May 20 - May 27
Tokyo in flames! Pakistani terrorists! Mass executions! Murder! Animal torture! Political assassinations! Marital infidelity! Wheeee! It's summer, and Asian movies in New York promise fun for the whole family. If you're not watching the Godzilla crush Tokyo and jump up and down on the survivors, you can go and watch a documentary about the execution of a quarter of the Cambodian population! Are we having fun yet?

COMING SOON:
PEDICAB DRIVER, starring Sammo Hung, is on May 30 (Memorial Day!) at 4PM at the Anthology Film Archives. Look for an exciting illustration of PEDICAB DRIVER in the "About Town" section of next week's NEW YORKER magazine. We're famous!



Subway Cinema's New York Asian Film Festival kicks off June 18. And finally, finally, finally ...advance tickets are on sale!

People have been bugging us for the past two years to sell tickets in advance so don't yell at us if the show is sold out when you go to the box office - yell at them and we will happily give you their names! These shows sell out, so don't be caught without a ticket. You can go paperless, and just bring your ID to the box office on the day of the screening, or you can get tickets mailed to you for a small fee. And remember:

Advance sale tickets are $8+ a $1.50 handling charge by Smart Tix
Tickets at the Anthology Box office are $9

We've just added the International Premiere of UMIZARU to the schedule (not yet up on Smart Tix). It's a new Japanese film (opening June 12 in Japan) about a gang of Coast Guard trainees who join the grueling Rescue Divers Training Program. Shot mostly underwater, this flick follows the lives and loves of Coast Guard jocks as they learn to perform complicated underwater emergency work after drinking all night. From the assistant director of BAYSIDE SHAKEDOWN and SPACE TRAVELLERS, it's high pop entertainment!

Below is the schedule. Most films are being played two times, but Hero, Infernal Affairs, Juon and Like Asura are getting only one showing. So book those now! In fact book them all now.

Most of the films are being shown in the Courthouse (the upstairs theater), but beginning on Thursday 6/24, a few of the films will also be shown in the Deren (the downstairs lobby theater, which only seats 80 people).

There are still a few spaces available in the schedule and we hope to snag another few films before we are done.

Go to:
http://www.smarttix.com/package.aspx?showcode=new87

Or call SmartTix at:
212-868-4444




FRIDAY, JUNE 18
6:15 Dance with the Wind 98 minutes (Courthouse)
8:30 Hero 98 minutes (Courthouse)
10:30 Legend of Evil Lake (92 minutes) (Courthouse)

SATURDAY, JUNE 19
2PM Zatoichi 3 89 minutes (Courthouse)
4:00 Antenna 116 minutes (Courthouse)
6:30 Doppelganger 107 minutes (Courthouse)
8:30 Juon 92 minutes (Courthouse)
10:30 Juon 2 91 minutes (Courthouse)

SUNDAY, JUNE 20
2PM Zatoichi 4 91 minutes (Courthouse)
4 The Road Taken 103 minutes (Courthouse)
6 Umizaru 119 minutes (Courthouse)
8:30 When the Last Sword is Drawn 137 minutes (Courthouse)

MONDAY, JUNE 21
6:30 Macabre Case 108 minutes (Courthouse)
8:30 Vibrator 95 minutes (Courthouse)

TUESDAY, JUNE 22
6:30 Drive 98 minutes (Courthouse)
8:30 Dance with the Wind 98 minutes (Courthouse)

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23
6:30 The Road Taken 103 minutes (Courthouse)
8:30 Please Teach Me English 113 minutes (Courthouse)

THURSDAY, JUNE 24
7 Running on Karma 93 minutes (Courthouse)
9 When the Last Sword is Drawn 137 minutes (Courthouse)
6:30 Antenna 116 minutes (Deren)
9:30 Legend of the Evil Lake 92 minutes (Deren)

FRIDAY, JUNE 25
6:30 Like Asura 135 minutes (Courthouse)
9 Azumi 142 minutes (Courthouse)
6 TBA Deren)
8:30 Macabre Case 108 minutes (Deren)
10:30 Marronnier 83 minutes (Deren)

