NYAFF 2018 CAPSULES: HIT THE NIGHT, END OF SUMMER and THE RETURN

HIT THE NIGHT
A filmmaker interviews a friend of hers over drinks in order to get information for an upcoming film, but he has another motive in mind.

If you are a fan of filmmaker Hong Sang-soo then you will be delighted with exploration of the territory between men and women. Simply a series of conversations this is not something to see if you want any sort of action of any sort other than verbal. The the fireworks are in the words.

If you like the idea of two people sitting around talking this is for you.

(For me this was like watching a Sang-soo film, something I liked but as soon as it was done I was ready to go to the next thing)

END OF SUMMER
The effect of the 1998 World Cup in China on a staid teacher, a grumpy Grandfather and a 10 year old boy.

Don’t go into End of Summer looking for a sports film and you’ll be fine. This is a sweet little drama that tugs the heart strings a bit before disappearing from the brain. I enjoyed it while it was on but it got washed away in the wave of other films playing at NYAFF.

THE RETURN
Two Danish-Korean adoptees return to Korea to try and run down their birth families and the country they never knew.

With overseas adoption being a booming industry this ix of fiction and documentary is a revealing look at what it means to be born in one place to one set of parents and raised by another some where else. An emotional journey for everyone involved this is a film that will stick with you hanging around on the fringes of your psyche making you wonder what if it as you.

Wrath of Silence (2018) NYAFF 2018

Life is cheap in China’s northern coal mines, especially Zhang Baomin’s miserable hardscrabble existence, but good luck trying to cash him in. The mute miner has a titanium skull and a quicksilver temper. When his young son mysteriously disappears, Zhang return home to search for him, one brawl at a time, in Xin Yukun’s Wrath of Silence , which screens during the 2018 New York Asian Film Festival.

Zhang has been mute since he accidentally bit his own tongue off during a youthful melee. Lately, he has been working in a mine in a neighboring district, to avoid awkward encounters with the mutton-house proprietor, whose left eye was blinded during a violent tussle with the miner. There is not a lot of love for Zhang among the villagers, but they still have a good deal of sympathy for him when Lei mysteriously vanishes while tending his sheep.

The dour Zhang hits the pavement, showing Lei’s picture around. That is how he finds himself at another mine, just when goons from Chang Wannian’s mining empire come to break up the joint. They weren’t counting on a hothead like Zhang being there. Zhang’s subsequent meeting with Chang is supposed to intimate him into passivity, but instead, it leads the brawling father to suspect the mogul is responsible for his son’s disappearance. He will definitely follow up on that, but not in a very subtle manner. To add further complications, Chang’s witness-tampering attorney Xu Wenjie is under investigation, which turns up the pressure on him.

Wrath could very well be the most violent socially-aware class-conscious film possibly ever produced in the history of cinema. Compared to Zhang, Wolverine is a hand-wringing doormat. There are times when Xin is clearly riffing on the hallway fight in the original Oldboy, but he tries his best to top its brutality. Yet, the corrupt and arbitrary nature of the contemporary Chinese legal system and social structures is always readily apparent. In fact, Wrath is closely akin to Chang Zheng’s Explosion, both stylistically and ideologically, but it is more action-driven, by at least a factor of five.

Even though he never speaks a peep, Song Yang is absolutely riveting as Zhang. You can practically see the black smoke coming out of his ears, in what could very well be his best performance to date. As Chang, Jiang Wu manages to chew even more scenery than he did in Shock Wave, which is definitely saying something. Yuan Wenkang’s Xu is quite a cold fish, but that is what the film requires—and he delivers accordingly.


Xin’s previous film A Coffin in the Mountain was more of a twisty noir in the spirit of early Coen Brothers, but Wrath has a similarly keen sense of place. He hails from Baotao, Inner Mongolia, so he clearly has a deep understanding of the people and the hardships they face. Yet, there is so much hard-charging mayhem, it is easy to forget you are watching an incisive critique of Chinese inequities.

Given the combination of amusement park violence and unvarnished social realism, it is not hard to fathom why a Party apparatchik decided Wrath was bad for business and had it spiked from domestic distribution. Of course, that is also a sure sign of quality. Very highly recommended, Wrath of Silence screens Monday (7/9) as part of this year’s NYAFF.

For tickets and more information go here

A Skin So Soft (2017)

This portrait of bodybuilders Jean-François, Ronald, Alexis, Cédric, Benoit and Maxim is either going to delight you or put you to sleep. That shouldn’t be taken as any indication of quality, simply a statement that it’s observational style is not for all tastes.

