April 15 - April 22
What a week! TWILIGHT SAMURAI opens at the Landmark Sunshine, SHAOLIN SOCCER and SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER...AND SPRING continue their runs, there's a lecture on Hello Kitty at the Japan Society that's sold out (but you can still show up and start a riot, anyways) and Subway Cinema unleashes the greatest female action movie ever made, ROYAL WARRIORS at the Anthology Film Archive for one showing only.
Now that'll curl your hair and put a spring in your step.

NOW PLAYING:
In General Release:
SHAOLIN SOCCER (2002, Hong Kong, 87 minutes)
at the Landmark Sunshine

TWILIGHT SAMURAI (2003, Japan, 130 minutes)
Japan's contender for this year's "Best Foreign Film" Oscar is an amazing revamp of the samurai film, on a par with Clint Eastwood's UNFORGIVEN. Stars Henry Sanada who also stars in this Sunday's screening of ROYAL WARRIORS. Can you beat that?

SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER...AND SPRING (2003, Korea, 103 minutes)
at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas (Broadway btwn 62nd and 63rd Streets) and the Angelika Film Center on Houston St.
Korea's bad boy director, Kim Ki-Duk (THE ISLE) returns with an atypically quiet film, shimmering with Buddhist calm. Highly acclaimed, the flick shows the passing of the four seasons at a floating Buddhist monastery. Sony Pictures Classics is releasing the film at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas (Broadway, between 62 and 63 Streets) and the Angelika Film Center.
Read reviews at:
http://www.mrqe.com/lookup?spring+summer+fall+winter+and+spring
Visit the movie's website at:
www.springsummermovie.com

Also, don't miss the latest INCREDIBLE SUBWAY SUNDAY screening of the greatest female action movie ever made: ROYAL WARRIORS. A slab of 80's, Hong Kong madness, starring Michelle Yeoh (CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON) and Henry Sanada (TWILIGHT SAMURAI). At the Anthology Film Archives.

American Museum of the Moving Image
CINEMA INDIA! SHOWCASE 2004 FILM SERIES
This touring Indian film series starts off at the Asia Society, and then moves to the AMMI for the following screenings (full description of program is in the listing for the ASIA SOCIETY).

MAQBOOL (2003, India, 132 minutes)
Friday, April 23 @ 7:30PM
American Museum of the Moving Image
A highly-acclaimed Bollywood style retelling of Macbeth. Also starring Tabu.

THE SPEAKING HAND: ZAKIR HUSSAIN AND THE ART OF THE INDIAN DRUM (2003, India, 104 minutes)
Friday, April 30 @ 7:30PM
American Museum of the Moving Image
A documentary about legendary tabla player Zakir Hussain.

DILWALE DULHANIYA, LE JAYENGE (1995, India, 189 minutes)
Friday, May 14 @ 7:30PM
American Museum of the Moving Image
One of India's biggest hits, this musical may seem a little corny to Westerners, but it's as beloved by many Indians as The Sound of Music. Westernized kids and their traditional parents butt heads in this movie that's run almost non-stop since it was first released. It made Shahrukh Khan and Kajol the two biggest stars in Bollywood.



Anthology Film Archives
ROYAL WARRIORS (1986, Hong Kong, 96 minutes)
Sunday, April 25 @ 3:30PM
Straight outta the 80's, Michelle Yeoh pits her nimble feet against chainsaws, pick axes, and bad guys in bulldozers. Yeoh models totally tubular 80's fashions when she's not crushing ribcages, Henry Sanada is a Japanese cop avenging his family, and dorky old Michael Wong is the white boy who gets in the way. The highest achievement of the "Girls with Guns" genre. Prizes will be given out. Audience members will be massaged. Consciences will be soothed. Don't miss it! Tickets are only $8.
Read a review:
here



Broadway Theater (Broadway and 53rd)
The hit British musical, BOMBAY DREAMS, is currently in previews, gearing up for its April 29th opening. By Andrew Lloyd Weber, and with music by Indian composer genius, A.R. Rahman, it's the long-awaited South Indian invasion of the Great White Way.
Ticket info:
212-239-6200

Columbia University
GODZILLA CONQUERS THE GLOBE: Japanese Movie Monsters in International Film Art
C.V. Starr East Asian Library
A big exhibition of GODZILLA film materials from around the globe. For exhibit times and how to get to the library and find the exhibit (it seems to be in two different areas) please go to the website listed below. Check out the website anyways, because if you can ignore the goofy picture of Godzilla (who looks more like the Loch Ness Monster here) you can also see a map and a case by case listing of every single object in the exhibit. What I want to know is: who's the nut at Columbia who put this on? And how do I give him a medal?
more info:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ealac/dkc/calendar/godzilla/

Japan Society
BLUE SPRING (2003, Japan, 83 minutes)
Friday, April 23 @ 6:30PM
The flick starts with a teacher running screaming from the high school, bad kids hot on his trail. Part of the "From Manga to Eiga" series, the movie's listing on the Japan Society page even sports the warning: "Movie includes graphic violence" which is always a sign of quality. In reality, it's a well-drawn portrait of washed-up kids on the brink, that's neither as graphic, nor as exploitative, as most descriptions would lead you to believe.
$10 for nonmembers, $5 for members
more info:
http://www.japansociety.org/events/event_detail.cfm?id_event=496100681&id_performance=859592581



read a review at:
http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/blspring.shtml