SATURDAY, JUNE 26
2:00 TBA (Courthouse)
4 Drive 98 minutes (Courthouse)
6 Vibrator 95 minutes (Courthouse)
8 Infernal Affairs 101 minutes (Courthouse)
10 Doppelganger 107 minutes (Courthouse)
2:30 TBA (Deren)
4:30 Zatoichi 3 91 minutes (Deren)
6:30 Zatoichi 4 86 minutes (Deren)
8:30 Zatoichi 5 87 minutes (Deren)
10:30 TBA

SUNDAY, JUNE 27
2PM TBA (Courthouse)
3:30 Umizaru 119 minutes (Courthouse)
6:00 Azumi 142 minutes (Courthouse)
9:00 Juon II 96 minutes (Courthouse)
2:30 Marronnier 83 minutes (Deren)
4:30 Zatoichi 5 87 minutes (Deren)
6:30 Please Teach Me English 113 minutes (Deren)
8:45 Running on Karma 93 minutes (Deren)

Read about the films here.

NOW PLAYING

Anthology Film Archives
PYONGYANG ROBOGIRL (Finland, 2001, short)
Saturday, May 22 @ 6PM
Program 3: Compilation of Experimental Films from the "Finnish Experimental Film and Video Art Festival" contains the ultimate uncanny experience: PYONGYANG ROBOGIRL. A wordless montage of female traffic conductors in Pyongyang, North Korea, set to dance beats, this is surreal. There are no traffic lights and no cars, but these uniformed women march into intersections and do a choreographed routine, directing invisible traffic with batons. It is very, very strange and worth your time. Have a few drinks beforehand and it may just be enough to make you cry.

Angelika Film Center
SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER...AND SPRING (2003, Korea, 103 minutes)
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

Asia Society
THE MAGICAL LIFE OF LONG TAK SAM (USA, 2003, 90 minutes)
Wednesday, May 26 @ 6:30PM
A 35mm documentary about Long Tack Sam, a Chinese acrobat, magician and comic who performed at the turn of the century and opened for the Marx Brothers and who mentored (Huh? that's what the press material says) Orson Welles. The filmmaker will be present.
Tickets can be purchased at Asia Society's Box Office by calling 212.517.ASIA ($5 students, $7 Asia Society and Society of American Magicians members, and $10 nonmembers)
more info:
www.longtacksam.com

American Museum of the Moving Image
VIOLENT LIVES, FRAGILE BEAUTY: THE FILMS OF TAKESHI KITANO
May 15th, 16th and 21st

ZATOICHI (2004, Japan, 116 minutes)
Friday, May 21 @ 7:30PM
This special screening gives you a chance to take a look at Takeshi's ZATOICHI before it goes into wide release this summer. It's his remake of the popular ZATOICHI series from the 1960's (a retro of which is part of the New York Asian Film Festival) about a blind, swordsman who works as a masseur and tries to stay out of trouble in feudal Japan. Needless to say, trouble can't stay away from him, and massive whup ass results.



Brooklyn Academy of Music

SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER...AND SPRING (2003, Korea, 103 minutes)
May 12 & 13 @ 4:45PM, 7:15PM, 9:30PM
May 14 - 20 @ 2:20PM (Fri-Sun only), 4:50PM, 7:15PM, 9:30PM

LIVING IN DREAMS: WONG KAR-WAI retrospective
May 14-23

BUENOS AIRES, ZERO DEGREES (1999, Hong Kong, 60 minutes)
Thursday, May 20 @ 4:30, 6:45, 9pm
Wong Kar-wai spent forever in Argentina shooting HAPPY TOGETHER, miles of film were left on the cutting room floor, and the movie changed radically once he was on location. This documentary is an art object in and of itself, that documents the hazy, crazy days of the shoot.

AS TEARS GO BY (1988, Hong Kong, 100 minutes)
Friday, May 21 @ 2, 6:45pm
It's all there in Wong Kar-wai's first film, a Cantonese take on MEAN STREETS that is, in my opinion, better, trading Catholic angst for modern, urban malaise. Andy Lau (INFERNAL AFFAIRS, RUNNING ON KARMA) stars with Jacky Cheung and Maggie Cheung (IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE). Pop music plays a central role, as in all of Wong's movies, and in this case it's a gorgeous version of "Take My Breath Away". A huge hit in Hong Kong when it was released.