Beginning with a the morning routine of the men the film follows as they get up, eat breakfast and begin their work out. We watch as the various routines are intercut and the men work out solo. I think we are almost 40 minutes in before anyone speaks to each other. The rest of the film is the men going through their days.

If you think this is going to be like the Pumping Iron films you are going to be disappointed. It’s observational reporting ala Frederick Wiseman or the Maysles and very low key. This isn’t yelling and mind games. This is the real life as lived.

For me it was nice but not my cup of tea. While I like observational documentaries I prefer them to be something I’ve not seen before, the life of a museum, a culture I know nothing about or a trip somewhere I’ve never been. Seeing the lives of this men held little fascination for me. Partly because the sport is not of interest to me and partly because there is little new for me since I have a brother who was briefly interested in pumping up, though not for competition.

On the other hand if the subject interests you on any level this film is going to delight you. Recommended for those with an interest when it opens Friday at the Anthology Film Archives in New York.

The Lighthouse (2016)

The BAFTA winning film THE LIGHTHOUSE is being billed as a horror film by the people releasing it to theaters and VOD this Friday (July 6th) however it really isn't. More a historical thriller, this retelling of the Smalls Lighthouse tragedy is a solid and very tense story of the dangers of isolation.

On a remote island some twenty miles from the farthest point of anywhere stood the Smalls Light House. In 1801 it was a rickety structure that was built to warn ships traveling in the Irish Sea of local danger. It did not have a good reputation and the keepers were sure that not only didn't the light house want them their neither did the island itself.

Nearing the end of the month long shift, and with food running low, the two man crew of Thomas and Thomas awaited the relief boat. However things went wrong as a terrible storm kicked up and the men had to wait it out as the storm raged. Trapped and fearing death closing in madness began to creep in and take over.

This is a creepy two-hander that has mood to burn. We know things are going to go wrong just by looking at the place. The lighthouse is a run down and god forsaken place and we are instantly ill at ease. Things get tenser as the two men grumble begin to go about their business revealing themselves to be lost souls. Both have secrets that haunt them and make their lives miserable. By the time the storm hits we are on the edge of our seats waiting to see what in the hell is going to happen.

The performances by Michael Jibson and Mark Lewis Jones are killer. They sell their characters perfectly and we have do problem believing that they are both heavily damaged individuals. And their drop into madness is something we absolutely buy.

This is a great little film. Its so good that I'm kind of shocked that more people aren't talking about it. Is the lack of discussion because the film doesn't really fit in genres? It isn't a horror film and it isn't wholly just a historical drama. SO what is it?

What it is is a film that worth seeing. See it on the big screen if you can, but if you can't  VOD is fine as well.

Nate Hood sings along to House of the Rising Sons (2018) NYAFF 2018

During his Q&A following the world premier of House of the Rising Sons, director Anthony Chan joked that everything in his movie about the rise, fall, and reuniting of 70s Cantopop icons The Wynners—for whom Chan was the drummer—was 95-99% true. Obviously Chan & co. didn’t spend their youth getting into neighborhood noise battles with local tailors, blaring 80s metal for rowdy American sailors, or furiously beatboxing Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee” in a battle of the bands with a grizzled Chinese Eddie Van Halen. But 95-99% of the film could be described as accurately portraying the emotional turbulence of hitting it much too big much too early with a group of close friends who never had anything but their shared belief in each other and their music.

Demonstrating the elastic visual panache of Edgar Wright, House of the Rising Sons plays like a wham-pow kung fu crowd-pleaser with rock musicians standing in for martial artists complete with shaky-cam “fight scenes” where the band squares off with other musicians, gangs of thugs, and even each other, themes of brotherhood and loyalty, and a breathless aesthetic kineticism that makes the viewer feel like they’re being pulled in a dozen different directions at once. Such is Chan's wild abandon that for the first hour we hardly notice that we're witnessing the same tired story beats for rags-to-riches band narratives: a ragtag group of friends banging on cheap instruments in an attic; a disastrous series of early gigs; early popular success; shady label executives trying to pull the group apart with offers of solo stardom for the lead singers. (At least two of the band members deal with disapproving fathers that disown them only to welcome them back with teary eyes once they hit it big and make them proud.)

