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February 17 - February 24, 2005

COMING SOON - THEATRICAL RELEASES

2/25 BEAUTIFUL BOXER

For next week, there's another giveaway! This time we have 25 tickets to a free screening of the Thai, transsexual kickboxing flick, BEAUTIFUL BOXER, that opens on Feb. 25. The first 25 that email before next Tuesday will win passes to the screening.



BEAUTIFUL BOXER is one of those movies that doesn't wow you with its camerawork,its flashy acting, or its extremity. Instead, it tells a story, and does it so well that your eyes are stuck to it for its running time. Based on a real story, it tells the story of a champion muay thai kickboxer who was a transsexual. He basically starts out as a prissy little kid who likes women's clothing, then grows up to be a prissy butt-kicking fighter who likes women's clothing, eventually earns enough money to get a sex change, and retires from the fighting life. It's surprisingly moving, and highly recommended.
Read a review:http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/beautifulboxer
Opening 2/25



3/3 SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE
A three day screening of Park Chan-Wook's sophomore film at BAM.

3/4 - 5/27 OTAKU CINEMA SLAM
Cult and pop films screening at the Japan Society.

3/18 STEAMBOY
From the director of AKIRA comes this steampunk adventure flick.

3/28 OLD BOY
Cannes Grand Prix winner and critical darling gets a US release.

4/8 EROS
A limited release is scheduled for this one-handed three-hander -- three short films about sex. There's one from Wong Kar-wai, one from Stephen Soderbergh and one from Michelangelo Antonioni. WKW and SS are supposed to be just fine, MA's is supposed to be a new breed of torture.

4/8 KUNG FU HUSTLE
The latest from Hong Kong comedian Stephen Chow...more of an action flick than a comedy, but something of a marvel of modern-day filmmaking. This is a great movie, classic kung fu kind of stuff with wild action scenes, but who knows what'll happen in the US. It's been slapped with an "R' from the MPAA and now it's been pushed back from a March 18 opening.



4/20 SAVE THE GREEN PLANET
The cracked Korean masterpiece at Film Forum. The most violent anti-violence movie ever made!



4/29 3-IRON
Kim Ki-Duk's latest festival favorite gets a NY/LA release, followed by a national roll-out.

4/29 - 5/1 ASIAN CINEVISION @ BAM
ACV brings a selection of recent Asian flicks to BAM, like THE HUNTER AND THE HUNTED (Japan), MEN SUDDENLY IN BLACK (Hong Kong) and A PECK ON THE CHEEK (India).

5/13 UNLEASHED
Jet Li rubs shoulders with Bob Hoskins and Morgan Freeman in his latest English-language outing that used to be called DANNY THE DOG, which was a much more fun title.

IN GENERAL RELEASE
HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS (2004, China, 119 minutes)
playing at the Loew's State and the Union Square 14
Read reviews:
http://www.mrqe.com/lookup?isindex=house+of+flying+daggers



NOBODY KNOWS (Japan, 2004, 141 minutes)
opening in more theaters on 2/18
Director Hirokazu Kore-eda (AFTER LIFE) returns to top form with this uncomfortably intimate story about four kids abandoned by their mom who must try to survive in their increasingly dirty apartment. If grubby kids make you shiver...avoid. Otherwise, it's great! It's opening at more and more theaters every second.
read a review:
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/nobodyknows



ONG BAK (2003, Thailand, 108 minutes)
If you're white, this movie is loved by Richard Corliss, Elvis Mitchell at the New York Times and New York Magazine. If you're black, then RZA loves this movie. Never have I seen a film split its marketing campaign so completely between the "upscale" and "urban" markets, but who cares? This Thai action film is the best action flick since Jackie Chan's 1994 DRUNKEN MASTER 2. Get off your bottom and go see it.
read reviews:
http://www.mrqe.com/lookup?isindex=Ong+Bak

BRIDE AND PREJUDICE (2004, USA, 120 minutes)
Union Square 14, Paris Theatre (58th St. and 5th Avenue), 42nd Street E Walk
Gurinder Chadha (BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM) has delivered an adaptation of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" via Bollywood, complete with Aishwarya Rai, musical numbers, and Alexis Bledel ("Gilmore Girls"). The movie itself is a complete mess, but some folks have actually enjoyed it and it does have a loosey-goosey kind of charm.
read a review:
http://www.mrqe.com/lookup?isindex=bride+and+prejudice