HAUNTED COP SHOP (1987, Hong Kong, 88 minutes)
Friday, May 21 @ 4:30, 9pm
From director of EAGLE SHOOTING HEROES, starring Jacky Cheung (AS TEARS GO BY) and written by Wong Kar-wai, this is a Hong Kong supernatural action comedy about cops hunting monsters. Can you say dumb fun?

IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (2000, Hong Kong, 98 minutes)
Saturday, May 22 @ 2, 4:30, 6:45, 9pm
The story of an almost-affair between Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung in 1960's Hong Kong, this gorgeous movie is a return to the gravity of DAYS OF BEING WILD, and a step away from the pop-coated flicks Wong made through much of the late 90's. Shimmering with regret, throbbing with sinuous latin beats, and art directed to within an inch of its life, this is one of the more painful movies about the road not taken ever made.



DAYS OF BEING WILD (1990, Hong Kong, 94 minutes)
Sunday, May 23 @ 2, 6:45pm
Fresh off the success of AS TEARS GO BY, Wong was given carte blanche to make his second movie and he shot for the outer reaches of the solar system with this 1960's tone poem about various characters crossing paths and hurting each other horribly. Starring Leslie Cheung as a playboy at war with his stepmother (Rebecca Pan, IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE), Maggie Cheung, Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung, Carina Lau and Tony Leung, it was hailed as a masterpiece by critics, but universally rejected by audiences (although its soundtrack did spark a mini-revival of cool tango music).



FALLEN ANGELS (1995, Hong Kong, 90 minutes)
Sunday, May 23 @ 4:30, 9pm
My favorite Wong Kar-wai movie, this flick takes the aesthetic and themes of CHUNGKING EXPRESS and runs with them. A hitman who wants to become more proactive, a lost party girl who wants a friend, a guy who doesn't want to buy ice cream and a mute layabout brush past one another on the nighttime streets of Hong Kong, sometimes leaving a mark, sometimes not even noticing one another's passing. With the best closing shot of any film of the 90's, deeply cool music, passages that'll make you wince in embarrassment, and scenes that'll make your heart flutter, this is a grandly uneven film that aims for something huge, and pretty much gets there.




General admission tickets to BAM Rose Cinemas are $10. Tickets are $7 for students 25 and under (with valid I.D. Monday-Thursday, except holidays) and $6 for seniors, BAM Cinema Club members, and children under twelve. Tickets are available at the BAM Rose Cinemas box office, by phone at 718.777.FILM (order by "name of movie" option), or online at www.bam.org.

Broadway Theater (Broadway and 53rd)
The hit British musical, BOMBAY DREAMS is now open. But even a score by A.R. Rahman (including "Chaiya Chaiya" from DIL SE, and "Shakalaka Baby" from NAYAK), a role for Madhur Jaffrey, the biggest Indian cookbook writer in the West, and inflatable Ganesh statues (plus a big fountain for a wet saree number) haven't saved it from almost unanimous critical slams. Yikes! I liked it, but I like Bollywood, and if you don't know Bollywood you probably won't like it, and who in the US knows much about Bollywood? Bolly-bummer.
Ticket info:
212-239-6200

Cinema Village

TWILIGHT SAMURAI (2003, Japan, 130 minutes)
Starts Friday, May 14
In general release (check theater listings for showtimes)
It's ended its run at the Landmark Sunshine, but someone thinks it's not over yet, so TWILIGHT SAMURAI moves to Cinema Village for more screenings. 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

SPRINGTIME IN A SMALL TOWN (2002, China)
Special engagement starts May 14
In general release (check theater listings for showtimes)
Chinese director Tian Zhuangzhuang's moving and beautiful tale of a love triangle in a Chinese village after World War II is a remake of a 1940's melodrama, but Tian manages to turn this unpromising premise into a gorgeously shot, psychologically-riveting film that exerts a hold on viewers far beyond what you'd expect. Widely lauded at film festivals, it won "Best Film" at the 2002 Venice Film Festival.
more info:
http://www.mrqe.com/lookup?springtime+in+a+small+town

