Tag: 2024

The Killers (더 킬러스, Kim Jong-kwan & Roh Deok & Chang Hang-jun & Lee Myung-se, 2024)

Posted on by

Led by Lee Myung-se, The Killers (더 킬러스) was originally billed as a six-part anthology film featuring different takes on the short story by Ernest Hemingway, but somewhere along the way took a kind of detour and now arrives as a four partner with a looser theme revolving around noir and crime cinema. Frequently referencing the Edward Hopper painting Nighthawks, the film hints at urban loneliness and a haunting sense of futility along with the mythic quality of noir as a tale that tells itself.

At least that’s in part how it is for unreliable the narrator of the first episode, a petty gangster who wakes up in a mysterious bar after being cornered by rival thugs. While in there he meets a similarly lost, middle-aged film director in the middle of a strange date with a fawning young woman who’ve definitely wandered into the wrong place. A sense absurdity is echoed in the fact that the man continues to sit in the bar oblivious to the knife in his back until the bar lady pulls it out for him and exposes the real reason why she lures lonely souls to this strange place out of time. Even so, thanks to her dark initiation the gangster is able to become himself and stand up against the rival thugs who were bullying him with his newfound “feistiness” having overcome something of the futility of black and white, classic noir opening sequence.

That’s something that never really happens for the heroes of part two who are a trio of youngsters trapped in Hell Joseon unable to escape their lives as cut price contract killers working below minimum wage for a chaotic company in which everything has been sub-contracted into oblivion. Ironically, one had dreams of becoming a policeman and another a nun while the third has recently had plastic surgery in the hope of landing an acting gig and claims he’s not in this for the money but to make the world a better place. Seeing their work as a public service, they tell each other that it’s wrong to grumble over their unfair pay because other people get less and are otherwise incapable of standing up for themselves until they take a leaf out of the boss’ book and try a subcontracting of their own which doesn’t quite go to plan.

While the first two episodes had been set in the present day the second two are set during the long years of dictatorship, the first sometime in the 1960s under the rule of President Park as an undercover detective and two men who appear to be unsubtle KCIA agents descend on a noirish, rundown bar with a picture of Nighthawks on the wall waiting for a mysterious fugitive to arrive. They don’t appear to know anything about why their target needs to be caught or who he is save for a daffodil tattoo on his arm and are merely they shady figures of authoritarian power we can infer are hot on the tracks of someone hostile to the regime. In any case, they are they are about to have the tables turned on them in a demonstration of their inefficacy in their power.

It’s the fourth and final piece unmistakably directed by Lee himself, however, that brings the themes to the four as it opens with an allusion to the assassination of President Park as the narrator tells us that it is 1979 and someone sent a bullet into the heart of darkness but the darkness did not die. The two goons who later show up are KCIA thugs working for the new king Chun Doo-hwan come to threaten the denizens of the cafe which include a man called “Smile” because he can’t and a woman called “Voice” because she has none while trapped inside an authoritarian regime. Inhabitants of Diaspora City, a home to the exiled, they have only a small hole to another world which affords them the ability to dream. Relentlessly surreal the segment is marked by Lee’s characteristic visual flair and sense of noirish melancholy that extends all the way out to a world more recognisably our own though no less lonely or oppressive.

The Killers screened as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

A Balloon’s Landing (我在這裡等你, Angel Teng I-Han, 2024)

Posted on by

A dejected Hong Kong writer longs to find the path back to paradise if in the most ironic of ways, but finds something quite different after accidentally being befriended by a young street tough in Teng I-Han’s lowkey queer romance A Balloon’s Landing (我在這裡等你, wǒ zài zhèlǐ děng nǐ). Seemingly inspired by the boy’s love genre, the film is chaste in the extreme and overly subtle in its central love story which seems to borrow heavily from other similarly themed East Asian romances such as Il Mare and Comrades, Almost a Love Story.

Director Peter Chan is in fact name checked several times, while Taipei street tough A-Xiang (Fandy Fan) has a poster of Patrick Tam’s Nomad on his wall which of course features the face of Leslie Cheung who occupies a similar space to that of Teresa Teng in Comrades in connecting the would-be lovers. Cheung tragically took his own life in 2003, the same year writer Tian Yu’s (Terrance Lau) parents were killed, while Tian Yu himself seems to have suicidal thoughts and intends to end his life at a place called The Bay of Vanishing Whales he thought he’d made up for his novel but is informed is real in a letter from a little boy in Taiwan he continues writing to as a kind of pen pal older brother. 

