New York Asian Film Fest Final Line-Up
Dragon Dynasty and Subway Cinema
p r e s e n t
NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2007
June 22 – July 8
June 22 – July 5 @ the IFC Center
(323 Sixth Avenue, between 3rd and 4th Streets)
June 5 – 8 @ Japan Society
(333 East 47th Street, between 1st and 2nd Avenues)
Full write-ups are available at:
http://www.subwaycinema.com/
We can't be destroyed! This is the final line-up for the New York Asian Film
Fest and it's the best one we've had yet. More guests, more movies, more
fun! The schedule will be announced this Thursday, June 7 and tickets will
go on sale right afterwards!
Screeners are available. Please contact Grady Hendrix at this email address
or at 917-405-7477
Stills are available as publication-ready, 300 dpi JPGs at:
http://www.subwaycinema.com/stills/nyaff07/
SPECIAL GUESTS
Director E. J-Yong of DASEPO NAUGHTY GIRLS will be attending
Director Shusuke Kaneko of DEATH NOTE and DEATH NOTE: THE LAST NAME will be
attending
Director Sion Sono of EXTE will be attending
Director Han Jae-Rim of THE SHOW MUST GO ON will be attending
SPECIAL EVENTS
The NYAFF has partnered with Korea's Mise-en-scene's Genres Film Festival
(MGFF) to bring over their award-winning horror, comedy, melodrama, sci-fi
and action short films, selected by MGFF's committee and jury members,
including directors Park Chan-Wook (I'm A Cyborg, But That's OK), Ryu
Seung-Wan (City of Violence), E. J-Yong (Dasepo Naughty Girls), Kim
Dae-Seung (Traces of Love), Bong Joon-Ho (The Host) and Kim Jee-Woon (A
Bittersweet Life). Presented with the generous support of the Korean
Cultural Service New York.
From Lahore with Gore – July 3 sees the New York debut of HELL'S GROUND,
Pakistan's first splatter film, produced by the good people at the Mondo
Macabro DVD label. The director and producers will be at the screening with
a clip reel highlighting the wildest Pakistani exploitation movies from the
70's and 80's and there will be big hugs for audience members who are
suddenly terrified to realize that Pakistan is infested with zombies and
hairy monsters.
THE LINE-UP
THE BANQUET (2006, CHINA) - Zhang Ziyi stars in an epic adaptation of Hamlet
brought to you by the entire crew behind Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon:
action ace Yuen Wo-ping, acclaimed composer Tan Dun and Academy Award
winning designer Tim Yip. Razor sharp swords, miles of billowing silk and
sumptuous sets served up with a side order of scorpion venom.
(Followed by an after-party at the IFC Center Cafe with plenty of
free-flowing Kirin Beer!)
GETTING HOME (2006, China) – a dirt-poor construction worker has made a
deathbed promise: he'll take his buddy's body home for burial. Problem: he's
flat broke and thousands of miles from his destination. Solution: he'll buy
the corpse a bus ticket! Zhang Yang (Shower) delivers a road movie that
reminds us that it's not the destination that matters, it's the journey.
Especially if your traveling companion is a corpse.
TROUBLE MAKERS (2007, China) – a rude country cousin to all those artsy
fartsy flicks coming out of China, TROUBLE MAKERS elbows its way to the
table, belches loudly and shouts dirty jokes while slamming down rice wine.
A bawdy send-up of High Noon with a mousy Party Secretary standing in for
Gary Cooper as the reluctant hero out to rid his village of the four
bullying Xiong Brothers who have seized it in their iron claw of corruption
and crime.
AFTER THIS OUR EXILE (2006, Hong Kong) - the triumphant return of director
Patrick Tam after a 17-year absence, this heartbreaking film about fathers
and sons is the most acclaimed Chinese film of 2006 (10 major awards and
counting). Tam is Wong Kar-wai's mentor, and he edited Wong's classic Days
of Being Wild as well as Johnnie To's Election. Shot with off-handed
glamour by Mark Lee Pin-bing (In the Mood for Love) this is the story of a
young boy (Gouw Ian Iskander) watching his family being torn apart in slow
motion by his self-destructive, endlessly raging dad (Aaron Kwok).