It's so much damn fun we don't care--would you get bored watching a group of hapless teenagers dodge coffins and giant turtles dropping through the roof of their rehearsal space? Of them squawking Dave Mustaine riffs in the middle of a bar brawl while dressed as Qing dynasty coolies? Of one of their singers crooning through a disastrously maudlin marching band cover of The Animals' "House of the Rising Sun?"

The first hour of this film is a cauldron of unpredictable, chaotic creative genius. But it's obvious that Chan was more interested in reliving The Wynners' nostalgic early days than their decline, for once the band hits their apogee and disentigratea the film loses its spontaneity and settles into auto-pilot. If it somehow managed to maintain the madcap unpredictability and joy of its first hour in its last act, House of the Rising Sons wouldn't just be one of the best films of this year's New York Asian Film Festival, it'd be one of the best films of 2018 period. But the first two-thirds well make the film worth seeking out.

Rock on, you crazy bastards.

Rating: 8/10

GATAO 2: Rise of the King (2017) NYAFF 2018

Various factions struggle for control of the under world in director Yen Cheng-Kuo's  gang war epic. Great looking but playing incredibly silly this is a film is either poor drama or good satire.

Filled with images that ape great moments in other films and strive to be the height of cool, this looks more like someone's idea of what a crime drama should look like rather than something that actually happens. I could never grasp if we are actually supposed to take this all seriously. No one has this many cliches in one film unless they have tongue in cheek. The fact that the film runs over two hours makes me think that this is not a satire, which makes this a big misfire.

The action sequences are often well done but often take off turns that render them silly such as people walking through the carnage a if on a Sunday jaunt.

While entertaining on a "I can't believe what I'm seeing" level, the film is is much too long to hold your attention. I kind of tuned out between action sequences.

Recommended for crime film completeists only.

For more information and tickets go here.

Tears of the Black Tiger (2000) New York Asian FIlm Festival 2018

This is a review I wrote up for IMDB in 2007

Parody/homage/ pastiche/(take your pick) film thats a send up of romance movies and Italian westerns. so over the top you'll wonder if there ever was a top, this is one wild ride, even by Thai movie standards.

With blood and gore and painted backgrounds mixing with real locations and a very deliberate sense of reality this film is either going to strike you as a masterpiece or a piece of cow flop. I'm somewhere in the middle-leaning towards the dislike camp. The problem for me its so artificial I that I was watching the wheels and gears whir instead of watching the story unfold. I also am not really in love with the idea that this is almost two hours long. Overwhelmed with the artifice I turned it off a good clip in. The reaction is not really unexpected since I have a real love hate relation hip with the Thai film industry where I find I either lover or hate the films, there is no rhyme or reason other than I dislike most Thai horror films I stumble upon on my own.

Is Black Tiger worth seeing (or should that be trying?)? Hell yea. There is nothing like it for shaking the dust from the notion of all movies are the same. There is nothing like this I've ever seen in the west and very few in the east

Tears of the Black Tiger plays Thursday at NYAFF. For more information and tickets go here

Nate Hood on the vitally important COUNTERS (2018) NYAFF 2018

For many Westerners whose diet of Japanese media consists of little more than bubbly anime and classic samurai movies, the stark realities of the country's racist, xenophobic treatment of minorities might come as a shock. To them, footage of literal Japanese schoolgirls walking in step with masked adults waving Nazi banners and Rising Sun Flags through Korean-Japanese neighborhoods while chanting that they'll rape and murder everyone there might seem ripped from a dystopian alternate reality. But it and many more harrowing examples of re-nascent Japanese nationalism lurk in Lee Il-ha's essential documentary COUNTERS, a punk rock yet steely-eyed look at the growing hate speech movement and the valiant counter-movement known as the "Counters" who disrupt their rallies.

The film begins with the sobering statistic that in March 2016 alone, 329 racism demonstrations were organized in Japan, many of which targeted Korean businesses, neighborhoods, and elementary schools. Many of these were organized by the Zaitokukai, a nationalist hate group founded by Makoto Sakurai, a virulently racist wannabe-demagogue and buffoon who insists that discrimination is crucial to humanity's evolution and that Japan can only be saved from ethnic decline by the mass deportation and/or extermination of their Korean immigrant population. The Counters, on the other hand, peacefully fight their rallies with counter-rallies, petition drives, and a sustained legal movement to change Japan's free speech laws which protect and galvanize cretins like Sakurai.