In a way, A-Xiang represents his desire for life, fond saying that there’s “always a solution” and begging him not to die just like one of the letters he received urging him to carry on living because the sender would be waiting for him at the Bay of Vanishing Whales. A-Xiang is also his literal saviour in that they meet when he rescues him from a group of conmen after he got very drunk bar but though their first meeting is sexually charged with both men wandering round in their pants their romance is slow-burn to the point of non-existence. While on road trip to find the mythical bay, the pair grow closer with Tian Yu slowly giving up on the idea of finding it along with the death it represents only for fate to intervene.

At this point the film changes direction in allowing Tian Yu to rewrite his present, no longer in search of death but of love and a way to save A-Xiang in the same way A-Xiang has saved him. At least, A-Xiang becomes a kind of symbolic other self as hinted at in his stories of men as lonely islands casting messages in bottles out into the sea in longing for connection. This sense of isolation may stem from a feeling of otherness born of his sexuality, though the film never clearly defines it, along with the more literal orphanhood and existential loneliness he shares with A-Xiang. 

As expected there is a fated connection between the two men which is more than a little contrived if perfectly in keeping with the genre of romantic melodrama as Tian Yu begins to chase a future rather than the past even while actively rewriting it to engineer a better outcome. It might be tempting to read something more into the connections between these two men each orphaned, floating islands seeking new futures together though the central theme seems to be less romance than desire for life in which Tian Yu is able to overcome his depression and desire for death through his connection with A-Xiang who gives him a new reason for living. 

A-Xiang’s symbolic value as Tian Yu’s desire for life might explain why the relationship between them never sufficiently ignites in what is at least billed as a queer romance though could easily be taken for simple friendship or platonic brotherhood with the only expression of desire longing looks and tentative motions from A-Xiang. In any case, Teng lends the beautiful Taiwanese landscape a note of wistful melancholy, a place of infinite nostalgia in Tian Yu’s mind and an evocation of the paradise he’s seeking that’s simultaneously past and future waiting for parallel lines to cross. The lyricism cannot however overcome the coyness of the central romance that for its potential poeticism remains somewhat obscure, an unrealised desire awaiting its season but also a shift in the times born of a new desire for life rather than the melancholy loneliness of past emptiness.

A Balloon’s Landing screened as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Original trailer (Traditional Chinese / English subtitles)

Bushido (碁盤斬り, Kazuya Shiraishi, 2024)

Posted on by

The hypocrisies of samurai society have led a dejected ronin into prideful penury but there is perhaps a fine line between properness and priggery that he struggles to accommodate. Like his earlier film Blood of Wolves, Kazuya Shiraishi’s Bushido (碁盤斬り, Gobankiri) is a loving homage to a classic genre, in this case jidaigeki, albeit one with a modern twist in which it’s the murkiness of the society and contradictions of its code that make it impossible to live in rather than the innate corruptions of the samurai class. 

Even so, it’s samurai society which has betrayed Kakunoshin Yanagida (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi), now a seal-carving ronin living in a tenement house and months behind on his rent. Largely silent, Yanagida projects an air of calm but also a dangerous tension that hints at a deeply buried rage often echoed in the hellish glow of the candlelight that bathes his face in red. Not a natural gambler, he is nevertheless a Go enthusiast and talented player who gives the impression that he is always several steps ahead of any game in play. 

But that turns out not quite to be the case when he’s blindsided by a series of unexpected events that quickly destabilise his calmly ordered existence. Cast out of his clan after being accused of thievery, he is accused once again of taking 50 ryo from a pawn broker who had become a friend, Genbei (Jun Kunimura). Behind on his rent as he may be, Yanagida would not steal for stealing is beneath the dignity of a samurai and this stain on his honour is more than he can bear. But for all his righteousness we learn that he is also an ironic victim of his own priggishness and responsible for several other men meeting similar fates, cast out of the clan for something Yanagida turned them in for. In his reduced state, he seems to feel guilty and wavers momentarily on hearing the man who framed him for stealing a scroll from his former lord say he did so to gain money to support disenfranchised samurai but is caught between the spirit of samurai integrity and its letter. As his quarry told him, fish cannot live in water that is too clean and his oppressive enforcement of these arbitrary rules did no one any good. 

