NYAFF14 REVIEW: 白ゆき姫殺人事件 [Shirayuki hime Satsujin Jiken] [The Snow White Murder Case] [2014]

“She’s just that kind of person” Based on a 2012 novel written by Kanae Minato, 白ゆき姫殺人事件 [Shirayuki hime Satsujin Jiken] [The Snow White Murder Case] is very much a product of our time. A satirical take on the Twitter age that also to a point provides a compelling murder mystery reminiscent of Gillian Flynn‘s Gone Girl, the story’s as much a social critique as it is dramatic fiction. Our world is currently ruled by attention deficit to the point where journalistic integrity has been usurped by the necessity for click…

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NYAFF14 REVIEW: 風暴 [Fung bou] [Firestorm] [2013]

“Do you have evidence?” For fifty minutes—minus one crazy hand-to-hand combat fight on top of a fallen metal gate suspended over two adjacent buildings’ fire escapes in midair—writer/director Alan Yuen‘s 風暴 [Fung bou] [Firestorm] is a fast paced actioner that fearlessly goes to the darkest corners Hollywood never would. After it crosses that threshold of time, however, the film goes off the rails like an out of control locomotive crashing into everything along its path until it culminates in an epic street shootout with enough destruction to rival Man of…

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NYAFF14 REVIEW: 失魂 [Shi hun] [Soul] [2013]

“I watch the wind and, dreamlike, vanish” Described in equal measure as a slasher horror and psychological meditation on the soul—whether from demonic possession, reincarnation, or both—Taiwan’s entry for the 86th Academy Awards ultimately proves difficult to categorize at all. Mong-Hong Chung‘s 失魂[Shi hun] [Soul] may in fact be better labeled as a drama about familial love and fidelity despite destroying those same two things in the process of their preservation. There’s an unsettling spirituality at play that teeters between supernatural and schizophrenia with a weirdly rigid attitude towards life,…

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NYAFF13 REVIEW: 大上海 [The Last Tycoon] [2012]

“You have to kill him first” Director Jing Wong’s 大上海 [The Last Tycoon] is an intriguing entry to the period gangster genre that depicts the weight of triad influence in 1930s Shanghai at the cusp of war with an invading Japan. Co-written by Wong, Koon-nam Lui, and Manfred Wong, the plot’s loose inspiration comes from “Big-Eared” Du Yuesheng—a Chinese triad boss who figured into the Second Sino-Japanese War much like his fictional counterpart Cheng Daiqi (Chow Yun-Fat) here. It’s a story about power, honor, and love as we catch glimpses…

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NYAFF13 REVIEW: 浮城謎事 [Mystery] [2012]

“His money is either spent on you or me” Having already been banned from filmmaking in China twice, it’s no surprise director Lou Ye has refused to quell his appetites for highly sexualized, naturalistic tales of deceit and betrayal. His debut Weekend Lover had its release postponed two years by the government; 2000’s Suzhou River forced a mandatory two-year hiatus while the film itself remains banned; and 2006 saw a new five-year stall from Chinese production after submitting Summer Palace to Cannes without approval from the country’s censors. With all…

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NYAFF13 REVIEW: 은교 [A Muse] [2012]

“How do you know what he means to me?” Breeding our youth to dream of happily ever afters with an allure of fairy tale romance may do them a disservice by completely ignoring love’s equally prevalent loneliness. We hope to shelter their innocence until they discover the truth themselves, but maybe the pain would be less if they knew. Those we desire won’t always feel the same as platonic affection can be mistaken with sexual flirtation, our fantasies finding themselves scandalous or worse. Such barriers may even increase our feelings…

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NYAFF12 REVIEW: Saya-zamurai [Scabbard Samurai] [2011]

“Why did it have to rain?” Sometimes foreign language films simply exist across an insurmountable cultural divide that renders them indecipherable here. Hitoshi Matsumoto‘s Saya-zamurai [Scabbard Samurai] perfectly exemplifies through an obtusely constructed first third before hitting its stride. Comically uneven at the start, I was left scratching my head and wondering if I was missing the joke. An old, toothless samurai with an empty scabbard breathlessly and wordlessly runs through the Japanese countryside with his young daughter following closely behind as three assassins—introduced in freeze-frame—arrive to inflict what should…

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NYAFF12 REVIEW: 범죄와의 전쟁 [Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time] [2012]

“There’s no end to a man’s greed” Set against President Tae-woo Roh’s 1990 crackdown on organized crime in South Korea, 범죄와의 전쟁 [Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time] places us into the wild life of a former Busan customs agent and the selfish games he plays with two of the city’s most notorious gangsters. Written and directed by Jung-woo Ha, the film being hailed as its country’s Goodfellas sifts through time in order to illustrate this man’s odd trajectory from crooked civil servant to crime syndicate boss while discovering whether…

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NYAFF11 REVIEW: 手塚治虫のブッダ-赤い砂漠よ!美しく [Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha: The Great Departure] [2011]

“He who has attained his goal” This year’s New York Asian Film Festival was graced with the North American premiere of a film almost three decades in the making. The critically acclaimed and three-time Eisner Award winning manga, Buddha, from Osamu Tezuka, the “Godfather of Anime”, has been given the big screen treatment from animation house Toei Company. Broken down into a planned trilogy from its fourteen volumes of unique and gritty storytelling spanning Siddhartha Gautama’s birth until his transformation into “the Enlightened One”, this first installment—entitled 手塚治虫のブッダ-赤い砂漠よ!美しく [Osamu Tezuka’s…

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NYAFF11 REVIEW: Machete Maidens Unleashed! [2010]

“Human life was cheap, film was cheap—it was a great place to make a picture” As the most telling quote of Machete Maidens Unleashed! exclaims, “The stories are 10 times better than the actual films”. The anecdotes and memories of those involved in the Filipino exploitation genre of cinema are an amazing account of a period never to be repeated. Screening at the New York Asian Film Festival, Mark Hartley’s documentary opens our eyes to what went on in order to make some of the infamous cult schlock from the…

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