Anyone familiar with the current Civil Rights movement in the States will notice many unnerving similarities between their treatment by the police and media with the #BlackLivesMatter movement, particularly how news networks sidestep addressing the growing wave of hate crimes in favor of demonizing the handful of Counters arrested for disorderly conduct. Additionally, much like how social media proved instrumental in the founding of American neo-Nazis, incels, and antifa, both the Zaitokukai and the Counters were only able to organize thanks to online message boards and twitter. Again and again we watch the two groups clash, the cowardly Sakurai pleading with cops to disperse the Counters and the stalwart Counters harassing and out-protesting the Zaitokukai despite their growing numbers. But the Counters are indefatigable.

Many members are interviewed from all different walks of socioeconomic life, but few loom larger than Mr. Takashi, an ex-yakuza gangster his followers and admirers compare to feudal ronin fighting for the dispossessed. Loud, abrasive, and frankly obnoxious, he nonetheless matches a fiery desire for justice with an uncanny ability to muster manpower and funding for protests. He's the perfect emblem for modern social justice movements--openly confrontational abd ruthlessly effective, a perfect social media icon and rabblerouser.

And the Counters need the help; although the film ends with them successfully petitioning the government to change the free speech laws to outlaw hate speech, it ends with a grim warning. Emboldened by the election of Donald Trump, Sakurai ends the documentary running for mayor of Tokyo under a "Japan First" slogan. He came in fifth of twenty-one candidates and is currently being tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a potential ally of nativist Ameican hate groups. For American audiences, this song sounds much, much too familiar.

Rating: 8/10

The Big Call (2017) NYAFF 2018

The Big Call is an okay thriller from director Oxide Pang. With the exception of the ill-advised remake of Bangkok Dangerous I tend to really like Pang’s films. To be certain some of the films aren’t works of art, but there is a sense of life to the films missing from the work of many other directors. While the film has some really good set pieces the film simply never pulls everything together.

The film starts with a low level cop being put on the trail of a gang of phone scammers after the death of one of his former teachers. It seems the scammers got the teacher to drain his bank accounts and he killed himself as a result. In the process of investigating he is noticed by the police department’s bureau for phone and internet scams. There he finds that the fish he is chasing is many times larger than he ever suspected.

Lots of financial talk mixes with some action sequences and the usual cat and mouse games between the cops and bad guys. On a purely entertaining level The Big Call is a good time passer. It moves like wind and it holds your attention for the two hours it’s on. For me the problem is that the film tries to do too much. There is too much of an attempt to explain in detail the hows and whys of the scams. It wants to be polemic about phone scams so we repeatedly see lives being destroyed by the scams. While it tugs the heart strings it stalls the forward motion of the film.

Worse the film seems more interested in the villains than in the hero. It seems we are spending more time with them than the good guys. We see their lives before the scams and we get a sense of who they are, but not the cops. Sadly past a certain point they aren’t that exciting. They are just kind of rich spoiled people. If you need proof where the film’s heart lies consider that the final half hour battle and coda is firmly focused on the villains- we are solidly on them as they try to escape. Even the coda is all bad guy and it’s meant to break our hearts. It’s not bad but it does wobble what we are supposed to feel about them.

While The Big Call isn’t bad, and it has some great bits, it never rises above just being okay as a whole.

Worth a look but don’t expect to love it.

For tickets and more information go here.

RYUICHI SAKAMOTO: CODA (2017) opens Friday

I’m a fan of Ryuichi Sakamoto. I fell in love with his music with the score to MERRY CHRISTMAS MR LAWRENCE. It is music that I carry with me at all times, not in my phone or on a CD but in my head. The music runs through every fiber of my body and springs out when I need a lift. I love every other bit of music of his I’ve ever heard (LAST EMPEROR,REVENANT and his solo material), but the MERRY CHRISTMAS score is something more.

I have to be honest and that I went into Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda wondering if we would hear some of the score, and which part. I was completely taken aback when the first piece of music was the main theme from MERRY CHRISTMAS played live and completely- at which point I was completely willing to go anywhere the film was going to take me.

And where here it took me was to some truly wonderful places.

Filmed over several years the film is look back by Mr Sakamoto in the wake of a diagnosis of cancer. After taking time off to go through his treatment he begins to put together new music, inspired in part by the way Andre Tarkovsky used sound and music in his films. This allows him free rein to talk about his entire career and show us how he puts his pieces together. It is a wonderful journey that gives us a look inside the mind of the man.