NOW PLAYING
Angelika
SKY BLUE (2003, Korea, 86 minutes)
This Korean animated sci fi film was known as WONDERFUL DAYS, but it's been rescored, re-edited and dubbed into English and released in the US as SKY BLUE. The story is a dystopian love story (the Earth's environment is ruined, two men love one woman, the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, etc.), but the atmosphere and visuals are truly spectacular in their detail and their smart combination of 3-D and 2-D visuals. Critics are eating it up.
read reviews:
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/skyblue



BAM
KWAIDAN (1964, Japan, 163 minutes)
part of "Fright Nights: International Horror"
Tuesday, March 1 @ 7:30PM
One of the landmarks of Japanese horror, this beautifully stylized 1964 film unreels four ghost stories. Shot entirely on soundstages, this movie achieves an unearthly atmosphere with its careful sound design and its bizarre visuals.
There's nothing else like it, you should see it once before you die, and you should see it on the big screen.
read reviews:
http://www.mrqe.com/lookup?isindex=kwaidan

Cinema Village
BAD GUY (2002, Korea, 100 minutes)
Daily shows @ 1:55PM, 4PM, 6:05PM, 8:10PM, 10:15PM
Kim Ki-Duk's horrendous revenge flick is another one of those movies he makes that you can't stop watching, but that make you feel dirty afterwards. A pimp grabs a cute co-ed in public one day and kisses her. She spits on him. Big mistake. From then on his life is dedicated to breaking her down and turning her into a gutter-trawling street hooker.
Yipes!
So depraved...it's not even rated.
read reviews:
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/badguy



Film Forum
BORN INTO BROTHELS (USA, 2004)
Daily @ 2:50PM, 5PM, 8:20 and 10PM
read reviews:
http://www.mrqe.com/lookup?isindex=born+into+brothels

ImaginAsian Theater
(239 East 59th Street, btwn 2nd and 3rd Avenues)
STORY OF THE WEEPING CAMEL (2003, Mongolia, 87 minutes)
Starts February 11 @ 3PM and 7:45PM daily (one week only)
The much loved story of camel herders who have to reunite a rejected camel with its mother. So they have to hire a musician to give a ritual performance that will unite the mother with her baby. Awww...
read a review:
http://www.mrqe.com/lookup?isindex=story+of+the+weeping+camel+

ONG BAK (2003, Thailand, 108 minutes)
February 18 - 24: 12:00, 2:00, 4:05, 6:10, 8:15, 10:15pm
read reviews:
http://www.mrqe.com/lookup?isindex=Ong+Bak

LITTLE TERRORIST (2004, 15 minutes)
February 11 - 17 @ 7:45PM & 9:45PM
February 18 - March 3 @ 10:15PM
Nominated for an Academy Award for "Best Narrative Short Film" this is the story of a little Pakistani kid who accidentally crosses the border into India, and the Hindu man who helps him return home. Watch out for the land mines.

Korean Cultural Service
The KCS will be hosting a series of DVD projections of Korean films each month, hosted by Im Hyun-Ock who is one of the producers of NOWHERE TO HIDE, Lee Myung-Se's incredible cop film.

SPIDER FOREST (2004, Korea, 113 minutes)
Thursday, February 24 @ 6:30PM
Last year's festival hit, this creepy film is a moody, good-looking thriller that can be very perplexing but wonderful to figure out.
Read a review:
http://www.dvdmaniacs.net/forums/showthread.php?t=10677

THREE...EXTREMES (2004, Korea/Hong Kong/Japan, 118 minutes)
Hong Kong's Fruit Chan (DURIAN, DURIAN), Korea's Park Chan-Wook (JSA, OLD BOY), and Takashi Miike (AUDITION, ICHI THE KILLER) team up to make a three part horror flick. Miike's is a moody, slow-paced story about a pair of sister contortionists. Fruit Chan's is a body horror epic about eating dumplings made of fetuses in order to stay young, and Park Chan-Wook's is a tight, real-time thriller about a film director and a disgruntled extra.
Read a review:
http://www.heroic-cinema.com/review.php?ID=3extreme

