NY Asian Film Fest '15 Features Greats From Japan, Korea, & Hong Kong

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Thursday, 25 June 2015 15:05

Written by Renzo Adler & Brad Balfour

Metting Dr. Sun

Spanning cinematic history and genres ranging from high-brow art to the most base thrill fests, the New York Asian Film Festival (June 26 - July 11, 2015) continues to bring together films old and new from Korea, Japan, and China to New York.  Organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Subway Cinema, NYAFF is now in its 14th edition, and is holding screenings at The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater (165 West 65th Street, between Amsterdam and Broadway) and the SVA Theater (333 West 23rd Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues).

NYAFF’s Opening Night presentation will be the North American Premiere of Philip Yung’s Port of Call. The film centers on the brutal murder of a 16-year-old Hunan girl who moves to Hong Kong with her family and falls into prostitution. Sabu’s Chasuke’s Journey, which was in competition at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival.  Journey has a fanciful, manga-esque story about an angel living in Heaven that falls in love with a human woman that is doomed to die, and now he must endeavor to rescue her.

The lineup also includes the World Premiere of Fire Lee’s black comedy Robbery; the International Premiere of Anh Sang-hoon’s erotic period actioner Empire of Lust; the North American Premieres of Chen Jiabin’s directorial debut A Fool, Daihachi Yoshida’s fantasy-drama Pale Moon, Lau Ho-leung’s action-comedy Two Thumbs Up, and Nobuhiro Yamashita’s slacker/rock drama La La La at Rock Bottom; and the U.S. premiere of Yee Chih-yen’s high-school noir Meeting Dr. Sun. Other exciting highlights include Kulikar Sotho’s gorgeous meditation on Cambodia’s tragic Khmer Rouge past and its impact on the present, The Last Reel; Ryuichi Hiroki’s ensemble love-and-sex drama Kabukicho Love Hotel; Boo Ji-young’s superb labor-rights underdog drama Cart; and Sion Sono’s berserk rap musical Tokyo Tribe.

NYAFF also looks to the past of Asian cinema. In 2014, Japanese film legends Bunta Sugawara (who has been in too many gangster films to name, along with the Oscar winning Spirited Away) and Ken Takakura (who appeared in Sydney Pollack’s The Yakuza and Ridley Scott’s Black Rain) passed away, leaving behind a legacy of thrilling, brutal films, and hard boiled anti heroes from their decades of work in cinema. NYAFF will pay tribute to both of these men with a series of screenings called The Last Men of Japanese Film, which includes a lavish brand-new 2K remaster of Kinji Fukasaku’s Battles Without Honor or Humanity, which tracked the rise of yakuza gangsters in post-war Japan. Other films being shown include Abashiri Prison, Cops vs. Thugs, The Man Who Stole the Sun, Tales of Chivalry in Japan, and Wolves, Pigs and Men.

NYAFF is definitely one of the most jam packed festivals in NYC. With it’s wide range of films, this fest has something for everybody.

For more information, go to: http://www.subwaycinema.com/nyaff15/

The New York Asian Film Festival
June 26 - July 11, 2015

Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th Street, between Amsterdam and Broadway
New York, NY 10023

SVA Theater
333 West 23rd Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues
New York, NY 10011

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