Windows on Worlds

Everyphone Everywhere (全個世界都有電話, Amos Why, 2023)

July 19, 2023by Hayley Scanlon

Have we become too dependent on our phones, allowing them to divide rather than connect us? For those at the centre of Amos Why’s zeitgeisty comedy Everyphone Everywhere (全個世界都有電話), they do seem to have become a double-edged sword. Yet in the end, it’s a series of handsets that reconnect them with their youth if only to remind them of the disappointed hopes of a defeated middle-age given additional an weight by subtle hints of post-Handover despair.

Asked why he’s decided to move to the UK, Raymond (Peter Chan Charm-Man) replies that everybody’s doing it even if he resented being sent away to study in Aberdeen, Scotland as a teenager in the wake of the Handover. The real reason is that he’s got himself involved in a lot of shady stuff and has just had his phone hacked so he fears blackmail or arrest. He’s organised a farewell dinner with old high school friends Chit (Endy Chow Kwok-Yin) and An (Rosa Maria Velasco), but nothing quite goes to plan in the curious ways the lives of three former friends remain entwined even if they’ve all been in some sense corrupted by the changes in their society. “All is well as long as we never change” reads a teenage message to a future self, but of course it’s a promise that can’t be kept even if in the end, “life must go on anyway.”

Still, the society itself is fairly corrupt given the prevalence of scams many of them connected to our phones. Raymond failed to get his hacked phone fixed and opted for a new number instead, but Ana in particular keeps getting weird calls from him she later realises must be an attempt to scam her out of money by someone posing as Raymond and explaining that he needs money desperately. But Ana is also the victim of another “scam” in the form of Chit’s new business strategy of getting a “monthly fee” from clients rather than be reliant on work for hire arrangements. Even the restaurant itself along with its “Japanese” chef seems to be fraudulent, while An remains preoccupied with her husband’s womanising and Raymond ironically with his series of bad decisions that culminate in tax fraud. Meanwhile Raymond’s daughter Yanki (Amy Tang Lai-Ying) is also indulging in a kind of scamming selling intimate pictures to nerdy guys via telegram and smartphone apps and ironically remarking that she doesn’t want to get scammed again when discussing ever increasing payment options with her hapless targets.

Yet as Chit discovers when he leaves his phone at home, everything seems inconvenient when you’re phoneless. In a running gag, he repeatedly tries to borrow someone’s landline but is refused leaving him wandering around the city looking for a “restaurant” in one of three very similarly named redeveloped blocks. His wife’s is the only number he remembers by heart, but she remains resentful of his meeting up with Ana, his first love, whom he previously described as a “gullible” auntie and is on some level “scamming” by convincing her to keep him on a monthly retainer. Raymond’s phone threatens to expose him, Ana uses hers to spy on her husband and stepson, and Chit’s in a sense incapacitates him, leaving him alone and disorientated in his own city no longer certain how to travel around it amid the rapidly changing landscape and seemingly identical redevelopment projects.

Life hasn’t turned out the way any of them thought it would, recalling their carefree days 25 years previously in pre-Handover Hong Kong. Banners advertise a “New Era”, but the trio are trapped in the past with which they are eventually reconnected thanks to the retro handsets that unlike the technology of today still work and contain a series of time capsule messages to their future selves. History in a sense repeats itself as Raymond prepares to leave, but each is able to come to terms with their unfinished business and begin making concrete decisions about their futures. Suddenly “can we meet on Saturday?” takes on a new sense of poignancy when everyone seems to be leaving but then again, perhaps our phones really do connect us even if they sometimes connect us to scammers or people we don’t really want to talk to. Subtly hinting a sense of disappointment which runs a little deeper than middle-age malaise, Why looks back to the carefree days of 1997 allying the broken dreams of youth with the “New Era” of today but nevertheless grants his heroes a sense of new sense of possibility even the face of their despair.

Everyphone Everywhere screens July 20 as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Original trailer (Traditional Chinese / English subtitles)

Hello! Junichi (ハロー!純一, Katsuhito Ishii, Kanoko Kawaguchi, Atsushi Yoshioka, 2014)

July 18, 2023by Hayley Scanlon

A collection of confused nine-year-olds decides the best way to solve all their problems is to start a band in charming kids ensemble movie, Hello! Junichi (ハロー!純一). Co-directed by Katsuhito Ishii, Kanoko Kawaguchi, and Atsushi Yoshioka, the film is more linear and less surreal than most of Ishii’s other work but has a refreshing take on the childhood adventure movie as the kids each deal with their various problems many of which still plague the adults around them.