Yet his seeming righteousness does seem to improve the world around him, proving an epiphany in pawnbroker Genbei who develops a new determination for doing business fair and square after witnessing Yanagida’s conduct at the Go table. The irony is perhaps that everything on the Go board is black and white whereas Edo society is decidedly grey. Even the madam from the Yoshiwara Yanagida and his daughter are on good terms with (Kyoko Koizumi) can switch from wise mother to heartless gang boss in an instant. One moment, she’s giving maternal advice to Yanagida’s daughter Okinu (Kaya Kiyohara) and the next berating a runaway geisha who’s obviously been beaten while her lover has been killed for his transgression. The theft of 10 ryo will also it seems get you killed in this world of heartless rigidity and universal suspicion. 

Yanagida may not be much better in some respects. He is prideful and reckless, endangering himself and his daughter, whom he allows to pawn herself in the Yoshiwara knowing it’s very unlikely they will be able to repay the debt before the New Year deadline seeing nothing other than his obsession with vengeance against the man who wronged him in so many ways, Shibata (Takumi Saito). Shibata is his opposite number, cynical and amoral he subverted the samurai code for his own gain yet in its way perhaps it’s just a rebellion against the kind of austerity a man like Yanagida represented. In the end he can only escape his self-imposed prison by abandoning his rigour and accepting compromise, slashing the Go board with its black and white mentality in two though it leaves him further exiled. He cannot return to the world of samurai, but neither can he live among these ordinary people and like so many jidaigeki heroes seems to be condemned to wandering in this imperfect world. To that extent, the resolution seems much more cheerful than we might have been expecting. Everything works out, no harm done, but there’s a lingering tension even amidst apparent good fortune in a world of constant watchfulness. 

Bushido screened as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Original trailer (no subtitles)

Frankenstein Father (프랑켄슈타인 아버지, Choi Jea-young, 2024)

Posted on by

A teenage boy confronts his paternal legacy but finds it largely hollow in Choi Jae-young’s pointed familial drama, Frankenstein Father (프랑켄슈타인 아버지). Frustrated by his circumstances, the boy begins asking questions about his genetic history in search of an explanation of all his “faults”  but begins to realise that perhaps the faults were not his own in any case and what he really wants is freedom, the right and opportunity to be his own man rather than a reflection of her father’s desires.

Left largely alone after his mother’s death amid the absence of his truck driver father, Young-jae decamps at the home of doctor Chi-sung who illicitly sold his sperm as a medical student 17 years previously. Af first Chi-sung wants nothing to do with the boy but is worried by his attempt to blackmail him, insisting he’ll expose the illegal sperm donation and ruin Chi-sung’s medical career. He sets about trying to disprove hie’s the father, but is finally forced to accept it and there after determines to prove to Young-jae that his “faults” are not his fault and he doesn’t owe him anything as per the contracts he signed with his parents. 

Of course, Chi-sung is also keen to prove himself “faultless”, that his austere life is the correct path because it’s order, rules, and discipline that have allowed him to become what he is today. To that extent, it niggles at him that he could have had a son like Young-jae who is sullen and rebellious. Young-jae describes himself as “dumb,” and has a host of other qualities that dissatisfy him such as shellfish allergy but is perhaps looking for some kind answers about himself and his relationship with Dong-suk, the man who raised him but is also a disappointment in Young-jae’s eyes. A long distance truck driver, Dong-suk is unsophisticated and fond of a drink. He is also controlling, insisting that Young-jae continually check in with him via text and send photos to prove he’s where he should be, and crucially preventing him from doing what he most wants to do which is run.

Running is a symbol of Young-jae’s desire for freedom, but he remains constrained by each father figure. After warming to him, Chi-sung offers him what he wants in promising to get him experimental treatment for his heart condition so he can run again, but soon turns out to be much like Dong-suk insisting he follow his rules and stick rigidly to the plan that he has designed for his sophistication which is also an effort to turn him into a mini Chi-sung. Young-jae is to him an echo of himself for he also grew up with a father who drank and disappointed him. Like Young-jae he too learns for escape as symbolised by his dream of buying a yacht and going to sea that he seems to be continually putting off. 