DOG BITE DOG (2006, Hong Kong) - spanning one brutal day and night, Dog
Bite Dog is a punch in the mouth that drags audiences over the finish line
panting, sweaty and exhilarated. It kicks off with a filthy, Cambodian
hitman (Edison Chen, channeling Quasimodo) pulling off a kill for hire in
Hong Kong, and running into a tormented cop (Sam Lee) and it devolves into a
no-holds-barred essay on the law of the jungle written in bullets and
bloodshed.
EXILED (2006, Hong Kong) - imagine every action movie made in the last 20
years compressed into a single, super-cool Spaghetti Western set in modern
day Macau, and you've got Exiled, the latest movie from Johnnie To (Triad
Election, Breaking News). The most majestic ode to hard men making hard
choices since The Wild Bunch.
HARD BOILED (1992, Hong Kong) - a 15th Anniversary screening of what might
just be the most influential action movie ever made. John Woo's farewell to
Hong Kong takes you back to a world where Chow Yun-fat (Curse of the Golden
Flower) was a god, Tony Leung (In the Mood for Love) was a young punk, and
John Woo movies were like a mind-blowing bullet in the head.
BIG BANG LOVE, JUVENILE A (2006, Japan) - what the - ? Just when you think
you've figured out Takashi Miike he runs you over with a movie like this.
Aggressively experimental, exquisitely beautiful, it's about two men in
prison whose romance ends in murder. There's also a Mayan pyramid in the
basement and a rocket ship warming up its engines outside. A poem, an elegy
for lost boys, a provocation and a swooning romance.
(Co-presented with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)
DEATH NOTE and DEATH NOTE: THE LAST NAME (2006, Japan) – Japan's box office
one-two punch of 2006, these goth dramas are twisty cat n'mouse thrillers
that feel like a net-savvy teenager has taken an Agatha Christie novel and
forcibly cross-bred it with an Edgar Allan Poe short story. Based on the
best-selling manga and anime, these two live-action films sucked up cash all
over Asia, telling the tale of a notebook that causes the death of anyone
whose name is written on its pages.
(Co-presented with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)
EXTE (2007, Japan) – it's Chiaki Kuriyama (Go Go Yubari in Kill Bill) as a
hairstylist versus killer hair extensions in this horror flick from Sion
Sono (Suicide Club). Striking a perfect balance between outright parody and
skin-prickling terror, with character actor Ren Osugi (Nightmare Detective)
doing a weird cheer on the sidelines, this movie will finally teach you what
it really means to have a bad hair day.
(Co-presented with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)
FREESIA: BULLETS OVER TEARS (2006, Japan) – an ice cold, near-future sci fi
flick about a Japan where revenge is not only legal, it's a licensed
business where frosty eyed killers punch the tickets of their victims with
all the impersonal efficiency of a city official stamping forms. Bloody and
bleak, this is a sci fi story with brains – most of which wind up splattered
on the wall.
(Co-presented with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)
GAMERA THE BRAVE (2006, Japan) – the latest installation in the series about
everyone's favorite giant, flying, radioactive turtle, this is a
family-friendly gateway drug to get the anklebiter in your life hooked on
giant monsters. Gamera is the Rocky Balboa of the kaiju world, a giant
monster who takes as much, if not more, punishment than he dishes out, and
his fighting spirit is reborn in this not-quite-for-kids, kid-friendly
flick.
(Presented in association with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)
HULA GIRLS (2006, Japan) – sweeping the Japanese Academy Awards (“Best
Film”, “Best Director”, “Best Screenplay”, “Best Supporting Actor”) HULA
GIRLS is a maximum strength cinematic antidepressant. A small town in the
60's builds a Hawaiian theme park to save itself and they conscript a gang
of local losers to be the hula dancers. Director Lee Sang-Il knocks the dust
off this formula and makes it shine like a diamond.