After all as kindhearted rocker Takao (Ryu Morioka) admits, the children aren’t really all that different from us. Shy and a little on the timid side, Junichi (Amon Kabe) is a peripheral member of his friendship group and perpetual fall guy who lists his only talent as the ability to carry everybody’s bags. His main problem is that he borrowed a rabbit-shaped eraser from his crush, Maeda, about a month ago and is too shy to return it. Now all he can think about is whether he should pluck up the courage or pretend to have forgotten. Things get more complicated when a new student teacher, the beautiful Miss Anna (Hikari Mitsushima), joins his school and confiscates the eraser as part of a cruel power game before agreeing to give it back if he helps her find out who scratched an offensive word into the side of her flashy car.

Miss Anna is either the best teacher in the world or the absolute worst. She arrives dressed for a night out and puts on a cutie pie act for her dejected middle-aged boss Achikita (Yoshiyuki Morishita) which she immediately drops as soon as he leaves the room inappropriately giving the children far too much information about her personal life but they do at least get some maths out of it. She also smokes by an oil can round the back of the building and talks like an aggressive high school girl when her boss’ back is turned, but eventually comes round to her responsibility as a teacher after bonding with the kids.

In comparison to some, Junichi’s problems aren’t really all that big except that his parents have to work late so he often has to prepare dinner for himself and his philosophising grandpa (Tatsuya Gashuin). Kuramoto (Yohei Hotta) meanwhile is beginning to act out at school because he’s got problems at home caused by his father’s gambling addiction which forces his mother (Chizuru Ikewaki) to run herself ragged just to stay afloat. With Miss Anna’s help, the kids decide to put on a concert for Mrs Kuramoto’s birthday which might on one level be charmingly naive but does in the end seem to cheer her up while allowing them to bond over their shared issues many of which are romantic in nature.

During the opening sequence in the park, child actor Machida (Shoma Suginomori) had given the other boys some grown up love advice he picked up on set which amounted to getting girls to like you by giving them cliched compliments such as remarking on the beauty of their smile. It’s not terribly good advice and a little a bit patronising not mention insincere, but amusingly enough is the same approach eventually taken by Takao when he and Miss Anna awkwardly try to address their mutual attraction. In the end, she has to concede that she doesn’t know what to say either and they end up having a rather childish conversation about favourite foods which is all to say it doesn’t get any easier and the adults don’t necessarily know much more than the kids.

Then again, there are some distinctly bad examples in Achikita’s thankfully ineffective attempt at workplace harassment and stalking of Miss Anna even if he eventually gives the most important life lesson in dressing down a trio of teenage bullies by telling them they have to learn love and appreciation or they’ll be weak men incapable of protecting anyone. Protecting people is something Junichi’s been worried about too, especially after failing to act when he spotted female classmate Tanaka (Rio Sasaki) duct taped to a pole by the bullies though she thankfully managed to save herself while uttering some particularly choice language for a nine-year-old. Still as his grandfather tells him he’s an unpolished stone. He has a weak side and a strong side and is still in the process of settling though the real business of growing up may be knowing which to be when. Charmingly quirky and infinitely warmhearted, Ishii, Kawaguchi, and Yoshioka masterfully capture an authentic sense of childhood anxiety while suggesting that none us is really so different after all.

Hello! Junichi is out now the UK on blu-ray as part of Third Window Films’ Katsuhito Ishii Collection.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Sorasoi (そらそい, Katsuhito Ishii, Shunichiro Miki, Yuka Osumi, 2008)

July 17, 2023July 17, 2023by Hayley Scanlon

Students on a dance summer camp pick up a few lessons in authenticity and self-confidence while staying in an out of the way coastal hotel in Katsuhito Ishii, Shunichiro Miki, and Yuka Osumi’s goofy comedy Sorasoi (そらそい). Reuniting Ishii and Miki after Funky Forest, the film is less episodic in nature than the directors’ other work and quirky rather than surreal but otherwise offers some of the same lessons as those found in Party 7 as the students begin to discover new things about themselves and others while practicing dance on the beach.

Led by teacher Tabe (Sota Aoyama) who claims to have been a top dancer with the Royal Ballet before an injury ended his career, the dance team consists of four girls and three boys all of whom Tabe regards as no hopers with little motivation to succeed. A trio of men lounging in donuts floating nearby in the sea gently mock them from a distance, but nevertheless utter a few words of encouragement as they leave the beach. Meanwhile, another young woman, Yuri (Sayuri Ichikawa), arrives to stay at the hotel after approaching the local tourist information office and asking for a reservation at somewhere that isn’t listed in the phonebook.

Her request may echo that of Party 7’s Miki and her reasoning is similar in that she is clearly hoping to take some time out and doesn’t want to be bothered as evidenced by her decision to ignore missed calls and texts on her phone. The inn owner is forever trying to convince her to travel to a nearby beauty spot named the Cape of Love and its Lovers’ Bell though also dropping in casually that people sometimes take their own lives there which may be irresponsible given Yuri’s ambiguous mental state. In any case, she quickly catches the attention of student Ryu (Ryu Morioka) who begins pursuing her in a friendly if decidedly inappropriate way.