Yet as Young-jae points out, it wasn’t him who broke when he found out Dong-suk wasn’t his biological father but Dong-suk himself. Chi-sung hints that his decision to use sperm from a A+ donor was informed by insecurity, that he wanted to raise a son who was better than himself though as Dong-suk told his patient human’s can go back to what they once were but can never exceed it. The battle of over paternity of Young-jae isn’t so much a contest of nature vs nurture but a vicarious tussle of masculinity between each of the men who each want to prove themselves through asserting paternal authority over Young-jae and determining the course of his further life.

But Young-jae is almost a man himself and is no longer content to be bound by such corrupted authority. As he later says, he’s no desire to become another of his fathers’ “faults”. Conversely Chi-sung is clearly still trapped by his own father’s legacy and and afraid of the freedom Young-jae chases realising that the fault also did lie with him. In attempting to father Young-jae, he’s also attempting to father himself, insisting Dong-suk raised the boy “wrong” and he must correct him, but perhaps realising he learned a few wrong lessons himself and must make peace with his own past to set himself free while allowing Young-jae to run in a direction of his of choosing no matter the risks to his heart.

Frankenstein Father screens July 25 as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Cha-Cha (チャチャ, Mai Sakai, 2024)

Posted on by

Love can make you do funny things. It can also blind you to the world’s realities and colour the way you interpret the actions of others. At least, that’s how it is for the protagonists of Mai Sakai’s Cha-cha (チャチャ) who are all suffering with unrequited love and unbeknownst to them quite mistaken in their assumptions about the loves of others while otherwise solipsistically trapped in a bubble of frustrated romance.

Sometime narrator Rin (Sawako Fujima) is resentful of colleague Cha-Cha (Marika Ito) who is, ironically, the the total opposite of herself in that she’s free spirited and eccentric each qualities she assumes attract the opposite sex which Rin fears she herself does not. Chiefly she resents her because she has an unrequited crush on the boss, Kato, who is married with children though the interoffice gossip incorrectly suggests Cha-cha only got her job because she’s sleeping with him. According to Cha-cha, she is quite popular with men though describes herself as not being conventionally attractive and thinks men’s interest in her is usually more to do with conquest than romance. She develops a small crush on a handsome chef, Raku (Taishi Nakagawa), who smokes on their rooftop but though she ends up moving into his ramshackle home he does not appear to be interested in her and may in fact be suffering unrequited love for someone else. 

Because of all of these emotions can be awkward or embarrassing, no one really talks about them openly which obviously gives rise to a series of misunderstandings about the feelings and actions of others. Jealous of Cha-Cha, Rin ends up stalking her to find out if she really is sleeping with the boss though as she herself is not willing to be an adulteress it seems like something of a moot point. Cha-Cha likes the chef precisely because they have nothing in common and are in fact total opposites, much as she’s also the total opposite of Rin. She likes the idea that they could lead complementary existences because while she hates melon but likes cucumber, he likes cucumber and hates melon. 

She is also possibly drawn to him because they share a certain kind of darkness, admitting that she has a desire to lick the blood of the person she’s dating while he has a secret stash of lenses saved from the animal heads they sometimes get at the restaurant. Ironically, this shared quality may signal doom for their romance or ultimately force them together in a mutual act of settling for second best when their ideal romantic plans are disrupted by an unexpectedly extreme series of events. The most ironic thing is that the only genuine romance where feelings seem to be mutually returned, if imperfectly and with hints of exploitation, is doubted by others and motivates its own series of misapprehensions and petty jealousies. 

The strange events are at times narrated by a utility pole and telephone box who alone stand sturdy amid the changing and emotionally confusing environment of the present society. They are amused by the bizarre goings on among humans who seem incapable of being clear or honest in their romantic desires and often entirely misread the body language and behaviour of those around them to suit their own narrative. Rin thinks Cha-Cha probably is sleeping with the boss because they ignore each other, while a co-worker who admires her thinks she dislikes the boss because she avoids looking at him and assumes she likes another colleague, Aoki, ironically because she looks at him without bashfulness. 