MEMORIES OF MATSUKO (2006, Japan) – Citizen Kane meets Moulin Rouge. Most
movies celebrate winners, but this lush musical unleashes a tidal wave of
chorus lines, special effects, and glamorous, glittering sets to tell the
story of Matsuko, who never loses faith in love no matter how many times
she's disappointed by life. From the director of Kamikaze Girls, check your
cynicism at the door and prepare to have your heart jump started.
(Co-presented with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)
NIGHTMARE DETECTIVE (2006, Japan) – Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: the Iron Man;
Vital) makes his most mainstream movie to date about a guy who can walk
through dreams, a cop desperate to prove herself and a self-mutilating
psychic vampire who engineers a series of grisly suicides. Psychedelic and
psychotic, it's the strongest movie yet from
writer/director/actor/editor/cinematographer Shinya Tsukamoto.
(Co-presented with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)
RETRIBUTION (2006, Japan) – master of horror, Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure,
Pulse), dredges up the waterlogged corpse of J-horror and mutates it into
something truly terrifying. Koji Yakusho (Babel, Shall We Dance?) is a cop
and also the main suspect in a series of mysterious drownings taking place
in a decaying Tokyo. The kind of movie that crawls under your skin and
starts to itch.
YO-YO GIRL COP (2006, Japan) – a trash-tastic guilty pleasure, like
something you'd find hidden behind your dad's mouldering Playboy magazines.
Kenta Fukasaku (son of Kinji Fukasaku of Battle Royale) directs the most
recent incarnation of the 80's cult TV show about delinquent schoolgirls who
fight international terrorists with razor-sharp yo-yos. Like the mutant love
child of Hello Kitty and 24.
ZEBRAMAN (2004, Japan) – never released in America, Takashi Miike's ode to
fandom is a joyous, family-friendly explosion of jellied aliens, crab-headed
killers, homemade superheroes and possessed schoolkids. Sho Aikawa (in his
100th performance) is a loser schoolteacher whose only solace is his fanboy
obsession with obscure 70's superhero, Zebraman. And then, of course, aliens
attack.
AACHI & SSIPAK (2006, Korea) - eight years in the making, this animated
blockbuster has horrified critics and delighted audiences around the world,
and no studio is brave enough to release it. A sci-fi action epic about a
world powered by poo, this is a vertiginous slide down a swirling toilet
bowl of bad taste full of constipated smurfs with AK-47's, hallucinogenic
laxatives, eye-popping action and a 600 mph violation of corporate
copyright.
THE CITY OF VIOLENCE (2006, Korea) - packed with attacking break dancers
and BMX bandits, this stripped-down, old school action flick is the latest
movie from Korea's master of onscreen mayhem, Ryu Seung-Wan (Arahan, Crying
Fist) who teams up with Korea's master stuntman and action choreographer,
Jeong Du-Hong (Tae Guk Ki, Shiri, The Foul King) to punch out the lights
with this two-fisted pulp rocket.
CRUEL WINTER BLUES (2006, Korea) – Sol Kyoung-Gu (Oasis, Peppermint Candy)
is one of the three actors who take this script in their teeth and tear it
up. He plays a rabid, middle-aged gangster killing time in a hick town while
waiting to knife the man who killed his best friend. And of course, he
passes his days bonding with his victim's clueless mother. As serious as a
head-on collision, this flick is totally uncompromising.
DASEPO NAUGHTY GIRLS (2006, Korea)
A full-blown musical about “Useless High School” where the kids are ditching
class to visit the VD clinic, turning tricks and singing dirty karaoke. It's
a smutty, satirical send-up of high school movies where the ultimate crime
is a closed mind, from the director of Korea's version of Dangerous
Liaisons, EJ Yong. A candy-colored carnival of kinky sex and carefree
perversion, it'll leave you feeling minty fresh, like you've just had a
naughty shower.
I'M A CYBORG, BUT THAT'S OK (2006, Korea) - not many romantic comedies
begin with a suicide attempt and end with its two lovebirds happily trying
to detonate a nuclear device, but not many romantic comedies are directed by
Park Chan-Wook (JSA, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy) either. In this
movie, his Romeo (mega-celebrity, Rain) is a kleptomaniac and his Juliet
(Lim Su-Jeong) is a woman who believes she's is a cyborg with machine guns
in her fingers and battery level lights in her toes.