The three guys tell each other that they’re only doing dance to get girls and that the fact the ones from the dance troupe aren’t interested in them can be excused because they are “different”. Engaging in stereotypically crude male banter one of them later tries to steal the girls’ underwear but as it turns out, at least two of them do actually like dancing and discover new things about themselves in the midst of their romantic pursuits, Ryu’s for Yuri and Atsushi’s (Atsushi Yoshioka) for Kano (Kanoko Kawaguchi ), a mysterious kimono’d woman who arrives to visit. The girls meanwhile are similarly focussed on romance with Ai (Ai Makino) besotted with the grumpy teacher Tabe and Kikka (Kikka) dropping entirely unsubtle hints that she’s in love with the seemingly straight Mako (Masako Satoh) who thinks she’s just playing around.

They are all, however, keeping some kind of secret mainly because they fear being judged by others whether it relates to their sexuality, having embellished their CV, or having told a slightly bigger lie to help achieve their dancing dreams. What each of them learns is that it doesn’t matter very much if their dancing isn’t very good so long as they enjoy doing it and feel good about spreading that joy to others. Yuri, meanwhile, has some much more grown up dilemmas to consider especially as it transpires she may have been attempting to escape an abusive relationship with a degree of pressure placed on her from various directions to return because her boyfriend is “really a good guy” who made a “mistake” in a momentary fit of temper which is a fairly dated and uncomfortable sentiment to see presented so uncritically even in 2008. Nevertheless, the sense of discomfort is somewhat undercut in a counter courtship from Ryu who offers a sweet and romantic note that leaves the ball entirely in her court.

In the best tradition of summer break movies, the film’s relaxed atmosphere adds to its laidback charm as do the unfussy indie visuals while the enthusiastic performances from a largely amateur cast of students from Ishii’s acting school (bar the participation of Warped Forest’s Fumi Nikaido and Ryu Morioka) reinforce the central messages of working hard at something you love whether it goes anywhere or not. The mutual solidarity of those around them with similar dreams affords the students the confidence to be more of who they are while clarifying what it is they may actually want out of life even if for some the future still seems uncertain.

Sorasoi is released in the UK on blu-ray on 17th July as part of Third Window Films’ Katsuhito Ishii Collection.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

KimStim Acquires North American Rights to Remembering Every Night

July 17, 2023by Hayley Scanlon

KimStim has acquired the North American rights to Yui Kiyohara’s breezy drama Remembering Every Night. Set in the tranquil environment of Tama New Town, the film follows a series of women each in search of something on a bright summer day.

Check out our review:

Told with breezy serenity, Kiyohara’s playful summer drama circles the unreality of the everyday but finds in it a kind of comfort if perhaps tempered by melancholy.

Remembering Every Night’s theatrical release begins at New York’s Lincoln Center on Sept. 15 with a wider North American rollout to follow.

Dream (드림, Lee Byeong-heon, 2023)

July 16, 2023by Hayley Scanlon

A disgraced football player gets a shot at redemption after agreeing to coach a team hoping to take part in the Homeless Olympics in Lee Byeong-heon’s sporting drama, Dream (드림). The Homeless Olympics was founded in order to advocate for the end of homelessness while combatting discrimination and stigma and takes place annually with teams of homeless people from all over the world taking part. Set in 2010 and inspired by the first Korean delegation to participate, the film is essentially an underdog sports drama in which the act of scoring a single goal is the same as an overall victory.

It is also, meanwhile, heavily critical of celebrity and sensationalist media each of which have a habit of latching onto popular causes in order to further their own careers. Hong-dae (Park Seo-jun) was a popular footballer insecure in his talents, but gained notoriety after poking an obnoxious reporter in the eyes when he repeatedly brought up the topic of his mother who happens to be a fugitive from justice. Deciding to retire from the game, Hong-dae is picked up by a talent agency who want to make him a star and is convinced to become the coach of the homeless football team in order to improve his personal brand while documentarian So-min (Lee Ji-eun) hopes to do something much the same by producing a semi-scripted reality show following the team’s fortunes.

Accordingly, So-min instructs Hong-dae to let her “cast” the key players on the basis of their touching backstories rather than their sporting ability. She comes up with a selection of people who have each for various reasons ended up on the streets but are looking for a way to turn their lives around and repair fractured relationships with family members. One man turned to booze and women while riding high but found himself out of luck when the Asian Financial Crisis ruined his business, while another claims that he’s not really homeless just lying low for a while, and a third was scammed by a friend and saddened by the impending exit of his ex-wife and daughter who will shortly be moving to Australia with her new husband. The film strays into more interesting territory in exploring the story of 44-year-old Beom-su (Jung Seung-gil) who ended up on the streets after a workplace accident left him with a chronic illness he did not have the money to treat, but otherwise falls into the same trap as So-min’s documentary in taking a fairly superficial view of homelessness. By the end of the film many of the players have thankfully moved into stable accommodation but do so largely without explanation aside from having apparently managed to save up for a deposit.