It’s all par for the course in cha cha cha of love, and despite the dark turn the narrative may eventually take Sakai maintains an air of absurdist normality aided by quirky production design and a sense of wonder for a world that remains remains strange and difficult to understand, the protagonists individually blinkered views not withstanding. In any case, Rin’s eventual acceptance of Cha-Cha leads her to a desire to live “a more impulsive life” that will probably never be fulfilled but in some ways perhaps love is better as an unrequited fantasy than compromised reality if only it did not become an all encompassing obsession. As an imperfect man cheerfully in love tells her, perhaps Cha-Cha should focus on how to make herself happy rather than chasing an illusionary dream of love though in the end perhaps it’s all the same anyway. 

Cha-Cha screened as part of this year’s JAPAN CUTS.

Trailer (English subtitles)

The Cursed Land (แดนสาป, Panu Aree & Kong Rithdee, 2024)

Posted on by

The architecture professor teaching a young woman in Panu Aree and Kong Rithdee’s The Cursed Land (แดนสาป) says that a house is like a machine with a person inside, but what’s inside the house at the film’s centre is not quite human at all but a supernatural creature who like the house itself seems straddle a divide both cultural and spiritual while standing itself at the nexus of the many layered historical curses which have given it its dark legacy.

It’s in part a rejection of this difference and lack of respect for culture that creates a series of problems for Mit (Ananda Everingham), a middle-aged engineer moving into this rural backwater on the outskirts of Bangkok. Despite receiving a very serious warning to get rid of anything that’s in the house, he tears off a series of talismans thereby releasing some very dark energy and destabilising his new environment. Mit is also suspicious of those around him and does not really make much of an attempt to make friends with the local community who are largely Muslim. Though he may not think so, it is Mit who is the intruder here, an outsider walking into a traditional environment and finding himself isolated despite the ostensible friendliness of some of the locals to whom Mit takes offence after being told not to leave his dog outside because some of the Muslim community dislike them. 

But then again, Mit also seems to be a compromised figure apparently still suffering from shock and confusion some time after a car accident that killed his wife. He complains that his medication has been misplaced due to the move while seemingly increasingly paranoid and unreasonable. We also get hints that Mit’s previous life may not have been plain sailing either and part of his stress is down to a need to prove himself in his new job. He is in his way haunted by the car accident and struggling to overcome his guilt and regret. A shamaness later describes him as “weak-minded” and therefore a prime target for an evil spirit. 

This also seems to be implicitly reflected of an internal absence of the spiritual as Mit has renounced Buddhism and seems suspicious of Islam. His daughter May (Jennis Oprasert) eventually calls in a Brahmin to exorcise the house, installing Buddhist shrines and other talismans as if overwriting the those of the local muslim community though this only causes more problems. Later, May consults a Buddhist priest but is told that he can’t help because the problem is on a different system though she’s also told something similar by other members of the community. Running underneath the conflict between Buddhist and Muslim culture is echo of a much older spirituality in the references to “black magic” and shamans. 

What May learns is that this land has been cursed and counter cursed many times over, though they do perhaps manage to exorcise one particularly problematic spirit in literally digging up the past to learn the history of the house and that of the entities who seem to inhabit it but there are many other curses yet to be undone on this patch of scorched land that exists in a nexus between cultures, part of both and neither. What emerges is a kind of co-existence and a crossing of the streams as they must in the end marshal all of the spiritual powers to counter the  danger presented by this extremely disgruntled spirit. 

Panu Aree and Kong Rithdee conjure an atmosphere of intense eeriness rooted in a classic haunted house movie aided by the gothic environment of the Western-style home itself standing alone and isolated, not really part of a community yet not totally independent. What emerges is a kind of integration, the house as a machine with people inside it creating a home through diverse community and entrenched support systems that allow even the “weak-minded” Wit to shakes off some of his demons and begin to move forward with his life. Perhaps the key really is not to throw anything away, because everything belongs in the house and the house belongs to everything. Attempts at exclusion only invite fear and acrimony that cannot but eat away the foundations of a home built on cursed land.

The Cursed Land screened as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

For Alice (給愛麗絲, Chow Kam Wing, 2024)

Posted on by

“I don’t know if I’m really lucky or really unlucky,” a young woman wonders after a series of narrow escapes amid the otherwise dismal circumstances of her life in Chow Kam Wing’s debut feature, For Alice (給愛麗絲). A lament for failed fatherhood, Chow plays with noir tropes and the legacy of classic Hong Kong cinema in his neon vistas of despair but eventually discovers a kind of catharsis even as the absent patriarch can redeem himself only in his absence.