.
MIRACLE ON FIRST STREET (2007, Korea) – the number two biggest grossing
movie of the year in Korea, this is a Frank Capra movie gone seriously
wrong. A property developer sends in a bunch of gangsters to force the
residents of a run-down neighborhood to move. Normally this would result in
hilarious hijinks and life lessons. Here it results in hilarious hijinks,
suicides, self-immolation and savage beatdowns administered by a young woman
who wants to be a boxer.
MISE EN SCENE GENRE FILM FESTIVAL SHORT FILM THROWDOWN!
(2006, Korea) - Korea's greatest directors (Park Chan-Wook, Ryu Seung-Wan,
EJ Yong and more) have teamed up to curate the Mise En Scene Genre Short
Film Festival where they pick the best comedy, horror, action, sci fi and
romance short films and now they're bringing the best of the fest to New
York City. Finally, movies that aren't 3 hours long.
NEVER BELONGS TO ME (2006, Korea) - from the director of the cult film
Teenage Hooker Becomes Killing Machine in Daehakroh comes the weirdest movie
in this year's line-up, an experimental art film freak-out about half-tiger
criminals, cyborg hookers, Dr. Hell and a man with a machine gun in his
pants. Yes, it freaks us out, too. You've been warned.
THE SHOW MUST GO ON (2007, Korea) - fresh out of Cannes! Song Kang-Ho (star
of The Host) delivers the performance of his career as a minor league
gangster trying to land the first big deal of his life while his family
falls apart around him. Massive criminal setpieces unfold in the background
while the human drama in the foreground is so sharply observed that it cuts
like a straight razor.
TRACES OF LOVE (2006, Korea) – pitch-perfect melodrama, distilled to its
purest essence and offered to the audience like a refreshing sip from a
mountain stream. A young couple watches their future shatter when a
real-life Seoul disaster kills one of them, and the other tries to pick up
the pieces a decade later. Proof positive that in Korea, making perfect
melodramas is an exact science.
DYNAMITE WARRIOR (2006, Thailand) - Dan Chupong (Born to Fight) is a masked
thief who flies through the air on homemade rockets and cracks skulls with
Mach 3 elbow drops, looking for the tattooed man who killed his parents. A
kickboxing pinata made of madness and candy-crammed full of wizards, berserk
giants and jaw-dropping action choreography by Panna Rittikrai (The
Protector, Ong Bak). It's a summer blockbuster that'll boil your brain like
hot lava.
“FROM LAHORE WITH GORE” featuring HELL'S GROUND (2006, Pakistan) -
(2006, Pakistan) - a one-night-only celebration of Pakistani exploitation
movies! We'll be screening HELL'S GROUND, Pakistan's first gore film, which
plays like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre meets the Taliban, as well as
presenting a clip reel showcasing the mondo madness of Pakistani
exploitation flicks from the 70's and 80's. See the groovy side of Pakistan,
where ten-foot-tall marijuana plants grow wild, mace-swinging madmen crush
teenage skulls and zombies – midget, Muslim zombies – want to eat your
brains.
About the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF)
Now in its sixth year, NYAFF is America's leading festival of popular Asian
cinema. To date, the Festival has featured over 100 films from China, Hong
Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Thailand, including 6
International premieres, 17 North American premieres, 23 U.S. premieres, and
over 50 New York premieres.
About Dragon Dynasty
Dragon Dynasty showcases cutting-edge presentations of significant classic
and contemporary Asian Cinema for the home entertainment market. Combining
elevated production values with dynamic creative execution, each Dragon
Dynasty product will extend a compelling invitation to experience the
world's most exciting action genre like never before.
About JAPAN CUTS – Festival of New Japanese Film
To learn more about Japan Society's JAPAN CUTS – Festival of New Japanese
Film, July 5-July 15, visit www.japansociety.org.