REWIND (2002, Korea, 100 minutes)
A melancholy romance.
Read a review:
oops, couldn't find one

Landmark Sunshine
NOBODY KNOWS (Japan, 2004, 141 minutes)
read a review:
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/nobodyknows

Lincoln Plaza
NOBODY KNOWS (Japan, 2004, 141 minutes)
read a review:
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/nobodyknows

Loew's State
BLACK (2005, India, 125 minutes)
Starts February 11 @ 12:20, 5:15, 9:45
Sanjay Leela Bansali directed HUM DIL DE CHUKE SANAM and DEVDAS, two of Bollywood's best movies. Now he's back with a Bollywood version of "The Miracle Worker' and it's hard to tell. Will it be good? Will it stink? Only time will tell.
read a review:
http://www.mtvindia.com/mtv/movies/reviews/05/black/index.php

SHABD (India, 2005, 146 minutes)
This is why you read this blog - would you ever have learned that Aishwarya Rai had another movie out this week otherwise? And, it's written and directed by one of India's only female directors. And it's all about Sanjay Dutt's plight as a Booker Prize winning novelist. Yowza! Aish and Sanjay play a happily married couple but Sanjay's got writer's block. So he gets his wife to sleep with a stranger so he can do "research" for his new book. It's the first film from Leena Yadav, and it's getting very mixed reviews.
read one of them:
http://bollywoodmantra.com/website/reviews-205.html


BRIDE AND PREJUDICE (2004, USA, 120 minutes)
read a review:
http://www.mrqe.com/lookup?isindex=bride+and+prejudice

Quad
TRAVELLERS AND MAGICIANS (Bhutan, 2003, 108 minutes)
Daily @ 1PM, 3:15PM, 5:25PM, 7:40PM, 9:50PM
Bhutan, stuck between India and China, is really pretty. Just how pretty you'll see in this flick that pulls a "Canterbury Tales" and tells the story of a bunch of travelers hiking to the capital and the noir-esque story a monk tells them to pass the time. This much-loved flick is from the director of THE CUP.
read a review:
http://www.mrqe.com/lookup?isindex=travellers+and+magicians

Village East
SKY BLUE (2003, Korea, 86 minutes)
read reviews:
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/skyblue

BORN INTO BROTHELS (USA, 2004)
read reviews:
http://www.mrqe.com/lookup?isindex=born+into+brothels

Walter Reade Theater
FILM COMMENT SELECTS
Film Comment Selects has an envy-inducing selection of Asian films this year.

SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE (Korea, 2002, 129 minutes)
Sunday, February 13 @ 7PM
Friday, February 18 @ 8:30PM
Hard to watch, upsetting, painful, and likely to induce stomach pains, this is Park Chan-Wook's best movie. The plot sounds like a soap opera (a deaf-mute factory worker kidnaps his boss' daughter to pay for his sister's kidney transplant) but that doesn't matter. Insanely well-shot it's the kind of movie you have to see on the big screen.

MEMORIES OF MURDER (Korea, 2003, 130 minutes)
Monday, February 21st @ 7PM
Wednesday, February 23 @ 1PM and 9PM
One of the biggest movies of 2003, this is the second film from Bong Joon-Ho, one of Korea's best directors who gave us all BARKING DOGS NEVER BITE a few years ago. Based on the real life investigation of a serial killer who stalked a rural township in the early 80's this movie should have been on everyone's 'Best of' lists in 2003.

IZO (Japan, 2004, 128 minutes)
Sunday, February 20 @ 1:30PM
Takashi Miike leaves behind his audience-friendly movies like GOZU and ZEBRAMAN for the insane, over-the-top, pretentious fury of IZO. An act of gruesome violence in medieval Japan creates a demon, Izo, who's going after the architects of the universe while he tumbles through time killing people again, and again, and again, and again. Maddening, repetitive, hilarious, and weird, featuring some of the most bizarre stylized dialogue ever put on film. As they say in IZO, "Let your testicles fill with carnal desire!"