What I delighted in was getting to see Sakamoto being delighted by what he was doing. Time and again this very serious looking man would go wide eyed and grin when something turned out to his liking. I also loved that we got to see him do somethings that seem silly- such as walking out into the rain with a plastic bucket over his head in order to get the right sound. Wonderfully nothing will stop him for creating the sound he hears in his head.

And then there is the soundscape of the film- endless music by the master playing like a grand mix tape. If you need an introduction to the sonic magic Sakamoto this film is it.

I was and I am in complete awe. Rarely has any film ever brought us this far into the creative process. I’ve seen some truly songwriter documentaries where we’ve seen the artist compose and record, but rarely have I ever had the sense that life was a pure act of creation. No matter what Sakamoto is doing he always seems to be on the lookout for a new sound or beat or motif to use. Watching him wander the world recorder in had makes it clear that music is absolutely everywhere and that he wants to share it with anyone who will listen.

I was deeply moved. Seeing this film was one of the most magical experiences I’ve had at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. While I was damn near close to one with the film I know that I wasn’t the only one. The other writers sitting around me were absolutely delighted.

I would hate to think that Coda is indeed a coda for the great man. Personally I would like this to be more a pause before moving on to other wonderful creations.

Ryuichi Sakamoto Coda opens Friday at the theaters in Lincoln Center.

For a report on my talk with the film's director go here.

THE AGE OF BLOOD (2017 ) NYAFF 2018

Get a tub of popcorn and belt in as a disgraced swordsman takes a position as a prison guard just as a group of rebels decide to break in and free their leader. Absolute bloody carnage ensues.

Not to worry none of the violence has any weight thanks to awful CGI blood which splashes itself across the screen in in every battle scene. It wouldn't be bad but disappears in the next shot. You would have to be completely blind not to notice. It's really bothersome since everyone should be covered in blod but just keeps disappearing. Once you learn to ignore it the film improves and it just be comes a fun mindless romp.

Bad blood aside this is a truly wonderful film. Of course you won't ever believe it for moment but you will be entertained to the highest degree. This  is all smart ass remarks mixed with a ballet of choreographed violence. It may not be the best of the best  martial arts film you've seen  but it is highly entertaining.

The film also doesn't have a deep thought anywhere in it's brain. This is all action and wisecracks which in this case is more than enough.

Highly recommended for anyone who love martial arts films.

For ticket and more information go here.

Nate Hood on OPERATION RED SEA (2018) NYAFF 2018

Thinking back, I honestly can’t remember a mainland Chinese film before Dante Lam’s Operation Red Sea that depicted modern Chinese soldiers getting killed. I don’t mean getting killed as in “valiantly sacrificing themselves,” I mean getting unexpectedly fugazied in a war zone. Make no mistake, the 8-man special forces unit at the core of the film undergo physical punishment the likes of which one scarcely sees outside schlocky horror movies: they get fingers and limbs blown off, half their faces torn away, their bodies pumped full of bullets and shrapnel, their arteries shot so they slowly bleed out in their comrades’ arms. It’s gory, grimy, gritty stuff made all the more surreal by the fact that the film is unapologetic Chinese military propaganda. Make no mistake—Operation Red Sea is a nationalistic Chinese power fantasy not unlike the low-budget Cannon Group actionsploitation dreck of the 80s and 90s.

I can say with little exaggeration that Dante Lam’s Operation Red Sea might be the single greatest and most exhausting piece of action filmmaking since George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road (2015): it’s a scourging spectacle of whiz-bang pyrotechnics, harrowing shoot-outs, breathless sniper battles, and awe-inspiring imagery like a tank battle fought within an apocalyptic sandstorm (“Witnessed!!”).

But it’s also perhaps the most politically unnerving and dangerous one since Michael Bay’s right-wing Benghazi fanfic 13 Hours (2016). The film centers on the elite Jiaolong Assault Team as they save Chinese ships from Somalian pirates, rescue Chinese citizens—and only Chinese citizens—from a Middle Eastern town overrun by Arabic terrorists, and retrieve a stolen shipment of yellowcake uranium produced by an evil American businessman. Somewhere along the way they pick up a French-Chinese journalist with a personal vendetta against terrorists stemming from her having lost her husband and son in the 7 July London bombings. (And yes, they use real footage of the aftermath and carnage to legitimize their 7/7 OC.) There’s a hilarious subtext running beneath the film that may or may not have been intentional that if you’re not Chinese, then the Chinese military is either uninterested or incapable of saving your life. During the film, they fail to evacuate Arabic hostages, fail to save a busload of African civilians from being mortared into chicken nuggets, and fail to save the journalist’s European assistant from being beheaded by the terrorists. But it hardly matters—the Chinese civilians were all saved and China’s growing global supremacy as a superpower has been strengthened.