About Mise en Scene Genre Short Film Festival
Now in its sixth year, MGSFF is one of the most prestigious short film
festivals in Korea, with the exclusive focus on genre short films. The
Festival's main objective is to promote talented young Korean filmmakers,
and to serve as their launching pad for careers in the film industry.
p r e s e n t
NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2007
June 22 – July 8
June 22 – July 5 @ the IFC Center
(323 Sixth Avenue, between 3rd and 4th Streets)
June 5 – 8 @ Japan Society
(333 East 47th Street, between 1st and 2nd Avenues)
Full write-ups are available at:
http://www.subwaycinema.com/
We can't be destroyed! This is the final line-up for the New York Asian Film
Fest and it's the best one we've had yet. More guests, more movies, more
fun! The schedule will be announced this Thursday, June 7 and tickets will
go on sale right afterwards!
Screeners are available. Please contact Grady Hendrix at this email address
or at 917-405-7477
Stills are available as publication-ready, 300 dpi JPGs at:
http://www.subwaycinema.com/stills/nyaff07/
SPECIAL GUESTS
Director E. J-Yong of DASEPO NAUGHTY GIRLS will be attending
Director Shusuke Kaneko of DEATH NOTE and DEATH NOTE: THE LAST NAME will be
attending
Director Sion Sono of EXTE will be attending
Director Han Jae-Rim of THE SHOW MUST GO ON will be attending
SPECIAL EVENTS
The NYAFF has partnered with Korea's Mise-en-scene's Genres Film Festival
(MGFF) to bring over their award-winning horror, comedy, melodrama, sci-fi
and action short films, selected by MGFF's committee and jury members,
including directors Park Chan-Wook (I'm A Cyborg, But That's OK), Ryu
Seung-Wan (City of Violence), E. J-Yong (Dasepo Naughty Girls), Kim
Dae-Seung (Traces of Love), Bong Joon-Ho (The Host) and Kim Jee-Woon (A
Bittersweet Life). Presented with the generous support of the Korean
Cultural Service New York.
From Lahore with Gore – July 3 sees the New York debut of HELL'S GROUND,
Pakistan's first splatter film, produced by the good people at the Mondo
Macabro DVD label. The director and producers will be at the screening with
a clip reel highlighting the wildest Pakistani exploitation movies from the
70's and 80's and there will be big hugs for audience members who are
suddenly terrified to realize that Pakistan is infested with zombies and
hairy monsters.
THE LINE-UP
THE BANQUET (2006, CHINA) - Zhang Ziyi stars in an epic adaptation of Hamlet
brought to you by the entire crew behind Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon:
action ace Yuen Wo-ping, acclaimed composer Tan Dun and Academy Award
winning designer Tim Yip. Razor sharp swords, miles of billowing silk and
sumptuous sets served up with a side order of scorpion venom.
(Followed by an after-party at the IFC Center Cafe with plenty of
free-flowing Kirin Beer!)
GETTING HOME (2006, China) – a dirt-poor construction worker has made a
deathbed promise: he'll take his buddy's body home for burial. Problem: he's
flat broke and thousands of miles from his destination. Solution: he'll buy
the corpse a bus ticket! Zhang Yang (Shower) delivers a road movie that
reminds us that it's not the destination that matters, it's the journey.
Especially if your traveling companion is a corpse.
TROUBLE MAKERS (2007, China) – a rude country cousin to all those artsy
fartsy flicks coming out of China, TROUBLE MAKERS elbows its way to the
table, belches loudly and shouts dirty jokes while slamming down rice wine.
A bawdy send-up of High Noon with a mousy Party Secretary standing in for
Gary Cooper as the reluctant hero out to rid his village of the four
bullying Xiong Brothers who have seized it in their iron claw of corruption
and crime.
AFTER THIS OUR EXILE (2006, Hong Kong) - the triumphant return of director
Patrick Tam after a 17-year absence, this heartbreaking film about fathers
and sons is the most acclaimed Chinese film of 2006 (10 major awards and
counting). Tam is Wong Kar-wai's mentor, and he edited Wong's classic Days
of Being Wild as well as Johnnie To's Election. Shot with off-handed
glamour by Mark Lee Pin-bing (In the Mood for Love) this is the story of a
young boy (Gouw Ian Iskander) watching his family being torn apart in slow
motion by his self-destructive, endlessly raging dad (Aaron Kwok).