GODZILLA (1954, Japan, original running time...plus 40 more minutes!)
special encore engagement starts May 21
It's Godzilla's 50th birthday, and not only is Ryuhei Kitamura (see AZUMI at this year’s NYAFF) shooting the latest (and supposedly last) Godzilla flick in NYC this summer, but the original GODZILLA movie (minus the Raymond Burr footage) was screening at Film Forum ... and it was so popular that when its engagement closed it moved to Cinema Village. Hooray! Let's face it, folks, there's no one out there like Godzilla. See it before it goes away.
more info:
www.rialtopictures.com/godzilla

Empire 25 (42nd St. between 7th and 8th Avenues)
SHAOLIN SOCCER (2002, Hong Kong, 87 minutes)
in general release (check theater listings for showtimes)
Stephen Chiau's comic masterpiece is keeps going, and going, and going. 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. Dedicated to everyone who ever played soccer, anywhere.
more info:
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/shaolinsoccer/

Film Forum
S21: THE KHMER ROUGE KILLING MACHINE (USA, 2003)
May 19-May 25 @ 1:15PM, 3:30PM, 6PM, 8PM, 10PM (one week only!)
Rithy Panh's documentary premiered at the 2003 New York Film Festival and it is horrifying. Between 1975 and 1979 the Communist regime in Cambodia killed off a quarter of the Cambodian population. 17,000 prisoners were processed at S21, a high school used as a prison. 3 of them survived. This documentary interviews the survivors and the guards as they talk about their daily routine, and how they tortured and killed thousands of people.
more info:
www.filmforum.com/films/s21.html

Lincoln Plaza Cinemas (Broadway, between 62 and 63 Streets)

SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER...AND SPRING (2003, Korea, 103 minutes)
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

SPRINGTIME IN A SMALL TOWN (2002, China)
Special engagement starts May 14
in general release (check theater listings for showtimes)
Chinese director Tian Zhuangzhuang's moving and beautiful tale of a love triangle in a Chinese village after World War II is a remake of a 1940's melodrama, but Tian manages to turn this unpromising premise into a gorgeously shot, psychologically-riveting film that exerts a hold on viewers far beyond what you'd expect. Widely lauded at film festivals, it won "Best Film" at the 2002 Venice Film Festival.
more info:
http://www.mrqe.com/lookup?springtime+in+a+small+town

Loew's State Theater
MAIN HOON NA (2004, India)
Showtimes @ 12PM, 2PM, 4PM, 6PM, 8PM & 10PM
The first big Bollywood film of the year (it is breaking all sorts of attendence records back in India) hits the screens, and how! It's veteran choreographer, Farah Khan's, directorial debut starring Shah Rukh Khan, Sushmita Sen and Amrita Rao. A terrorist plot somehow requires SRK to go to college, wear nerdy clothes and romance a teacher, and the fate of Indian/Pakistani relations hangs in the balance. A big ol' masala, it's a throwback to the wonder years of Bollywood when every movie tried to appeal to every filmgoer. It is a huge amount of crazy fun that can make your head spin with its rat-a-tat genre shifting.
read a review:
http://www.indiafm.com/reviews/04/mainhoonna/index.shtml



YUVA (2004, India)
Showtimes @ 2:30PM, 6PM, 9:30PM
Mani Ratnam is one of India's great directors (he made DIL SE, and if you haven't seen it then go out and get the DVD immediately) and YUVA is one of the biggest films of his career. Abishek Bachchan plays a street thug, Vivek Oberoi (COMPANY) plays a party boy and Ajay Devgan (KHAKEE, COMPANY) plays a student political leader. The three cross paths on a bridge one day in a traumatic incident and the film follows the paths that led them there. The first 2/3's are fantastic, with a ferocious performance by Abishek. The last 1/3 falls into kitsch with scenes of happy tractor-driving farmers and marching students. However, taken as a whole, this is a pretty formidable film about electoral corruption. Great action scenes, and good music by A.R. Rahman as well as terrific female performances by Kareena Kapoor and Rani Mukherjee make it worthwhile. Given the latest round of election madness in India, the movie's practically psychic and is a great look at the on-the-ground tactics behind getting out the vote.




*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.