It can’t be emphasized how jaw-dropping and relentless the action in Operation Red Sea is—some of the practical effects involving literal walls of vehicles being blown apart rival anything done by Miller, James Cameron, or Steven Spielberg. But then you see the credits stinger where a group of Chinese navy ships intercept a flotilla of American battleships invading China’s territorial waters and you remember that this is yet another film in a worryingly long line of jingoistic action films that bodes poorly for the future of US-China relations.

Rating: 8/10

Nate Hood takes on SEKIGAHARA (2017) NYAFF 2018

Masato Harada’s Sekigahara is a film that stands before you and dares you to follow its story. Much like with Harada’s last film The Emperor in August (2015) which explored the Machiavellian schemings in the buildup to a pivotal moment in Japanese history—in this case Imperial Japan’s surrender to the Allied forces in World War Two—Sekigahara examines the background, motives, and double-crossings of the people involved with one of the country’s most important battles. Fought on October 21, 1600 in the wake of the power vacuum left by the death of daimyō Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the eponymous battle resulted in the consolidation of Tokugawa Ieyasu’s rule over a freshly unified Japan, establishing a shogunate that lasted for over 250 years. Perhaps not since the 1185 Battle of Dan-no-ura which established Japan’s first shōgun had a single military engagement done so much to sculpt the nation’s history.

To try and consolidate everything that led up to it would have been a preposterous undertaking for a decently lengthed miniseries. To try and cram it all into a two-and-a-half hour epic is almost preposterously arrogant. Still, great filmmakers have made essential films about specific battles before—but these were almost always worm’s-eye views of said engagements from the perspectives of the soldiers and low-ranking officers involved. But Sekigahara hovers above all the power players, mainly the wily and megalomaniacal Ieyasu (Koji Yakusho) on one side and the principled Ishida Mitsunari (Jun’ichi Okada), supporter of Hideyoshi’s son Hideyori, on the other. But there are myriad other minor lords and generals, ladies in waiting, Buddhist monks, and the occasional ninja adversary and/or love interest. Good luck keeping them all straight.

One assumes that Japanese audiences intimately familiar with their own history would have an easier time following it, but the film’s uneven storytelling makes one second guess even that. The film’s erratic time skips, mile-a-minute narrative cross-cutting, and outright refusal to properly establish many of the main and supporting characters gives one the impression of a rushed production. One could argue that this was intentional as Harada’s narrator is a World War Two-era historian struggling to piece together the truth about that fateful battle. But that seems like a cop-out.

There are many fine elements to Sekigahara—the acting is superb, many of the battle sequences are well choreographed, and this is perhaps the first time I’ve seen any Japanese film respectfully acknowledge the contributions of immigrant Korean soldiers in pre-modern Japanese warfare. But at two-and-a-half hours it’s too long and too inchoate for anyone other than history professors.

Rating: 5/10

The Ex-Files 3: The Return of the Exes NYAFF 2018

As the protag of a break-up franchise, you would think Meng Yun would have plenty of experience with failed relationships by now. However, he was not around for the second installment. His buddy Yu Fei was there, but it was a very difference Yu Fei. Tian Yu-sheng goes back to the original elements for the conclusion of the [loose] trilogy, but Meng Yun is keenly aware he isn’t getting any younger—and the final break-up is sure to be the hardest in Tian’s Ex-File 3: The Return of the Exes which plays Friday at the New York Asian Film Festival.

Meng Yun and Lin Jia probably never should have called it quits, but they are both too stubborn to apologize or seriously examine their own faults. Their friends Yu Fei and Ding Dian never should gave broken up either, but they still spend so much time together, it is like they are still together. Frankly, they largely broke up out of solidarity with their friends and will likely patch things up sometime when they aren’t having closure sex.

Unfortunately, Meng and Lin are an entirely different case. They still conspicuously pine for each other, but they refuse to let go of their resentments and pride. As a result, both will most likely cause nothing but frustration and heartache for their subsequent romantic rebounds, but Lin’s former classmate and Wang Zi, the niece of Meng’s new client are still eager to try.