Shuang has spent his life in and out of prison and evidently chose to not to maintain contact with his wife and daughter during his latest stretch. The titular Alice is like her namesake lost in the wonderland of contemporary Hong Kong though she named herself for the song and is doing her best to overcome the many problems in her life many of which stem from her relationship with her often absent mother and her string of problematic boyfriends including the latest one, a tailor, who is sexually abusing her. When her mother disappears yet again on a gambling trip to Macau she decides to run away, intending to stay with a friend and sleeping rough when it doesn’t pan out. She meets Shuang, she thinks, by chance sensibly wary but also grateful for the kindness of a stranger. 

As it turns out, her mother may have had a reason for all those gambling trips and it isn’t all that different from Shuang’s for his life of crime in that they are both doing it for Alice while constantly frustrated by the socio-economic realities of contemporary Hong Kong. Now in his 60s, Shuang wants to make amends and live a more law-abiding kind of life while redeeming himself as a father but struggles to find a foothold while slowly but anonymously building a paternal relationship with Alice who is facing similar problems to those he faced as a young man. Longing to escape her circumstances she sets her sights on independence and is tempted by criminality, ironically suggesting she will become a smuggler or deal drugs to support herself even as Shuang counsels her against it, encouraging her to pursue her education so she doesn’t end up like him. He didn’t have a choice, he explains, but she does and could make a better life for herself. 

But she’s still constrained by an overly patriarchal social system as she finds herself scrambling when her teacher wants to talk to her parents to discuss her smoking on school premises. Who could she possibly ask with her mother absent and the man in the position of a step-father actively harmful and in no position to help? Unbeknownst to her, Shuang accepts his paternal role and offers a genuine apology for his failed fatherhood, his irresponsible absence and its effects on the life of his daughter who was then left unprotected, vulnerable to life’s vagaries and the impossibilities of a stratified society. Yet in the end the only way he can help her is to damn himself, accept his choices and his absence and do what he can for Alice from afar. 

Chow’s Hong Kong is place of constant danger and ever present futility filled with dank corridors, rundown buildings, and neon-lit streets. Yet there is something resonant about Alice’s resilience and desire for freedom while accepting the friendship, help and support of a friendly neighbour adopting a less oppressive paternal role that aims, like the bird in bottle, to set his daughter free both of his own destructive legacy and the constraints of the situation she finds herself in. A parallel is seen in the life of Shuang’s friend, Jiu, again fixing his sights on one last job to provide a better future for his family but at the same time risking it knowing that it may mean forfeiting it entirely. Nevertheless, Shuang redeems his paternity in its denial, an act both of self-sacrifice and revelation in which he restores to Alice a more positive paternal legacy along with a sense of love and support otherwise absent from her life as a young woman largely alone in an often hostile environment.

For Alice screened as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Blue Period (ブルーピリオド, Kentaro Hagiwara, 2024)

Posted on by

An ennui-ridden teen finds the world opening up to him after he discovers the power of art yet fears he can’t live up to his new epiphany in Kentaro Hagiwara’s adaptation of the manga by Tsubasa Yamaguchi, Blue Period (ブルーピリオド). Less about art itself, the film presents its hero with the cowardice of conformity, challenging him above all to know himself and wield his selfhood like a weapon in a world that can at times be unforgiving.

Even so, Yatora (Gordon Maeda) is a model student who gets good grades and is known for being well-mannered but secretly he’s filled with emptiness and has largely been just going through the motions. In his opening voice over, he relates that he does what he has to do, but declares himself unfulfilled and directionless. Unexpectedly captivated by a fellow student’s painting, he’s confronted by the power of art and the freedom it offers vowing to get into prestigious art school Tokyo University of the Arts.

The constraints he feels are partly economic in that his parents can’t afford a private university so he has to do his best to get into a public arts school while his mother seems dead against the idea of him going into the arts because it doesn’t put food on the table. Yatora parrots back similar lines describing art school as a pointless waste of time but is quickly taken to task by fellow student Yuka (Fumiya Takahashi) who challenges his tendency towards conformity and needles him into independent thoughts and action.

Yuka is also contrained by conservative social codes in that she dresses in a female uniform though many still call her by her male name, Ryuji. Though the pair have a rather spiky relationship, it’s Yuka’s attempts to challenge him that bounce Yatora towards discovering his true self which as it happens is done through embracing his least palatable elements. As Yuki correctly observes, his good boy persona and tendency towards hard work are just masks for his inner insecurity.