Positioning their battle for sporting success as a means of reclaiming their self-esteem might also uncomfortably suggest that the reason they’re on the streets is a matter of mental attitude while ignoring other systemic issues that led them there or prevented them from moving on (assuming that they wish to do so). Aligning their struggles with Hong-dae’s and to a lesser extent So-min’s might do something similar while they too are also battling cynicism and self-esteem issues, Hong-dae continuing to blame his mother for his problems complaining that he was born to be second place because she never put him first. As Hong-dae later points out, So-min is also to an extent exploiting the homeless in trying to create an inspirational narrative for her TV show before she like everyone else realises there are other ways to win besides the literal.

The final message is more one of never giving up as the team finally travel to the Olympics and find themselves out of their depth before deciding to give it everything they have even if it’s very unlikely they will win. There had indeed been discrimination in Korea, a sponsor pulling out describing the homeless as “smelly and disgusting” and expressing a degree of squeamishness about involving them with their brand, but at the Olympics they become the most popular team despite their lack of skill purely because of their charismatic perseverance. One player’s late in the game announcement that he is gay but has now come to accept himself in the knowledge that the problem lies with the world that will not accept him also makes the case for a greater equality if perhaps clumsily conflating two different issues. Nevertheless, IU’s lively performance and the film’s warmhearted tone help to overcome any mild sense of discomfort in its otherwise genial tale of never giving up and regaining your self-esteem even if you feel as if the world has already abandoned you.

Dream screens July 17 as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

International trailer (English subtitles)

Lost in the Stars (消失的她, Cui Rui & Liu Xiang, 2023)

July 15, 2023by Hayley Scanlon

A desperate husband with five days left on his visa finds himself at the mercy of a foreign police department when his wife suddenly disappears into thin air during their honeymoon in a fictional South East Asian nation in Liu Xiang & Cui Rui’s hugely entertaining mystery thriller Lost in the Stars (消失的她, xiāoshī de tā). Produced and co-scripted and produced by Detective Chinatown’s Chen Sicheng, the film draws inspiration from the 1990 Russian drama Trap for a Lonely Man which was itself adapted from a 1960 French play, Piège pour un homme seul, which Alfred Hitchcock had once been interested in adapting.

It’s not difficult to see why seeing as the film revolves around a classic “wrong man” in frantic husband He Fei (Zhu Yilong) who like so many Hitchcock heroes is left feeling like the only sane man in an insane world when he wakes up next to a woman who claims to be his missing wife only he’s never seen her before and is adamant that something untoward must be going on though all the evidence points to the contrary and no one really believes him. The film never really entertains the possibility that the “fake” wife (Janice Man) is indeed telling the truth and Fei is undergoing some kind of psychotic break but does leave a question mark over his mental state and credibility on revealing that he is suffering from a neurological condition caused by his work as a diving instructor for which he is on serious medication.

In any case, the film opens with him bursting into a local police station exasperated with their lack of interest in his wife’s disappearance. In something of a trope in recent Mainland cinema, the action takes place in a fictional South East Asian nation which has shades of Thailand and Indonesia where the implication is the authorities don’t really care very much about a missing tourist. A Chinese policeman, Zheng (Du Jiang), eventually admits as much confessing that the police department is massively understaffed and only investigates “criminal” cases which they don’t believe his wife’s to be, rather that she most likely got fed up with Fei and has gone off of her own accord. Their lack of concern echoes a persistent theme in mainstream Mainland movies that the safest place for Chinese citizens is at home, an idea only reinforced by the film’s melancholy conclusion and the implications of Chen Mai (Ni Ni), a top international lawyer Fei meets by chance, who suggests that his wife may have been taken by an international trafficking ring.

Nevertheless, in its various twists and turns the film also has a few things to say about class disparities in contemporary China in which as someone later says money may even buy the Devil’s soul. With his visa running out, Fei insists that he won’t leave without finding out what’s happened to his “real” wife and what’s going on with the “imposter” who soon drops any pretence and openly admits that she’s out to get Fei for reasons he finds unclear though assumes to be financial. Then again, we start to realise that perhaps he hasn’t been a hundred percent honest even with the information he’s giving Mai who is the only person interested in helping him find his wife who may or may not be at the mercy of vicious international gang backed by important people against whom an ordinary tourist like Fei or even an international figure like Mai has little power.