DOG BITE DOG (2006, Hong Kong) - spanning one brutal day and night, Dog
Bite Dog is a punch in the mouth that drags audiences over the finish line
panting, sweaty and exhilarated. It kicks off with a filthy, Cambodian
hitman (Edison Chen, channeling Quasimodo) pulling off a kill for hire in
Hong Kong, and running into a tormented cop (Sam Lee) and it devolves into a
no-holds-barred essay on the law of the jungle written in bullets and
bloodshed.
EXILED (2006, Hong Kong) - imagine every action movie made in the last 20
years compressed into a single, super-cool Spaghetti Western set in modern
day Macau, and you've got Exiled, the latest movie from Johnnie To (Triad
Election, Breaking News). The most majestic ode to hard men making hard
choices since The Wild Bunch.
HARD BOILED (1992, Hong Kong) - a 15th Anniversary screening of what might
just be the most influential action movie ever made. John Woo's farewell to
Hong Kong takes you back to a world where Chow Yun-fat (Curse of the Golden
Flower) was a god, Tony Leung (In the Mood for Love) was a young punk, and
John Woo movies were like a mind-blowing bullet in the head.
BIG BANG LOVE, JUVENILE A (2006, Japan) - what the - ? Just when you think
you've figured out Takashi Miike he runs you over with a movie like this.
Aggressively experimental, exquisitely beautiful, it's about two men in
prison whose romance ends in murder. There's also a Mayan pyramid in the
basement and a rocket ship warming up its engines outside. A poem, an elegy
for lost boys, a provocation and a swooning romance.
(Co-presented with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)
DEATH NOTE and DEATH NOTE: THE LAST NAME (2006, Japan) – Japan's box office
one-two punch of 2006, these goth dramas are twisty cat n'mouse thrillers
that feel like a net-savvy teenager has taken an Agatha Christie novel and
forcibly cross-bred it with an Edgar Allan Poe short story. Based on the
best-selling manga and anime, these two live-action films sucked up cash all
over Asia, telling the tale of a notebook that causes the death of anyone
whose name is written on its pages.
(Co-presented with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)
EXTE (2007, Japan) – it's Chiaki Kuriyama (Go Go Yubari in Kill Bill) as a
hairstylist versus killer hair extensions in this horror flick from Sion
Sono (Suicide Club). Striking a perfect balance between outright parody and
skin-prickling terror, with character actor Ren Osugi (Nightmare Detective)
doing a weird cheer on the sidelines, this movie will finally teach you what
it really means to have a bad hair day.
(Co-presented with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)
FREESIA: BULLETS OVER TEARS (2006, Japan) – an ice cold, near-future sci fi
flick about a Japan where revenge is not only legal, it's a licensed
business where frosty eyed killers punch the tickets of their victims with
all the impersonal efficiency of a city official stamping forms. Bloody and
bleak, this is a sci fi story with brains – most of which wind up splattered
on the wall.
(Co-presented with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)
GAMERA THE BRAVE (2006, Japan) – the latest installation in the series about
everyone's favorite giant, flying, radioactive turtle, this is a
family-friendly gateway drug to get the anklebiter in your life hooked on
giant monsters. Gamera is the Rocky Balboa of the kaiju world, a giant
monster who takes as much, if not more, punishment than he dishes out, and
his fighting spirit is reborn in this not-quite-for-kids, kid-friendly
flick.
(Presented in association with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)
HULA GIRLS (2006, Japan) – sweeping the Japanese Academy Awards (“Best
Film”, “Best Director”, “Best Screenplay”, “Best Supporting Actor”) HULA
GIRLS is a maximum strength cinematic antidepressant. A small town in the
60's builds a Hawaiian theme park to save itself and they conscript a gang
of local losers to be the hula dancers. Director Lee Sang-Il knocks the dust
off this formula and makes it shine like a diamond.
MEMORIES OF MATSUKO (2006, Japan) – Citizen Kane meets Moulin Rouge. Most
movies celebrate winners, but this lush musical unleashes a tidal wave of
chorus lines, special effects, and glamorous, glittering sets to tell the
story of Matsuko, who never loses faith in love no matter how many times
she's disappointed by life. From the director of Kamikaze Girls, check your
cynicism at the door and prepare to have your heart jump started.
