Sept 9 - 17, 2005

COMING SOON
NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL (Sept. 24 - October 20)
SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE! THE PRESIDENT'S LAST BANG! New Hou Hsiao-hsien! Plus a 35 film Shochiku retrospective.

MIKIO NARUSE RETROSPECTIVE (Oct. 21 - Nov. 17)
Another Japanese master who's rarely seen getting the deep retro treatment from Film Forum.

100 YEARS OF CHINESE CINEMA (Oct. 21 - Nov. 10)
They can't show all 100 years, but they manage to hit a lot of the highlights in this Walter Reade retro.

KENJI MIZOGUCHI RETROSPECTIVE (Oct. 31 - Nov. 22)
Japan's often unseen, but true master gets a full retro (well, pretty darn full) out at BAM.

THE OVERTURE (Oct. 9?)
Thailand's posh period flick about dueling xylophone players is coming from Kino this October. While it can be a little staid at times, the blazing xylophone duels are pretty hot stuff. It opens Oct. 9 on the West Coast and then comes to NYC.

THE PRESIDENT'S LAST BANG (late October? Early November)
Kino trots out this super-controversial Korean flick about the assassination of President Park back in the early 80's - starring the always-incredible Han Suk-Gyu and Baek Yoon-Sik (the CEO in SAVE THE GREEN PLANET). Totally scatological, funnier than a film about presidential assassination has any right to be, and so well-made and intense that it puts American political thrillers to shame.
read a review:
http://www.koreanfilm.org/kfilm05.html#lastbang

PULSE (Nov. 9)
Coming out in the fall, this is Kiyoshi Kurosawa's most accessible flick, and one of the best Japanese horror movies ever made. If you're tired of dead wet girls with long black hair then this one's for you.
read a review:
http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/kairo.shtml



NOW PLAYING
AMC EMPIRE 25 (42nd St. between 7 & 8 Aves)
2046 (2005, Hong Kong)
Wong Kar-wai's latest features Tony Leung Chiu-wai flirting with and seducing Faye Wong, Gong Li, Maggie Cheung, Carina Lau and, most memorably, Zhang Ziyi. A spiritual successor to IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, this WKW movie represents the end of the road for the DAYS OF BEING WILD crowd.
read reviews:
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/2046

BAM
NEW YORK KOREAN FILM FESTIVAL (Sept. 7-11)
The New York Korean Film Festival returns to the Brooklyn Academy of Music with a line-up of the movies that make Korean cinema go. The list of recommendations?
SPIDER FOREST - visually gorgeous, mentally disturbing. A guy wakes up next to two dead bodies covered with spiders and, oh yeah, it looks like he killed them. No one can figure out what's going on, but the more they try the more they die. This is the kind of brainy but pretty thriller Korea has made a prime export.
MAPADO - a surprise comedy low-calibre hit this year in Korea, about gangsters hiding out on an island populated entirely by little old ladies.
GHOST HOUSE - a horror movie send-up that manages to get more laughs than it deserves. Totally ramshackle, but compelling in a "what the hell is going on" kind of way. If you liked the random Hong Kong comedies of the early 90's, this grue's for you.
For full festival details:
http://www.koreanfilmfestival.org/

Film Forum
SAMURAI SUMMER
August 19 - Septemeber 15
Film Forum re-introduces us all to the movies that used to remind us of exactly why we hate our jobs: samurai movies. Your boss sucks, he asks you for ridiculous things, theres only one thing to do: bear with it and then, when it gets too much, whip out your sword and KILL EVERYONE YOU CAN FIND!!!

SWORD OF DOOM (1966, Japan)
Friday and Saturday 9/9 and 9/10
Everyone loves Okamoto's psycho-epic, and they should. The story of a samurai who's so kill-krazy that he doesn't care whose blood is running down his blade, SWORD OF DOOM features Tatsuya Nakadai as the sword-slinging sociopath and Toshiro Mifune puts in a guest role as the man who can't be defeated.
In a new 35mm print.
read more:
http://www.filmforum.org/films/samurai.html#sword

BANDITS VS. SAMURAI SQUADRON (1962, Japan)
Sunday and Monday, 9/11 & 9/12
A new 35mm print of this unholy fusion between the samurai film and the conman thriller that unleashes breakneck plot twists and galloping action to chart a battle of the brains between, well, a bandit and a squadron of samurai.
read more:
http://www.filmforum.org/films/samurai.html#bandits

SAMURAI SAGA (1959, Japan)
Tuesday and Wednesday 9/13 & 9/14
Quite simply the best screen adaptation of Edmond Rostand's classic "Cyrano de Beregerac", this Technicolored marvel stars Toshiro Mifune as the quick-tempered poet/warrior with the enormous, disfiguring nose. All the wit, all the poetry, all the clashing steel, all the romance you ever wanted from Cyrano, all set in 17th Century Japan.
read a review:
http://www.filmforum.org/films/samurai.html#saga

ImaginAsian Theater
(239 East 59th Street, btwn 2nd and 3rd Ave)
SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE (2002, Korea, 124 minutes)
You probably know Park Chan-Wook from JSA or OLDBOY, but his SYMPATHY is the most amazing, most grueling, most bestest movie he's ever made. This simple Jacobean revenge drama will test your tolerance and strain your heart but it's all in a good cause. Amidst all the stabbings, beating, drownings and electrocutions he's begging us: can't we just stop hurting each other?
read a review:
http://www.subwaycinema.com/frames/archives/nyaff03/sympathy.htm