While the film noticeably carries a strong anti-gambling message perfectly in tune with the censors’ sensibilities, it also has a surprising queer subtext in the quite obviously coded persona of super lawyer Mai who makes a dramatic motorbike entrance and then more or less steals the film as she tries to ascertain the whereabouts of Fei’s missing wife. Nothing is quite as it first seems, subterfuge piles on on subterfuge along with altered realities and personal myth making though the film’s title takes on a poignant note in the closing moments in which another starry image is presented in an attempt to evoke an emotional reaction from an otherwise heartless villain. Boasting excellent production values and elegant production design, the film is careful never to lose itself in its various twists and reversals before quite literally dropping the curtain on its extremely satisfying conclusion in which we discover just how far some are willing to go in pursuit of the stars.

Lost in the Stars is in UK cinemas now courtesy of CineAsia.

Trailer (Simplified Chinese / English subtitles)

Party 7 (Katsuhito Ishii, 2000)

July 14, 2023by Hayley Scanlon

“This shit’s for real.” according to the front desk guy at Hotel New Mexico, an out of the way spot just perfect for those looking to lay low for a little while. Like a lot of Katsuhito Ishii’s work, Party 7 is essentially a series of self-contained vignettes which eventually collide following a series of bizarre coincidences revolving around some money stolen from the mob, a two-way mirror in a regular hotel room, and the receptionist’s tendency to almost literally shoot the shit.

Following a brief prologue, Ishii opens with striking animated sequence which introduces each of the main players with an arcade game aesthetic and explains that Miki (Masatoshi Nagase) has stolen money from the mob and is currently on the run which is why he’s turned up at the infinitely weird Hotel New Mexico. The running gag is that Miki thinks he’s holed up somewhere no one will find him, but sure enough a series of “friends” soon turn up in part thanks to a loose-lipped travel agent. The fact that people can find it so easily dampens the impression of the Hotel New Mexico as some kind of interstitial space. It’s not so much existing in a weird parallel world as a bit run down and staffed by a series of eccentrics. It does however have a “peep room” hidden behind a two-way mirror where “Captain Banana” (Yoshio Harada) is attempting to pass his knowledge on to the young Okita (Tadanobu Asano), the son of a recently deceased friend who has been repeatedly arrested for voyeurism.

Captain Banana’s insistence on his surreal superhero suit is in a way ironic, if perhaps hinting at the super empowerment of accepting one’s authentic self. “It’s your soul,” he tells Okita, “it’s screaming ‘I want to peep’.’” Meanwhile, Miki gets into an argument with his ex-girlfriend Kana (Akemi Kobayashi) who has turned up in the hope of reclaiming money that he owes her. Kana too seems to be less than rigorous with the truth if perhaps emotionally authentic. She’s now now engaged to a nerdy guy having somewhat misrepresented herself as the innocent girl next-door type. Her refusal to let her fiancé into her apartment perhaps hints at a more literal barrier to intimacy or at least that she is intent on preventing him from seeing her true self. What she doesn’t know is that her fiancé hasn’t been completely honest either, in part because he thinks she’s out of his league and is insecure in their romance.

Miki too maybe somewhat insecure, having run off with the gang’s money after hearing them bad mouth his associate Sonoda (Keisuke Horibe) who has now been charged with killing him and getting the money back. But Sonoda too has reasons to doubt the boss’ affection for him after Miki and the others point out that gifts he thought were so valuable are really just cheap knock offs that suggest the boss thinks very little of him at all. Okita’s psychiatrist tells him that there are “no rules in making friends”, and maybe in a strange way that’s what everyone is trying to do. Kana wanted the money to overcome her anxiety about having no friends or family to invite to the wedding, while all Sonoda wanted was the boss’ approval and though Miki had deliberately gone somewhere he thought no one would find him nevertheless attracts a series of followers.

Even the receptionists seem to be desperate for human contact with their strange stories of poo falling from the sky and bizarre approach to hospitality. “The point is whether you believe it or not,” one tells the other after spinning what sounds like a yarn but then again might not be. Ishii’s zany world has its own surreal logic culminating in a piece of cosmic irony and defined by coincidence as the otherwise unrelated stories begin to come together and slowly find their way to Hotel New Mexico but seems to suggest the point is in the serendipity of the meeting and its concurrent authenticity even if a literal shot in the arm is a less than ideal way of brokering a friendship.

Party 7 is released in the UK on blu-ray on 17th July as part of Third Window Films’ Katsuhito Ishii Collection.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

New York Asian Film Festival Confirms 2023 Lineup

July 13, 2023by Hayley Scanlon

New York Asian Film Festival returns for its 22nd edition with another packed programme of recent East Asian cinema hits screening at Lincoln Center & Barrymore Film Center July 14 – 30. This year the festival will pay tribute to director Zhang Wei, while Junji Sakamoto will receive the Screen International Star Asia Lifetime Achievement Award, Ryohei Suzuki the Screen International Rising Star Asia Award, and Louis Koo the Extraordinary Star Asia Award.