Part two was more of a traditional rom-com, but the Meng Yun installments better compare with Pang Ho-cheung’s more mature and realistic Love in a Puff/the Buff/Off the Cuff trilogy, except Ex 3 gets surprisingly fatalistic down the stretch. Basically, Tian wants us to understand you can still mess up a relationship, even if it was meant to be. On the flip side, if you have a chance to settle for someone who is attractive and compatible, don’t be an idiot about it. Just do it, even if you are not head-over-heels for them. These are points Meng and Jin will learn the hard way.


Han Geng and Kelly Yu Wenwen look like a perfect couple, but they each show substantial range, venturing into some dark and angsty places. In contrast, Ryan Zheng and Zheng Meng Xue keep things light and naughty, but they are undeniably charismatic as Meng and Lin’s shallow fuerdai-esque friends, Yu and Ding. They are certainly well matched. Luo Mi’s Wang Zi deserves better than she gets in the film, but conveys a fair degree of depth beneath her relentlessly cute and upbeat façade.

Essentially, Ex 3 is half rom-com and half anti-rom-com, which constitutes an interesting mix. That also means the candy-colored posters are a bit misleading. Regardless, Tian pulls off the balancing act fairly dexterously, while reaping the benefits of lead and supporting performances that considerably exceed expectations. Arguably, we are talking about the stuff of New Adult melodrama, but it is nicely executed. Recommended for fans of Pang’s Love trilogy who found the Tiny Times franchise too superficial, Ex-File 3 plays Friday at the New York Asian Film Festival

For tickets and more information go here.

Masato Harada Receives The Star Asia Life Time Achievement Award at NYAFF 2018

Dante Lam Receives The Daniel A. Craft Award For Excellence In Action Cinema at NYAFF 2018

King of Peking (2017) Hits Netflix tomorrow

Glorious celebration of a cinema and fathers and sons is one of the must sees at this year's Tribeca.

The film has Big Wong and Little Wong sending their time together. Big Wong is getting divorced from his wife who wants custody of their son. Unfortunately neither of the guys wants that to happen and they spend their time trying to screen American movies for the masses. When plans go awry, they end up running a bootleg DVD operation out of the basement of a movie house...

Funny, touching and possessing a glorious love of movies that is only rivaled by CINEMA PARADISO, KING OF PEKING is simply a movie lovers delight. Framed as a buddy film the film is full of references from top to bottom- not only is the dialog a running trivia game of film titles, but the film is shot in various ways that echo earlier films, (rear screen projection and riffs on other films) while the film's score if full of themes used in other films. If you love movies you will end up tallying all the references that fill this film.

Normally I hate films that are overly referential to other films- Quentin Tarantino's body of work being a prime example, however here in KING OF PEKING it all works beautifully because the characters (and the filmmakers) are such film fans that the movies bleed into and out of their very being. This is a film that is very much like being trapped in the lives of terminal film fans who find everything a reference to some film some where. I mean Big Wong is so hardcore he freely admits that for years he thought people in Europe lived in black and white. That may sound weird until you realize I know film fans who literally remember movies as their lives. They have blended the films into their eistence

I can't say enough good about the film, this film is just an absolute joy from start to finish. This is one of those films that reminded me of the fun one can have when one is a film lover

This film was described to me as a kind of CINEMA PARADISO, and it kind of is to some degree, but largely it is it's own glorious thing, with no sense of bittersweetness and none of the lovey dovey stuff that took away from the Toto and Alfredo in the earlier film. Largely this is just a film about a father and son who forge a bond over film.

I love this film to pieces.

One of my favorite films of 2017. You must see this film.

In Brief THE HUNGRY LION (2017) and the problem of programming too many films of a type NYAFF 2018

After a teacher is arrested for statutory rape a video of the sex appears. While not clear the girl in the video is thought to be a certain student. This sets of a firestorm in the school and in the media.

Okay drama is in some ways just as sensational as the sort of case that is trying to comment on.

I should note that I don't know how the film is on it's own terms.

I say this not to smug or smart ass but because the programming this year at NYAFF unfortunately has several thematic threads  running through them, in particular dark downer films that turn on the cruelty of people, with a several involving  the cruelty of teens. By the time I saw HUNGRY LION I had seen almost the entire festival (almost all 54ish films) and while it may have been fine to see the pitch black hatred for our fellow man over the course of a year of programming, seeing them in a concentration of a couple of weeks made me tune out and wonder why, if all these films are some sort of representation of real life where teens are constantly killing each other, there aren't more reports of bodies found as a result of the rampant carnage (wait until you see LIVERLEAF or AFTER MY DEATH). Seeing so much hatred on the big screen took its toll (especially when coupled with the daily dose coming from the White House)

The darkness cast by the downer films at NYAFF was so bad that I know by the time I got to THE HUNGRY LION and to several other films after it I simply didn't have the words because I really couldn't take it any more. (I'm sure that a few films at NYAFF will not be reviewed for this reason).

