventually have to give way or risk losing their children entirely. He tells both Fumiko and Yukiko that all parents want is for their children to be happy and so nothing else matters, but struggles to put his advice into practice when it comes to his own daughter. Like pretty much everyone in an Ozu film, Hirayama is a good, kind person, even if one struggling against himself as he contemplates a loss of authority, a change in standing, and the difficulty of dealing with complex emotions as a man in a patriarchal society. Predictably, it’s women who essentially bully him into making better decisions, Yukiko “interfering” in the nicest of ways, while his wife makes it clear that though she thinks he’s wrong she will continue to stand by him if only in the hope he will eventually see the light. “Life is absurd, we’re not all perfect” he admits, only later realising how his stubborn foolishness may have caused unnecessary suffering to those he loves the most.

Currently streaming in the UK via BFI Player as part of Japan 2020. Also available to stream in the US via Criterion Channel.

Original trailer (no subtitles)

Shadows (殘影空間, Glenn Chan, 2020)

July 21, 2021by Hayley Scanlon

Are humans innately good or innately evil, and when we do good do we do it altruistically or to make ourselves feel better? These are all questions which occur to an idealistic yet conflicted forensic psychiatrist in Glenn Chan’s twisty psycho-noir, Shadows (殘影空間). Burdened both by a medical condition which apparently conveys a kind of superpower and by her own unresolved trauma, Ching (Stephy Tang Lai-Yan) wants to believe that people are at heart good but is herself caught in a complex web of manipulations in which even her well-meaning interventions may have unintended consequences.

Ching’s big case is that of a 34-year-old social worker, Chu, who suddenly bludgeoned his entire family, three generations of women, to death with one of his many trophies which had a small heart on its top before calling the police and jumping over his balcony. As he only lived on the second floor, Chu survived but appears remarkably nonchalant about his crime. Police officer Ho (Philip Keung Ho-man) brings in Ching to figure out if Chu was really in a state of mental distress when he committed the murders, or if his certainly survivable suicide attempt is part of a smokescreen to help him evade justice. Possibly caused by a brain tumour, Ching’s special power is the ability to insert herself into her patients’ traumatic memories which is where she hears Chu recall a mantra that all humans are selfish and only think of themselves. This statement is meant not as censure but affirmation, Ching recalling a similar sentiment uttered by a rival psychologist, Yan (Tse Kwan-Ho), whom Chu had also been seeing, to the effect that mental imbalance lies in an inability to embrace one’s shadow self including “negative” impulses such egotism.

In truth, the investigation into Chu’s case soon recedes into the background more or less forgotten as Ching embarks on an ideological battle with Yan who, we are told, has recently returned from many years living in the individualistic West and is peddling a kind of hyper individualist will to power which she regards as abetting his patients, a surprising number of whom go on to commit violent crime. Yan argues that humans are born evil and that the individual has the right to be selfish, abandoning conventional morality to pursue their own desires including those which necessarily harm others. Ching believes she’s doing the opposite, yet her attempt to help a victim of domestic violence by convincing her that she has the right and power to escape her abusive familial environment eventually places her in the same position as Yan.

Given her own traumatic history, she may have to consider there’s something in Yan’s assertion that her intentions are also “selfish” in that she helps others in order to help herself feel better. When her investigation leads her, somewhat improbably, towards a serial killer with a Silence of the Lambs-esque taste for “beautiful” corpse tableaux she exposes him doing something much the same, claiming that he’s “saving” elderly people from the pain and suffering of old age but in reality trying to make himself feel better for failing to prevent the suffering of someone he loved while selfishly avoiding the pain of losing them.

Determined to prove Yan is a serial killer by proxy manipulating his patients by encouraging them to embrace their darkest desires, Ching fails to see the degree to which she is also being manipulated, possibly for much longer than she might have realised. Yan’s patients refuse their responsibility towards others, rejecting the consequences of their actions in insisting that everyone makes their own choices. His hyper individualist philosophy might be seen as a stand-in for the increasingly selfish impulses of a previously collectivist society, a shift away from conventional morality towards the primacy of the self, yet it also darkly suggests that altruism is also cynical and born either of guilt or the selfish desire for reciprocity. In the end the verdict is in a sense left to a legitimate authority, Ho asked to decide if he thinks Yan is a crazed libertarian mad scientist, or if Ching is merely a traumatised and deluded woman pursuing some kind of personal vendetta. Featuring fantastic production design and stand out performances from Stephy Tang and Philip Keung, Shadows has no easy answers for the nature of the human soul but nevertheless casts its various protagonists on a noirish journey through the traumatic past guided only by duplicitous voices and ambivalent authority.