China

Art College 1994 – A collection of art students mull over the big questions while floundering in the complicated mid-90s society in Liu Jian’s nostalgic animation. Review.
The Cord of Life – a folktronica musician embarks on a roadtrip with his mother after learning she has Alzheimer’s.
Flaming Cloud – whimsical romantic fantasy in which a young man is cursed causing all who kiss him to fall into a deep sleep.
A Woman – dramatisation of Zhang Xiuzhen’s semi-autobiographical novel charting a woman’s life through the cultural revolution into the new China of the 1980s.

Filmmaker in Focus: Zhang Wei

Empty Nest – drama in which an elderly woman bonds with a young man selling healthcare products.
Factory Boss – drama following the owner of a toy factory contending with economic crisis.
Redemption with Life – drama from Zhang Wei in which the friendship between three bikers is tested by a series of get-rich-quick schemes.
The Rib (Director’s Cut) – drama in which a transwoman contends with her conservative father whose signature she needs in order to get confirmation surgery. Review.

Hong Kong

A Light Never Goes Out – a mother and a daughter take very different paths in trying to come to terms with grief in Anastasia Tsang’s poignant drama. Review.
Back Home – folk horror in which a young man returns from Canada when his estranged mother falls into a coma.
Everyphone Everywhere – zeitesty drama in which three middle-aged friends reunite 25 years after high school as one prepares to go abroad.
In Broad Daylight – drama in which an investigative journalist goes undercover at a home for the disabled.
Mad Fate – mad cap supernatural noir in which a fortune teller and “born psychopath” team up to solve a murder.
Nomad – Heavily censored on its release, Patrick Tam’s 1982 classic stars a young Leslie Cheung as an aimless young man from a wealthy family who spends his time hanging out with friends at the beach until his cousin’s romance with a fugitive from the Japanese Red Army threatens to upset their idle days. Review.
The Sunny Side of the Street – An embittered taxi driver is forced to reflect on his prejudices and relationships after getting into a vendetta with a refugee in Lau Kok-rui’s melancholy drama. Review.
Vital Signs – drama starring Louis Koo as an earnest paramedic.
The White Storm 3: Heaven or Hell – the third installment in Herman Yau’s thematic series starring Louis Koo, Aaron Kwok, and Lau Ching-Wan.

Japan

#Manhole – a salaryman’s moment of triumph is disrupted when he falls down a manhole the night before his wedding in Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s unhinged B-movie thriller. Review.
December – Bereaved parents are confronted by the unresolved past when the woman who killed their daughter appeals her sentence in Anshul Chauhan’s empathetic courtroom drama. Review.
Egoist – a fashion editor reflects on the nature of love after falling for a personal trainer in Daishi Matsunaga’s deeply moving romantic drama. Review.
A Hundred Flowers – An expectant father finds himself confronted with paternal anxiety and past trauma on learning that his mother has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in Genki Kawamura’s adaptation of his own novel. Review.
In Her Room – eerie drama in which a shy dentist falls for a mysterious woman.
Mayhem Girls – pandemic-era drama in which a group of high school girls suddenly develop superpowers.
Motherhood – Ryuichi Hiroki adapts the Kanae Minato novel revolving around the complicated relationship between a mother and a daughter.
Mountain Woman – a young woman walks into the mountains to die but unexpectedly discovers what it is to feel truly human in Takeshi Fukunaga’s bleak folk tale. Review.
Okiku and the World – a samurai’s daughter falls for a lowly manure man in a city on the brink of change in Junji Sakamoto’s touching dramedy. Review.

Malaysia

Abang Adik – drama centring on the relationship between two orphaned young men.

Philippines

12 Weeks – drama in which a woman attempts to secure a safe abortion in a fiercely pro-life culture.
I Love You, Beksman – a flamboyant hairdresser scandalises his family when he comes out as straight after falling for a beauty queen in Percival M. Intalan’s ironic comedy. Review.
Where Is the Lie? – drama in which a transwoman is targeted by cyberbullies.

South Korea

Bear Man – surreal comedy in which two bears managed by the North Korean Institute of Technology disappear one day.
Dream – inspiration sporting drama in which a washed up footballer agrees to coach a team of homeless men.
Extreme Festival – the CEO of a small events planning firm finds herself in the firing line after agreeing to organise the local cultural festival.
Greenhouse – gritty drama starring Kim Seo-hyung as a woman pushed to impossible extremes.
Hail to Hell – black comedy in which a young couple planning to take their own lives decide to get revenge on their bully instead.
The Host – Bong Joon Ho’s classic monster movie.
Killing Romance – madcap comedy in which a former star (Lee Ha-nee) teams up with a student (Gong Myoung) to kill her husband (Lee Sun-kyun).
Phantom – Colonial Era spy thriller meets drawing room mystery in this masterful drama from Lee Hae-young.
Rebound – inspirational sporting drama in which a moribund high school basketball team make their way towards championship glory.
A Tour Guide – a North Korean defector becomes a guide for Chinese tourists in the South while searching for her missing brother.