(Co-presented with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)
NIGHTMARE DETECTIVE (2006, Japan) – Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: the Iron Man;
Vital) makes his most mainstream movie to date about a guy who can walk
through dreams, a cop desperate to prove herself and a self-mutilating
psychic vampire who engineers a series of grisly suicides. Psychedelic and
psychotic, it's the strongest movie yet from
writer/director/actor/editor/cinematographer Shinya Tsukamoto.
(Co-presented with JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film)
RETRIBUTION (2006, Japan) – master of horror, Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure,
Pulse), dredges up the waterlogged corpse of J-horror and mutates it into
something truly terrifying. Koji Yakusho (Babel, Shall We Dance?) is a cop
and also the main suspect in a series of mysterious drownings taking place
in a decaying Tokyo. The kind of movie that crawls under your skin and
starts to itch.
YO-YO GIRL COP (2006, Japan) – a trash-tastic guilty pleasure, like
something you'd find hidden behind your dad's mouldering Playboy magazines.
Kenta Fukasaku (son of Kinji Fukasaku of Battle Royale) directs the most
recent incarnation of the 80's cult TV show about delinquent schoolgirls who
fight international terrorists with razor-sharp yo-yos. Like the mutant love
child of Hello Kitty and 24.
ZEBRAMAN (2004, Japan) – never released in America, Takashi Miike's ode to
fandom is a joyous, family-friendly explosion of jellied aliens, crab-headed
killers, homemade superheroes and possessed schoolkids. Sho Aikawa (in his
100th performance) is a loser schoolteacher whose only solace is his fanboy
obsession with obscure 70's superhero, Zebraman. And then, of course, aliens
attack.
AACHI & SSIPAK (2006, Korea) - eight years in the making, this animated
blockbuster has horrified critics and delighted audiences around the world,
and no studio is brave enough to release it. A sci-fi action epic about a
world powered by poo, this is a vertiginous slide down a swirling toilet
bowl of bad taste full of constipated smurfs with AK-47's, hallucinogenic
laxatives, eye-popping action and a 600 mph violation of corporate
copyright.
THE CITY OF VIOLENCE (2006, Korea) - packed with attacking break dancers
and BMX bandits, this stripped-down, old school action flick is the latest
movie from Korea's master of onscreen mayhem, Ryu Seung-Wan (Arahan, Crying
Fist) who teams up with Korea's master stuntman and action choreographer,
Jeong Du-Hong (Tae Guk Ki, Shiri, The Foul King) to punch out the lights
with this two-fisted pulp rocket.
CRUEL WINTER BLUES (2006, Korea) – Sol Kyoung-Gu (Oasis, Peppermint Candy)
is one of the three actors who take this script in their teeth and tear it
up. He plays a rabid, middle-aged gangster killing time in a hick town while
waiting to knife the man who killed his best friend. And of course, he
passes his days bonding with his victim's clueless mother. As serious as a
head-on collision, this flick is totally uncompromising.
DASEPO NAUGHTY GIRLS (2006, Korea)
A full-blown musical about “Useless High School” where the kids are ditching
class to visit the VD clinic, turning tricks and singing dirty karaoke. It's
a smutty, satirical send-up of high school movies where the ultimate crime
is a closed mind, from the director of Korea's version of Dangerous
Liaisons, EJ Yong. A candy-colored carnival of kinky sex and carefree
perversion, it'll leave you feeling minty fresh, like you've just had a
naughty shower.
I'M A CYBORG, BUT THAT'S OK (2006, Korea) - not many romantic comedies
begin with a suicide attempt and end with its two lovebirds happily trying
to detonate a nuclear device, but not many romantic comedies are directed by
Park Chan-Wook (JSA, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy) either. In this
movie, his Romeo (mega-celebrity, Rain) is a kleptomaniac and his Juliet
(Lim Su-Jeong) is a woman who believes she's is a cyborg with machine guns
in her fingers and battery level lights in her toes.