Lecture
HELLO KITTY: THE REMARKABLE STORY OF SANRIO AND THE BILLION DOLLAR FELINE PHENOMENON
Thursday, April 29 @ 6:30PM
Ken Belson and Brian Bremmer have a new book out all about Sanrio. It's called HELLO KITTY and one wonders what they had to pay to license that name for their book. Come see them talk about everyone's favorite little mouthless cat. Buy a giant, plush Kitty in advance and hold it up during the lecture and shake it at them while moaning. There are even door prizes, provided by Sanrio. Unfortunately, this event is SOLD OUT!!!!
more info:
http://www.japansociety.org/events/event_detail.cfm?id_event=363443061&id_performance=1682063921



Junno's (64 Downing Street, on the corner of 7th Avenue)
Saturday, April 24 @ 6PM
MY WIFE IS A GANGSTER (2001, Korea, 106 minutes)
Korea's comedy hit of 2001 sold five million tickets in Korea, and was panned almost universally by critics and won an award for "Worst film of the Year". Still, people love it and it even spawned a sequel. A female gangster gets married to please her terminally ill sister, and in the process she has to defend hubby from any number of baddies who think that now she's married she's soft. Not so, as she proves over and over again with the scissors she wields. Great technical polish and good casting make this movie better than it should be.
To get there, take the 1 or 9 train to Houston or the A, C or F train to West 4th Street.
more info:
212-627-7995
read a review:
http://www.koreanfilm.org/kfilm01.html#jopok




Landmark Sunshine Cinema
SHAOLIN SOCCER (2002, Hong Kong, 87 minutes)
check theater listings for showtimes
Stephen Chiau's comic masterpiece is released by Miramax after dozens of delays. The ads paint it as a straight-up chop socky flick, but this is one of the funniest movies ever made and Chiau makes his bid for comic immortality with this deadpan, absurd heroic ballad of a film.
more info:
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/shaolinsoccer/



TWILIGHT SAMURAI (2003, Japan, 130 minutes)
check theater listings for showtimes
Japan's revamp of the samurai genre became a big hit back home, and it exudes a corroded, corrupt, genre atmosphere. It does for samurais what Clint Eastwood's UNFORGIVEN did for cowboys. Don't miss it.
read a review at:
http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/twilsamu.shtml

Loew's State Theater
YEH LAMHE JUDAAI KE
(4:45PM & 8:15PM daily)
MASTI (2004, India, 152 minutes)
(5:00PM & 9:30PM daily)
Masti is a lamebrain sex comedy about three guys who decide to prove that they're their own people and have affairs on their girlfriends and fiances. But Bollywood knows that this kind of braindead, slapschtick always works better with musical numbers, and this movie sports plenty of them.
more info:
http://www.planetbollywood.com/Film/Masti

YEH LAMHE JUDAAI KE (2003, India)
Shah Rukh Khan and Raveena Tandon star in a love story with musical numbers but by all accounts this is an old film, never completed, that had some insert shots slapped in, and has been released to near-universal disdain.
more info:
http://www.indiafm.com/reviews/04/yehlamhejudaaike/index.shtml

Museum of Sex (233 Fifth Avenue @ 27th Street)
SEX AMONG THE LOTUS: 2500 YEARS OF CHINESE EROTIC OBSESSION
Opens March 18, 2004
I don't know if I'd call it obsession (that's a little pejorative) but there's a long tradition of Chinese erotica and this exhibition has got it all on smutty display: from dirty Bronze Age tomb tiles, to the last skin mags. Better yet, it's sponsored by Tiger Beer, which is kind of cool. Do you see Anheuser-Busch sponsoring displays of American pornography? Uh, I mean, erotica? It's especially heartening to see this exhibit open on the heels of Hong Kong Penthouse magazine closing up in March 2004.
Tickets are $14.50 (plus tax) and $13.50 (plus tax) for students and seniors.
info: (212) 689-6337
Tix: (866) 667-3984
more info (Internet Explorer only):
http://museumofsex.com/exhibitions/lotus/index.html

Village East
BALI: HOPE IN PARADISE (2003)
April 24 @ 4PM
Part of the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival. A documentary about Sri Kebon, who helped the widows and orphans affected by the 2002 bombing in Bali. Covers her struggles with the bureaucracy and adopting two foster children whose mothers died in the bombing. I'd make a joke about how every bombing generates a dozen documentaries but that would make me a mean and cynical person, wouldn't it? Although, stopping the documentaries would be a great reason to step up the war on terror.
All tickets are $10.
more info:
www.nyfilmvideo.com
tickets at:
Ticketweb: 1-866-468-7619

*Special Programs*

Iona Rozeal Brown
Through June 13th @ Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT
Brown's disturbing artwork parodies the Japanese craze for African-American culture known as ganguro. How does she parody it? She does paintings that look like 17th Century Japanese woodblocks prints...but in blackface. It's kind of interesting and kind of creepy.