Shadows screens at the BFI Southbank on 25th July as part of this year’s Chinese Visual Festival.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

New York Asian Film Festival Confirms Lineup For 2021 Hybrid Edition

July 20, 2021by Hayley Scanlon16 Comments

New York Asian Film Festival returns for 2021 in a new hybrid edition with physical screenings taking place at Lincoln Center & SVA Theatre while much of the programme will be available online in the US via Lincoln Center’s Virtual Cinema from Aug. 6 to 22. To mark its 20th anniversary, the festival will also be co-hosting a special outdoor screening of the Tsui Hark classic Dragon Inn AKA New Dragon Gate Inn on Aug.11.

China

Anima – a young man becomes an outcast after killing a bear to save his younger brother.
A Song for You – a nomad dreaming of becoming a folk singer encounters a young woman resembling the goddess of music who tells him he must record an album in this indie drama from Dukar Tserang.
The Old Town Girls – drama in which a teenage girl receives a visit from her estranged birth mother.
Rising Shaolin: the Protector – kung fu drama from Stanley Tong in which an innkeeper starts a scam fake robbing passersby so he can rescue them as a means of guiding them towards his inn.
Tough Out – documentary following a junior baseball team in Beijing

Hong Kong

All U Need is Love – all-star ensemble comedy from Vincent Kok in which a hotel is placed on a 14-day Covid quarantine.
Breakout Brothers – the political equilibrium of a prison is shaken by the arrival of a new prisoner
Hand Rolled Cigarette – A cynical former British soldier and a South Asian street thief find unexpected solidarity in Chan Kin-long’s gritty neo-noir. Review.
Keep Rolling – documentary focussing on the life and career of director Ann Hui. Review.
Limbo – Morally compromised cops chase a serial killer in the rubbish-strewn junkyards of contemporary Hong Kong in Soi Cheang’s stylish noir. Review.
One Second Champion – A dejected single-father with a “useless” superpower finds a new lease of life in the boxing ring in Chiu Sin-hang’s plucky social drama. Review.
Shadows – Psychological noir starring Stephy Tang as a psychiatrist with a brain tumour which allows her to enter her patients’ traumatic memories.
The Story of Woo Viet – A Chinese-Vietnamese soldier’s dreams of finding love and freedom in the US are frustrated by the legacy of violence in Ann Hui’s fatalistic action drama. Review.
Time – an ageing hitman takes up a new career in euthanasia in Ricky Ko’s black comedy.
The Way We Keep Dancing – A collective of artists finds itself torn between complicity and resistance in the face of rising gentrification in Adam Wong’s musical dance drama. Review.
Zero to Hero – biopic of gold medal winning-Paralympian So Wa Wai.

Japan

The Asian Angel – The lonely souls of Japan and Korea are brought together by angelic intervention in Yuya Ishii’s wistful drama. Review.
A Balance – a documentary film director discovers a hidden truth while investigating school violence
Blue – A trio of dejected boxers contemplate their place inside and outside of the ring in Keisuke Yoshida’s unconventional boxing drama. Review
The Fable: The Killer Who Doesn’t Kill – Junichi Okada returns as the hitman with a no kill mission in Kan Eguchi’s action comedy sequel. Review.
From Today, It’s My Turn!! – ’80s set adaptation of the high school fighting manga from Yuichi Fukuda
Hold Me Back – latest from Akiko Ohku in which a happily single 31-year-old woman’s peaceful life is disrupted by romance.
jigoku-no-hanazono: Office Royale – delinquent office lady comedy drama
Joint – A gangster in search of reform finds himself caught between old school organised crime and the shady new economy in Oudai Kojima’s noirish take on yakuza decline. Review.
Junk Head – new theatrical edit of the sci-fi horror stop motion animation.
Last of The Wolves – sequel to Kazuya Shiraishi’s Blood of Wolves set in 1991 in which a rogue cop attempts to keep the peace between yakuza gangs.
Ninja Girl – political satire from Yu Irie
Over the Town – An awkward young man chases love and romance on the streets of Shimokitazawa in Rikiya Imaizumi’s soulful ode to the ever changing district. Review.
Sensei, Would You Sit Beside Me? – a manga artist pens a story about adultery which causes her husband to wonder if she knows about his ongoing affair with her editor
Tonkatsu DJ Agetaro – The nerdy heir to a tonkatsu restaurant finds his heaven on the dance floor in a surprisingly wholesome turn from Ken Ninomiya. Review.
Under the Open Sky – A pure-hearted man of violence struggles to find his place in society after spending most of his life behind bars in Miwa Nishikawa’s impassioned character study. Review.
Zokki – omnibus movie inspired by Hiroyuki Ohashi’s manga directed by Naoto Takenaka, Takayaki Yamada, and Takumi Saitoh.