.
MIRACLE ON FIRST STREET (2007, Korea) – the number two biggest grossing
movie of the year in Korea, this is a Frank Capra movie gone seriously
wrong. A property developer sends in a bunch of gangsters to force the
residents of a run-down neighborhood to move. Normally this would result in
hilarious hijinks and life lessons. Here it results in hilarious hijinks,
suicides, self-immolation and savage beatdowns administered by a young woman
who wants to be a boxer.
MISE EN SCENE GENRE FILM FESTIVAL SHORT FILM THROWDOWN!
(2006, Korea) - Korea's greatest directors (Park Chan-Wook, Ryu Seung-Wan,
EJ Yong and more) have teamed up to curate the Mise En Scene Genre Short
Film Festival where they pick the best comedy, horror, action, sci fi and
romance short films and now they're bringing the best of the fest to New
York City. Finally, movies that aren't 3 hours long.
NEVER BELONGS TO ME (2006, Korea) - from the director of the cult film
Teenage Hooker Becomes Killing Machine in Daehakroh comes the weirdest movie
in this year's line-up, an experimental art film freak-out about half-tiger
criminals, cyborg hookers, Dr. Hell and a man with a machine gun in his
pants. Yes, it freaks us out, too. You've been warned.
THE SHOW MUST GO ON (2007, Korea) - fresh out of Cannes! Song Kang-Ho (star
of The Host) delivers the performance of his career as a minor league
gangster trying to land the first big deal of his life while his family
falls apart around him. Massive criminal setpieces unfold in the background
while the human drama in the foreground is so sharply observed that it cuts
like a straight razor.
TRACES OF LOVE (2006, Korea) – pitch-perfect melodrama, distilled to its
purest essence and offered to the audience like a refreshing sip from a
mountain stream. A young couple watches their future shatter when a
real-life Seoul disaster kills one of them, and the other tries to pick up
the pieces a decade later. Proof positive that in Korea, making perfect
melodramas is an exact science.
DYNAMITE WARRIOR (2006, Thailand) - Dan Chupong (Born to Fight) is a masked
thief who flies through the air on homemade rockets and cracks skulls with
Mach 3 elbow drops, looking for the tattooed man who killed his parents. A
kickboxing pinata made of madness and candy-crammed full of wizards, berserk
giants and jaw-dropping action choreography by Panna Rittikrai (The
Protector, Ong Bak). It's a summer blockbuster that'll boil your brain like
hot lava.
“FROM LAHORE WITH GORE” featuring HELL'S GROUND (2006, Pakistan) -
(2006, Pakistan) - a one-night-only celebration of Pakistani exploitation
movies! We'll be screening HELL'S GROUND, Pakistan's first gore film, which
plays like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre meets the Taliban, as well as
presenting a clip reel showcasing the mondo madness of Pakistani
exploitation flicks from the 70's and 80's. See the groovy side of Pakistan,
where ten-foot-tall marijuana plants grow wild, mace-swinging madmen crush
teenage skulls and zombies – midget, Muslim zombies – want to eat your
brains.
About the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF)
Now in its sixth year, NYAFF is America's leading festival of popular Asian
cinema. To date, the Festival has featured over 100 films from China, Hong
Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Thailand, including 6
International premieres, 17 North American premieres, 23 U.S. premieres, and
over 50 New York premieres.
About Dragon Dynasty
Dragon Dynasty showcases cutting-edge presentations of significant classic
and contemporary Asian Cinema for the home entertainment market. Combining
elevated production values with dynamic creative execution, each Dragon
Dynasty product will extend a compelling invitation to experience the
world's most exciting action genre like never before.
About JAPAN CUTS – Festival of New Japanese Film
To learn more about Japan Society's JAPAN CUTS – Festival of New Japanese
Film, July 5-July 15, visit www.japansociety.org.
About Mise en Scene Genre Short Film Festival
Now in its sixth year, MGSFF is one of the most prestigious short film
festivals in Korea, with the exclusive focus on genre short films. The
Festival's main objective is to promote talented young Korean filmmakers,
and to serve as their launching pad for careers in the film industry.
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