To that end I suspect that ultimately HUNGRY LION maybe  good but unfortunately it suffers by comparison to all the films screening around it at NYAFF.

The Empty Hands (2017) NYAFF 2018

When her father, a martial arts master dies unexpectedly, a young woman thinks she will be on easy street once she sells the dojo. However her father only left her 49% of the property. The other 51% went to an ex-student who went to prison. He wants to restart the dojo and make a go of it. This forces the woman to go back to and deal with the life that she had run away from years before.

Surprisingly good drama is not what you expect. The martial arts are subservient to the drama not the other way around with the result we have some of the deepest characters you’ll find in a “martial arts film. It is also no wonder that Stephy Tang has won awards for her performance in the film.

I’m going to be honest the fact that the film is more drama than martial arts film kind of threw me. My expectations going in kept me fighting with the film for about a third of the running time. Then somewhere along the way I just went with it and the film improved greatly.

This is one of the hidden and expected gems of this years NYAFF.

Recommended.

For tickets and more information go here.

The Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful (2018) NYAFF 2018

Nothing drives corruption like government land use policy. Of course, if you throw in some illicit sex and jealousy, things can really get explosive. The Tang family will find themselves in the eye of a brewing storm when their loves and lusts exacerbate a political scandal in Yang Ya-che’s shamelessly entertaining The Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful , which screens during the New York Asian Film Festival.

Madame Tang is ostensibly just an antiquities dealer, but she has leveraged her position as the widow of a revered general to become a behind-the-scenes political power broker. She has essentially given up grooming her oldest daughter Tang Ning, whose disgust at her mother’s amoral machinations manifests in various forms of self-medication (sex, booze, pills, awkward scenes in public). Instead, her youngest daughter, fourteen-ish Tang Chen most often assumes co-hostess duties.

In anticipation of a major developed project, Madame Tang has guided her political associates to buy up parcels in an otherwise sleepy rural district, using shell companies. Her circle of influence includes the regal wife of the speaker and up-and-coming legislator Lin, whose family is the Tangs’ nearest neighbors. However, the deal starts to fall apart when the Lin family is mysteriously massacred in their home. Only their teenage daughter Lin Pien-pien survives, but only just barely, in a comatose state. Tang Chen will be assigned her bedside vigil, even though her relationship with the somewhat older teen is complicated—just like everything else having to do with the Tangs.

Like Yang’s Girlfriend Boyfriend, Bold is set in Taiwan during the 1980s, but they feel like they are worlds apart. While his previous film is unabashedly earnest, Bold is dark, twisted, and maybe even a little lurid, but it sure is fun to watch the Tang family and their associates behave spectacularly badly. There is always another shoe left to drop, but Yang primary and over-riding concern is always Madame Tang’s dysfunctional relationships with her daughters. Gosh, this would be such a nice film for Mother’s Day viewing.

Speaking of mothers, the great Kara Wai [Hui] (amid her latest career renaissance) knocks it out of the park as the sly, string-pulling Madame Tang. One knowing look from her is worth more than a mountain of CGI effects. Of course, we always knew she was awesome. Probably the biggest surprise is Wu Ke-xi, who is best known for her remarkably bold but naturalistic work in Midi Z’s docu-like films. As the hot mess sister Tang Ning, she proves she can preen, seduce, and Dynasty-slap fiercer than anyone. Holy cats, can she ever burn up the screen. Yet, Vicky Chen (a.k.a. Qi Chen, who was such a revelation in Angels Wear White) hangs with them both as the deceptively innocent-looking, utterly destabilizing Tang Chen.

Bold is a deliciously cynical film that is also kind of trashy, but in the best way possible. Frankly, it would be fitting if Madame Tang warned viewers to buckle-up their seat belts, a la late Bette Davis, because this is definitely a roller coaster ride. It is just your basic sarcastic political melodrama, with a considerable body-count, so what’s not to like? Very highly recommended, The Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful screens -July 5 At NYAFF. For more information and tickets go here