March 29 – April 5, 2007

NOW PLAYING ALL OVER TOWN

THE HOST (Korea, 2006, 119 minutes)
Now playing at the Landmark Sunshine, BAM, Chelsea Cinemas and Clearview Cinemas on 62nd and Broadway

Bong Joon-Ho’s monster mash is one of the best additions to the “Big-scary- creature-jumping-around-trying-to-eat-you” genre since ALIEN and JAWS. And for good measure he also throws in Olympic archery, brain biopsies, schoolgirl uniforms, dragon barf, military ineptitude, Agent Orange (oops, I mean “Yellow”) and then lets the whole goulash simmer down to a lovely little spoonful of quiet, family intimacy. Needless to say, if you haven’t seen it yet you really should.
read more:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/host/

NOW PLAYING
The ImaginAsian
NAMASTEY LONDON (India, 2007, 142 minutes)
Daily @ 3:30pm, 6:30pm, 9:30pm
Akshay Kumar and Rishi Kapoor star in this flick about an Indian family in London who’s worried that their daughter is getting too Westernized. Dragging her off to India they stick her in an arranged marriage but she flees to London and declares her nuptials invalid. A romantic comedy that’s light as foam and just as substantial, but Bollywood does these things so well.
read a review:
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117933172.html?categoryid=31&cs=1

PING PONG (Japan, 2002, 114 minutes)
STARTS APRIL 6
The best sports movie ever made finally gets a way-too-late release from Viz. But don’t let that expiration date scare you: this flick could have been made yesterday. If you like your sports films all about Rocky slugging someone in the face until the bell rings this ain’t for you, but if you’ve ever played a sport and know all the complicated, tangled dynamics that come with that territory then you’ll feel like PING PONG is saying all the things you ever thought. An amped-up, turbo-charged movie about people who live and die for ping pong, this is the final word on putting sports on film.
read a review:
http://www.subwaycinema.com/frames/archives/nyaff03/pingpong.htm

VOICE OF A MURDERER (Korea, 2007)
STARTS APRIL 13
Korea has been making better versions of ZODIAC ever since 2003’s MEMORIES OF MURDER and their latest entry is VOICE OF A MURDERER, a movie about a real-life crime that will hang around in your head for days afterwards like the stench of rotten souls. Based on a real-life kidnapping from the early 90’s, and directed by the man who worked on the definitive documentary about that crime, this movie isn’t about the voyeuristic riff raff who get off on playing Sherlock Holmes, instead it’s about the victim and his family and the emotional punch is like a hammer whacking your brain right on its softest spot. Harrowing, horrifying and truly great this is a movie for real people who can handle real feelings, not folks who need their every emotion validated by a layer critical reviews and auterist chill.
It’s also Korea’s most successful movie of 2007.
read more:
http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/009008.html

MOMA
Walter Reade
NEW DIRECTOR/NEW FILMS
There’s only one Asian feature in NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS this year and it’s:
THE OTHER HALF (China, 2006, 111 minutes)
Saturday March 31 @ 3:15pm (Walter Reade)
Sunday April 1 @ 6:45pm (MOMA)
Director Ying Liang’s follow-up to his first film TAKING FATHER HOME, this Mainland movie is about those darn kids as a young woman working in a law firm gradually comes to realize how horrible life really is.
read more:
http://www.filmlinc.com/ndnf/program/theotherhalf.html

Museum of the Moving Image
CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER (2006, China)
Sunday, April 8 @ 2pm
Zhang Yimou’s epic wraps Chow Yun-fat and Gong Li in miles of crackling gold decor and sets them at each others’ throat as the world’s most dysfunctional Imperial family. The reviews are mixed, but the cleveage is plentiful, as evidenced by the fact that Chinese audiences have dubbed it “Curse of the Golden Corset”. It’s like Bollywood doing the martial arts epic. Gooey and delicious for your eyeballs.
read more:
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/curseofthegoldenflower?q=curse%20of%20the%20golden%20flower