OLDBOY (2004, Korea)
Park Chan-Wook's most purely cinematic, chewably pulp, comic book movie. It's got more brains and more nasty secrets and satanic perversions than your average comic book inspired flick, but its cliffhanger plot and hypnotic style are the kind of thing SPIDERMAN 3 wishes it could have a little more of. Oh Dae-Su is an ordinary schlub, abducted and imprisoned for 15 years and suddenly released with a rage-induced hard-on to mess up the guy who locked him up. Then things get really twisted.
read a review:
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/oldboy

Landmark Sunshine
2046 (2005, Hong Kong)
Wong Kar-wai's latest features Tony Leung Chiu-wai flirting with and seducing Faye Wong, Gong Li, Maggie Cheung, Carina Lau and, most memorably, Zhang Ziyi. A spiritual successor to IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, this WKW movie represents the end of the road for the DAYS OF BEING WILD crowd.
read reviews:
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/2046

Lincoln Plaza Cinema
2046 (2005, Hong Kong)
Wong Kar-wai's latest features Tony Leung Chiu-wai flirting with and seducing Faye Wong, Gong Li, Maggie Cheung, Carina Lau and, most memorably, Zhang Ziyi. A spiritual successor to IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, this WKW movie represents the end of the road for the DAYS OF BEING WILD crowd.
read reviews:
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/2046

Loew's State Theater
NO ENTRY (2005, India)
A rowdy comedy that's become a bit of a sleeper hit in India right now, this flick has Anil Kapoor, Fardeen Khan and Salman Khan playing cheating husbands in this campy comedy with Lara Dutta.
read a review:
http://www.apunkachoice.com/scoop/bollywood/20050827-3.html

THE RISING (2005, India)
Starts August 12
Aamir Khan whose last mighty hit was LAGAAN, return to tell the epic tale of the Indian Mutiny under British colonial rule and the life of Mangal Pandey. All singing! All dancing! One of the most anticipated Bollywood movies of the year.
read all about it:
http://news.sawf.org/Bollywood/1054.aspx

Museum of Modern Art
ANIME!! (July 10 - September)
The three-month celebration of Japanese animation ends Saturday with a final, 2PM video projection of the astounding MIND GAME. Although they are calling this a "Western Premiere", that's only true of the film in it's video format, given that the 35mm format premeired at our New York Asian Film Fesatival in June. Just the same, this is an amazing film and MUST be seen, regardless of format!
More info:
http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/film_media/2005/anime.html

Early Autumn: Masterworks of Japanese Cinema from the National Film Center, Tokyo
September 14 - January, 2006
Japan's National Film Center opens its archives and releases 53 prints of some of Japan's classic must-see films.
For the historically-minded, there's rare, early classics on hand like MR. THANK YOU, RICKSHAW MAN, WHERE CHIMNEYS ARE SEEN and INO AND MON.
If you're looking for early work by major directors, there's Mizoguchi's SISTERS OF THE GION and Kurosawa's SUGATA SANSHIRO.
And if you like your movies pulpy, don't miss MATANGO (ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE), GHOST STORY OF YOTSUYA and the first ZATOICHI movie, here called: THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF MASSEUR ICHI.
Full listings: http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/film_media/2005/japanese_cinema.html

Paris Theater (4 West 58th Street)
BALZAC AND THE LITTLE CHINESE SEAMSTRESS (2003, China/Paris, 111 minutes)
This French/Chinese film, directed by Chinese director Dai Sijie and based on his best-selling novel of the same title, is a lot better than you'd think. Combining his memories of being sent down to the countryside for re-education, his love for Western literature, and the Three Gorges Dam Project into a gorgeous, well-acted, occasionally gruesome love letter to his youth this flick is worth your time if you're into this sort of thing.
read a review:
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/balzacandthelittlechineseseamstress

Pioneer Two Boots
KUNG FU HUSTLE (2005, Hong Kong)
9/3 @ midnight, 9/10 @ midnight, 9/24 @ 10:45PM
Stephen Chow is god, and now you know. Sony Pictures Classic releases the King of Comedy's latest flick in 2,000 theaters nationwide and you owe it to the universe to buy a ticket, as it's the most imaginative movie to hit US screens so far this year. Plot? You don't need to know the plot... it's Stephen Chow. Just go!
read a review:
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/kungfuhustle


Quad Cinemas
TONY TAKITANI (2005, Japan, 75 minutes)
Japanese arthouse legend, Jun Ichikawa, has crafted a slow, subdued, quiet chamber movie from a Haruki Murakami short story. If you don't like art films it's not for you, but if you love the arthouse movies then this is one of the better ones.
Read a review:
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/tonytakitani

Village East
KAMIKAZE GIRLS (2004, Japan, 100 minutes)
You wouldn't know it but one of the year's best comedies and one of the best movies about female friendship, period, is playing over at the Village East right now. Loli girls and bike gang chicks meet, fall in hate with each other, and join forces to fight the oppressive scum who surround them. A wild ride that leaves you aching with a cool whiplash buzz.
read more:
http://www.subwaycinema.com/frames/nyaff05-kamikaze.htm