Kazakstan

Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It – after arguing with his wife a husband gets more than he bargained for while fishing with friends.

Korea

The Book of Fish – historical drama from Lee Joon-ik following exiled scholar Jeong Yak-jeon.
Escape from Mogadishu – drama from Ryoo Seung-wan set during the Somalian Civil War in which the North Korean embassy is forced to ask for help from South Korea as they attempt to escape from the capital.
Fighter – a North Korean refugee pins her hopes on boxing to bring her father to the South
I Don’t Fire Myself – a young woman is determined to stick out a year with a subcontracting company
Midnight – thriller in which a deaf woman becomes a target for a killer after witnessing a murder.
The Prayer – a caregiving robot is conflicted witnessing a daughter’s exhaustion attempting to care for her mother who has been bedridden for the past decade.
Samjin Company English Class – three office ladies pin their hopes on TOEIC to get promoted but end up exposing an industrial scandal in Lee Jong-pil’s ’90s drama
Snowball – teenage friendship drama in which three high school girls run away together only for their relationship to descend into bullying and animosity on their return.
Ten Months – indie drama charting a game designer’s pregnancy
Three Sisters – Three middle-aged women rediscover their sisterly bond when forced to face their traumatic past in Lee Seung-won’s subtle condemnation of a relentlessly patriarchal society. Review.

Malaysia

Babi – controversial school violence drama directed by rapper Namewee
Barbarian Invasion – Tan Chui Mui directs and stars as an actress making a comeback after retiring to become a housewife and mother only to be told the film can only be made if her ex co-stars.
Nasi Lemak 1.0 – Namewee directs a “prequel” to Nasi Lemak 2.0 following 15th century explorer Admiral Cheng Ho

Myanmar

Money Has Four Legs – an aspiring film director struggling to complete a project considers robbing a bank.

The Philippines

Here And There – A pair of anxious youngsters find lockdown love, or something like it, in JP Habac’s sophisticated, zeitgeisty rom-com. Review.

Singapore

Tiong Bahru Social Club – An earnest young man experiences an existential crisis while living in the “happiest neighbourhood in the world” in Tan Bee Thiam’s whimsical satire. Review.

Taiwan

As We Like It – A romantic exile meanders through an internet free corner of Taipei in Chen Hung-i & Muni Wei’s all-female adaptation of the Shakespeare play. Review.
City Of Lost Things – animated drama in which 16-year-old leaf is swept away to the City of Lost Things where he befriends 30-year-old sentient plastic bag, Baggy.
A Leg – relationship drama in which a bereaved wife refuses to let go of the amputated leg of her late husband.
My Missing Valentine – A lovelorn woman finds herself forced to reckon with the forgotten past when she somehow misplaces Valentine’s Day in Chen Yu-hsun’s charmingly quirky rom-com. Review.
The Silent Forest – An idealistic student is caught between justice and complicity when he uncovers a culture of bullying and abuse at a school for deaf children in Ko Chen-nien’s hard-hitting drama. Review.

Thailand

The Con-Heartist – A scorned woman teams up with a fraudster to scam her ex only to fall for the conman in Mez Tharatorn’s crime caper rom-com. Review.

The 2021 New York Asian Film Festival runs at Lincoln Center, SVA Theatre, and online in the US Aug. 6 to 22 with tickets on sale from July 23. Full details for all the films as well as ticketing information will shortly be available via the official website while you can also keep up with all the latest festival news via the official Facebook Page and Twitter account.

Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue (一直游到海水变蓝, Jia Zhangke, 2020)

July 20, 2021by Hayley Scanlon1 Comment

Returning to his rural hometown, Jia Zhangke embarks on an alternate history of China in the 20th century through the prism of literature in the poetically titled documentary Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue (一直游到海水变蓝, Yīzhí Yóu Dào Hǎishuǐ Biàn Lán). Taking its title from an off the cuff though strangely profound comment from the witty and loquacious Yu Hua, Swimming is the third in a loose series of documentaries focussing on artists following Dong and Useless each of which were completed over a decade ago.

Signalling his intentions early on, Jia opens with a lengthy sequence of elderly people in a canteen. The first of his 18 chapters is titled simply “eating”, and as we quickly infer hunger will be a constant background presence for each of our writers who recount their sometimes difficult rural childhoods and the paths which eventually led to them becoming chroniclers of provincial life. The earliest stretches are dedicated to legendary author Ma Feng who passed away in 2004 but it’s some time before we even get to his literary work, struck as we are by his role as an agrarian moderniser who ingeniously saved his village through collective action, bringing the villagers together in a plan to purify the water before irrigation to reduce the alkaline quality of the soil which had made it impossible to farm. Eventually we’re introduced to Ma’s daughter who begins to fill in his biography from a personal perspective while explaining how it was that he came to be known for his naturalistic depictions of the lives of ordinary rural folk in the early days of Communism.

That idealism soon takes on a darker hue, however, in the story of Jia Pingwa who recounts his childhood during the Cultural Revolution in which his father was sent sent away for “re-education” after being falsely accused of receiving training as a KMT spy in the ‘40s. In Jia Pingwa’s early childhood eating was indeed a concern, something which he later says caused tension in the family that was only eased by the presence of his grandmother but even she couldn’t keep them all together after the institution of the communal kitchen. Perhaps more austere than you’d expect, Jia Pingwa admonishes his daughter, also a published poet, that she should fulfil her role as a wife and mother before that as artist, and that being a poet doesn’t always mean one lives poetically. Nevertheless he recounts the widening of horizons which occurred as China began to open up in 1980s, an influx of foreign art that introduced him to “the West” but also left him in an artistic quandary in the search for new yet authentic directions.

A little younger than Jia Pinghua, the 1980s is when the extremely animated Yu Hua came of age, revealing an unexpected effect of the Cultural Revolution that led to his artistic destiny as he found himself re-imagining the endings of books which had long since fallen apart and existed for him only in fragments. Training first as a dentist but finding it not to his liking, Yu Hua longed to broaden his horizons and began writing seriously with the hope of getting a better job, eventually enrolling in university in Beijing in 1989 which he recounts somewhat incongruously as cheerfully uneventful.

There is indeed a kind of micro framing in Jia’s concentration on rural China as a place to one side of wider society or politics. Just as Yu Hua casually ignores the reasons why others might find it interesting to have been a student in Beijing in 1989, Liang Hong opens by recounting that the year was 1997 which was the year Hong Kong returned to China but she was so busy that as an event it hardly registered for her. Like Yu and Jia Pingwa she recounts a difficult rural childhood in which her mother was rendered ill and later died due to the demands of country living while her kindhearted though feckless father struggled to manage his small family. While the men concentrate on their own paths, Liang mostly talks of her family, the sister who sacrificed her future for her siblings, and later her own son who talks of learning about his history through mother’s books though he no longer remembers the rural dialect and his associations with the area are mainly to do with playing with his cousins on visits to his mother’s family home.

Liang’s son is the last and least deliberately staged of Jia’s frequent cutaways to local people reciting brief snippets of literature by the four authors and others often in praise of the land. Between lengthy talking head sequences, he switches from present day to historical stock footage showcasing the lives of ordinary people as they play cards, eat, or hurry on their way from one place to another. Spiralling out and away from Fenyang and back around again what Jia presents is less a literary survey than a rural history which is in its own way also mythologised as the wounded soul of the modern China.

Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue screens at the BFI Southbank on 24th July as part of this year’s Chinese Visual Festival.

International trailer (English subtitles)