Editor's blog

 
 
The New York Asian Film Festival (June 29 - July 15) returns !
 
The opening night film is Pang Ho-cheung’s astonishingly filthy, extremely hilarious VULGARIA, a movie about making movies, shot in just 12 days, all about gangsters named Brother Tyrannosaur, sleazy lawyers, the sex film industry, and men who love donkeys a little too much. The Hollywood Reporter calls it a “...laugh-out-loud, aptly titled comedy.” Pang himself, Hong Kong's hottest young director, will be a guest of the festival and we'll be presenting his new romantic comedy, LOVE IN THE BUFF, about a couple who meet in the smoke break alley outside their office building and try to make their romance work despite cell phones dropped in toilets, friends who have the death touch, and corporate moves to Beijing.


 
We'll also be giving a Lifetime Achievement Award to Chung Chang-Wha, the great Korean action director whose 1972 movie for Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers studio, FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH, was the first international martial arts hit to break through in the West. It launched the kung-fu craze over here, and we’ll have him in the house for a screening of a gorgeous print of FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH.


 
We are super-psyched to be bringing the man who is widely regarded as Korea's greatest actor, Choi Min-Sik (star of OLDBOY and I SAW THE DEVIL), here as our guest and we'll be screening his latest film, NAMELESS GANGSTER (TIME Magazine calls it “The Korean mob film Scorsese would be proud of.”) as well as a fistful of his classics, including OLDBOY and his underseen and heartbreaking boxing film, CRYING FIST.
 
Over the last few years, Taiwan's film industry has experienced a major revitalization, producing some of the biggest blockbusters in Asia after a brief lull in the late 90's and early 2000's. We'll be hosting a special focus on Taiwanese films, including a Fourth of July presentation of the humongous, uncut, four-and-a-half-hour SEEDIQ BALE, which is that country’s exhilarating, decapitation-filled version of BRAVEHEART, all about its indigenous people fighting for their freedom in 1930. We'll also be screening the hit romantic comedy, YOU ARE THE APPLE OF MY EYE, which set box office records in Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Mainland China.


 
We've also got a brand new movie from Takashi Miike (PHOENIX WRIGHT: ACE ATTORNEY), a 30-minute short film from Korea’s Park Chan-Wook and his brother Park Chan-Kyung (NIGHT FISHING), NASI LEMAK 2.0, a Malaysian food movie directed by and starring controversial rapper, Namewee, which is one of the most delicious, hyperkinetic, totally redonkulous comedies we’ve ever seen, the brutal animated feature, KING OF PIGS fresh out of Cannes, SCABBARD SAMURAI, the latest film from Hitoshi Matsumoto (director and star of SYMBOL), and more, more, more!!!
 
The New York Asian Film Festival is deeply grateful for the support of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office New York (which is celebrating the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region this year), the Korean Cultural Service New York, and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York.