Singapore

Geylang – crime drama in which a series of cosmic coincidences conspire against residents of Singapore’s red light district.

Taiwan

The Abandoned – horror in which a grieving policewoman investigates a series of murders of migrant workers.
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.
Gaga – an indigenous family finds its relationships strained when the oldest son decides to run for mayor in Laha Mebow’s warmhearted dramedy. Review.
Eye of the Storm – a doctor investigates a mysterious virus.
Marry My Dead Body – 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!
Miss Shampoo – quirky rom-com from Giddens Ko in which a gangster falls for a hairstylist after she hides him from bad guys.

Thailand

Faces of Anne – existential drama in which a woman wakes up on a weird island where her face changes every few minutes.
Kitty the Killer – comic book action comedy in which a rookie teams up with a band of female assassins to take revenge for their mentor’s death.
You & Me & Me – millennial drama in which the relationship between a pair of twins is disrupted when they fall for the same boy.

Vietnam

Glorious Ashes – poetic drama focussing on the lives of three of three women in a poor coastal village.

The New York Asian Film Festival runs from 14th June to 30th July. Full details for all the films are available via the official website where you can also find screening times and ticketing information. You can also keep up with all the latest festival news via the official Facebook Page and Twitter account.

Nomad (烈火青春, Patrick Tam, 1982)

July 13, 2023by Hayley Scanlon

In his 1982 New Wave classic Nomad (烈火青春), director Patrick Tam had intended to reflect on Nietzsche’s Joyful Wisdom along with the concept of the wanderer, a heroic ideal of the emancipated mind which necessitates permanent exile in which it is no longer possible to call any place “home”. It was also he claims a critique of the “mindless embrace of foreign culture” by Hong Kong youth then obsessed with David Bowie and Japan.

The film’s English title refers to the boat owned by the hero’s father which becomes a symbol of the yearning for escape and for the foreign among the young, but is also imbued with an essential irony thanks to its design which recalls the “black ships” that sailed into the bay of Edo and forced Japan to reopen its doors to the world after 200 years of isolation. The original Chinese title, meanwhile, translates as something like “Burning Youth” and strongly recalls Japan’s Sun Tribe movies of the late 1950s which similarly critiqued aimless post-war youth and the corruptions of pervasive American pop culture as embodied by Coca-Cola and jazz music. Tam makes frequent visual reference to Japanese New Wave youth movies such as Nagisa Oshima’s Cruel Story of Youth while the shocking ending (which was not shot by Tam who had envisioned a bloodier showdown aboard the Nomad) also has shades of Ko Nakahira’s seminal chronicle of post-war ennui, Crazed Fruit.

Nomad similarly focusses on a collection of aimless youngsters struggling to find direction in pre-Handover Hong Kong. Louis (Leslie Cheung Kwok-Wing) continues to long for his absent mother and often listens to recordings she once made introducing classical music on the radio while a model of the Nomad sits prominently on a shelf in his room. He has posters of David Bowie on the wall, while his cousin Kathy (Pat Ha Man-Jik) puts on the robes of a Japanese Miko and performs a traditional fan dance. Louis is one of the few young people who does not speak the language, but is later fascinated by the work of a Japanese fashion designer featuring swords and samurai armour that he says, in a moment of foreshadowing, only make him think of ritual suicide.

His life is directly contrasted with that of Pong (Kent Tong Chun-Yip), a young man from a poor family who works as a lifeguard at the local pool which is how he ends up meeting Kathy who in turn fascinates him with her rich girl sense of confidence and invincibility. The desire to find a place of their own is emphasised by the constant frustration their repeated attempts to make love in Pong’s family apartment which everyone has generously agreed to vacate so he can bring a girl home only for his younger brother to prank him and his dad to come home early inviting half the neighbourhood over for mahjong. The couple eventually have sex on the empty top deck of a tram, another symbol of transience, and then repeatedly in several other public locations until the relationship is disrupted by the return of Kathy’s former boyfriend, Shinsuke (Yung Sai-Kit), who has deserted the Japanese Red Army and is now a fugitive ironically looking for safe harbour while on the run.

The Japanese Red Army was a far-left terrorist organisation most active in the Middle East though Shinsuke’s decision to leave it seems to be less to do with a disillusionment with communism than a reawakening of his humanity in which he has decided he can no longer be a part of its bloodiness and violence. Nevertheless, while holed up aboard the Nomad, he explains that he cannot join the other youngsters in their romantic dream of sailing to Arabia because he has rejected exile and is determined to return home and meet his certain death in Japan. The destructive forces have however followed him in the form of an assassin posing as an assistant to a fashion designer, which seems to be allusion a little too on the nose even if it quickly descends into a strange pastiche of samurai ideology otherwise at odds with that of the JRA in which they track Shinsuke down and then instruct him to commit seppuku with the sword he has been carrying all along.