Yet as he’s also told, art isn’t just about talent but requires passion and tenacity which in its way makes it a perfect fit for Yatora’s hard-working nature as he buckles down to become a promising artist in the run up to his high school exams. As he later reflects, others may be more talented than him but they can’t make the things that he makes because the point is they come from himself. His early pieces are criticied for their superficiality, that he only sees what’s directly in front him rather than learning to see the world in other, more unique ways and engage with it on an individual level but through his artistic journey he discovers new ways of seeing along with his true self in all its complexity. 

His newfound desire to follow his heart places him at odds with prevailing social codes which favour the sensible though it also spurs others on to do the same, one of his best friends deciding to become a pastry chef rather than get a regular salaryman job hinting at a greater desire for personal fulfilment among the young. Often poetic in his imagery such the sparks that fly from Yatora’s nascent artwork or the comforting blue of the Shibuya twilight that becomes his safe space, Hagiwara sometimes paints Yatora’s quest like a shonen manga with a series of bosses to beat in Yatora’s various rivals and challenges most which teach him something about himself that spurs him on to continue chasing his artistic dreams while the exams themselves are also mental exercises of strategy and thinking outside the box to unlock a particular kind of self-expression. There is something quite refreshing, however, in the fact that Yatora’s only real rival is himself in his ongoing quest for skills and self-knowledge, earnestly applying himself to master his craft eager only for the places his artistry will take him both mentally and physically and no longer so dissatisfied with the world around him but filled with a new curiosity and the confidence in himself to continue exploring it.

Blue Period screened in New York as part of this year’s JAPAN CUTS.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Customs Frontline (海關戰線, Herman Yau, 2024)

Posted on by

Who knew life as a customs official could be so dangerous? Those at the centre of Herman Yau’s high octane drama certainly do put themselves on the front line, facing constant threats of violence as they attempt to protect Hong Kong from nefarious goods and shady businessmen. The crisis in this case is, however, more international in nature as a Hong Kong corporation appears to be supplying an African warlord with seriously high tech equipment in exchange for diamonds. 

A mild political point is made that the world largely ignores conflicts in Africa, the warlord explaining that he needs all these weapons to defend himself because no one else is going to and those that do come to him largely do so for reasons of exploitation, including Dr Raw who acts as their supplier. The customs guys get dragged into it when a boat sails into their waters illegally and thereafter become determined to recover the MacGuffin of a high tech navigation device apparently stolen from the Thai army who would quite like it back. The gang are aided in their quest by a couple of Thai Interpol officers including Ying (Cya Liu) who helpfully speaks fluent Mandarin. 

Meanwhile, Customs is divided by internal polices as two divisions vie for control over the project while plotting their ascension to the soon to be vacated post of deputy commissioner. Veteran officer Cheung (Jacky Cheung) is raked over the coals by brash supervisor Kwok (Francis Ng) and, unbenkownst to him in a romantic relationship with his rival, Athena (Karena Lam). His parter Lai (Nicholas Tse) is meanwhile nursing a degree of heartbreak having broken up with team member Katie (Michelle Yim) a year previously only to hear that she is now engaged to marry someone else. 

Perhaps surprisingly, these interpersonal dynamics largely fall by the wayside and are never dealt with again. However, the film does get into some depth with Cheung’s mental illness which it suggests is largely due to the stress of the job and has turned him into two quite different people. Somewhat insensitively, the film further stigmatises metal illness in its implications regarding Cheung’s career and emotional wellbeing with constant shots of his medication and the suggestion that he is not really up to the job. 

For the most part, however, the Customs division end up in a series of firefights and car chases eventually trying to protect the son of an industrialist (Carlos Chan) who died in suspicious circumstances after trying to sever ties with smugglers. They’re strafed in an African compound, and engage in daredevil stunts trying to outrun the bad guys with combat skills that seem incongruous with their role as customs officials. The earnest Lai runs around punching bad guys in the name of justice to heal his broken heart while otherwise failing to bond with plucky Interpol agent Ying who still ends up as a damsel in distress despite her obvious skills though her chief manoeuvre is a honeytrap, using poisoned lipstick to knock out the chief arms dealer.