In an earlier fight that led Pong and Louis becoming friends, some young women had needled him that he should try to protect Kathy though she needed no protection in this situation and he was unable to provide it anyway. Something similar happens on the beach though he turns out to be surprisingly adept with a samurai sword when he’s unexpectedly rescued by Tomato (Cecilia Yip Tung), a young woman he met in a cafe after he overheard her desperately trying to dump one boyfriend and not be be dumped by another over two different telephones, who suddenly reemerges with a harpoon gun. It’s Tomato, who had kept a copy of Nietzsche’s The Antichrist given to her by a boyfriend but apparently not read it, that finally remarks on their aimlessness, “we do nothing for society”, only to be countered by Louis who answers, “what society? We are society.”

Briefly at the beach they may find the kind of utopia they’re looking for, lighting the cottage with lanterns and sleeping piled one on top of another under a communal mosquito net in the open air, but just as quickly find that dream shattered by the intrusion of a political reality. This nomadic youth finds itself exiled from its home, dreaming of an impossible escape, caught between the colonial present and a colonial future with half an eye on an old coloniser and fast losing sight of its own identity. Abandoned on a blood-soaked shore, all youth can do is look out in shock and confusion bereft even of hope in a liminal space at once transient and permanent.

Nomad screens at the BFI Southbank on 15th July in its new 4K Director’s Cut as part of Focus Hong Kong.

The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes (夏へのトンネル、さよならの出口, Tomohisa Taguchi, 2022)

July 12, 2023by Hayley Scanlon

A pair of lonely teens begin to find direction in their lives while investigating a mysterious phenomenon in Tomohisa Taguchi’s The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes (夏へのトンネル、さよならの出口, Natsu e no Tunnel, Sayonara no Deguchi). Adapted from the series of light novels by Mei Hachimoku, the film asks if it’s worth sacrificing the present to reclaim the past for an uncertain future, but also has a few things to say about grief and guilt and the necessity of moving on even if in this case a little further ahead than most.

The mysterious “Urashima” tunnel is so named in reference to the classic folk hero who spends a few days with a princess at the Dragon Palace and then returns home to find that it is 100 years later and everyone he knew is dead. The princess gave him a box telling him never to open it but of course he does and suddenly becomes an old man. As high schoolers Kaoru (Oji Suzuka) and Anzu (Marie Iitoyo) discover, the tunnel works in much the same way. A few seconds inside is hours out, though they say that if you reach the end your wishes will be granted. Each desiring something, the pair team up to investigate together and gradually fall in love but are also divided by the contradictory nature of their quests.

Reluctant to reveal the reasons behind her interest in the tunnel, Anzu fears that her desires are trivial in comparison to those of Kaoru who is trying to restore his family by bringing back his little sister Karen (Seiran Kobayashi) who was killed falling from a tree. Kaoru claims that he wants to see the kind of world that Karen had envisaged where everyone was happy, but is also trying to deal with his grief and guilt and looking for the restoration of a sense of stability he once had in his family. Anzu, meanwhile, is insecure in her gifts as an artist and has been rejected by her parents for her desire to make manga like her penniless grandfather. Kaoru tries to convince her that she has talent already but Anzu seems to believe that she needs once in a generation flair in order to be able to make her mark even if they get stuck in the tunnel and emerge hundreds of years later into a world in which manga no longer exists.

But as Kaoru later finds out, the tunnel only lets you take back something you’d lost. It does not grant wishes for something that never belonged to you. Kaoru never really stops to think about the practicalities of his quest such as the increased age difference between himself and Karen or how he’d explain her sudden resurrection, while Anzu doesn’t really reflect on the how meaningless her success would be if didn’t come from her own efforts even as they work together to solve the mystery of the tunnel as a way of working through their individual anxities. Though their first meeting had been frosty, the pair soon bond in their shared loneliness and fractured families but like most teenagers don’t quite have the confidence to say the big things out loud.

Taguchi makes the most of his summer countryside setting capturing the vibrancy of his surroundings from the cool blue sea to the bright yellow sunflowers near the train station while also hinting at the “boring” nature of small-town life in which there’s not much else to do than create your own adventure. Set in 2005, the film also has a meta time slip quality with its flip phones and minidisc players seemingly taking place in a more innocent age if also emphasising that the reason the teens can disappear for three days researching a tunnel is that their respective adults aren’t very bothered about what they’re doing or where they are. Each of them discover what it is they really wanted out of their mystical journey, if otherwise out of sync, as they learn to deal with their grief and insecurity before discovering the exit from the eternal summer of their youth into a less certain adulthood that no longer scares them but instead offers new opportunities amid the newfound solidarity of their togetherness.

The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes opens in UK cinemas on 14th July courtesy of All the Anime.

International trailer (English subtitles)