The film may hint at a dissatisfaction with inequality and consumeristm along with a healthy mistrust for large, family-owned corporations but otherwise fails to follow through. Cheng dreams of a place in the sun, a house by the sea for Athena where they could leave the stressful world of customs and intelligence behind but also seems resentful of her ambition asking her if she’d choose a quiet life with him over a shot at becoming deputy commissioner and annoyed when she replies that she hopes she can do both, achieving her career goals and then enjoying the rest of her life in a peaceful retirement at Cheung’s side. It may be this sense of hopelessness that drives him, realising he can’t attain what he really wants in the elusive career success denied him because of his reluctance to play the game along with the lack of financial power it affords him leaving him unable to buy that house by the sea or give Athena what he thinks she wants (but probably doesn’t, at least in the way he wants to give it to her). Though falling flat in terms of its interpersonal drama, the action scenes are at least exciting and well-designed even if the whole is somewhat hollow in its continual lack of bite.

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

Original trailer (Traditional Chinese / English subtitles)

The Box Man (箱男, Gakuryu Ishii, 2024)

Posted on by

Those who obsess over the Box Man, become the Box Man, in Gakuryu Ishii’s adaptation of the Kobo Abe novel. Yet the unnamed hero’s problem is that he feels himself unable to become “the real thing” and is thereafter trapped inside a labyrinth while forever seeking an exit. It’s never clear to him, or to us, if the cardboard box he wears is really just that or something imbued with a supernatural power that actively masks his identity even from himself.

Tellingly, the only named character is a woman, Yoko (Ayana Shiramoto), who seems to exist outside of the box. She appears to be free, confident, aware of all she is and apparently certain of her identity. The Box Man, or perhaps “a” Box Man, meanwhile, is known only as “myself,” a former photographer (Masatoshi Nagase) who almost pities those who target him in memory of the Box Man who once infected and cursed him to the same fate. Watching the city through the tiny letterbox slit, he remains a step away from our world and later refers to the box as the entrance to some other place suggesting that it’s really we who are trapped on the other side of the cardboard.

He advances something similar when he in effect turns the box inside out, walling himself inside a single room by covering the windows and doors to box out the world but not really finding escape. Still, others seem to covet the title of Box Man, those also without concrete identities but going by names such as Fake Doctor (Tadanobu Asano) and the General (Koichi Sato), both of whom are apparently interested in the Box Man and tracking his every move. It seems they believe there can only be one real, authentic Box Man allowed, but become increasingly uncertain which of them is “real”. The notes the Box Man is keeping become key to his identity, but like a metaphor for the unseen hand of fate, one points out that perhaps someone else has written them out for them, Myself lamenting that the author has written a better version of himself than he ever could. 

There is something undeniably absurd about the way the Box Men scuttle around, occasionally sticking their ams out of the box’ flaps while arguing over the true identify of the Box Man despite having described the mystery as boring. The Fake Doctor seems to want to destroy the box, as if he wanted to obliterate it perhaps in an attempt to destroy the image of a mask to avoid the suggestion that he has one himself, while it remains unclear if this would free the other Box Man or trap him further while Fake Doctor would take his place. When Myself killed the Box Man before him, a mask may have been what he wanted. A photographer sick of seeing the world and longing to be free of it, to shed himself of an identity he no longer wanted only to search for it once again even as others try to crush it from without. 

The Box Man comes to the conclusion that it’s the world that should be boxed away, but of course it’s all the same. When he remarks that Yoko, after leaving their sanctuary, did not really escape but has simply gone to a deeper level, it’s reflective if his own desire to find meaning in a meaningless world. He claims that he dreams of a world yet to begin but is finally confronted perhaps by anonymity in witnessing a row full of Box Men apparently all also devoid of personality which might in an ironic sense tell him who is if only in reflection. 

Strange and surreal, Ishii lends an edge of absurdity to the strange existence of the Box Man while perhaps aligning the letterbox frame of his open window to that of the cinema screen and the artificial reality that surrounds us. In any case, it seems the other world the Box Man longed to enter was that of the self, his interior life expanding inside the box as a small galaxy he has somehow become lost inside, no longer able to see beyond himself but trapped inside an “exitless black hole” looking for a path to authenticity away from this “fantasy” in which everything is “fake” save the potential salvation of a distant guiding light.

The Box Man screens in New York July 13 as part of this year’s JAPAN CUTS.

Original trailer (English subtitles)