ACF 1112: Final update of links of cooperative coverage of New York Asian Film Festival and Japan Cuts

The Last Ronin © 2010 "The Last Ronin" Film Partners

Well, it’s Wednesday again and time for my final set of links of the cooperative coverage by four websites of the 10th Annual New York Asian Film Festival, co-presented by Subway Cinema and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and of Japan Cuts: The New York Festival Of Contemporary Japanese Cinema, presented by Japan Society NYC. NYAFF and Japan Society joined forces, as they have in the past, to c0-present several films.

The four cooperating websites (in no particular order) are:
- VCinema
- AsianCineFest
- The Bourne Cinema Conspiracy
- cineAWESOME!

There are three additional sites for which I’m also providing links. Two of them have appeared in my previous posts of links, one is new. The three additional sites are:

-- New Korea Cinema website, which has had a relationship with VCinema for some time.

-- Meniscus, which although not part of our cooperative effort, is where Chris Bourne has also posted some reviews

-- Dreamlogic.net - Chris Nelson of dreamlogic.net emailed me some links to reviews at his site after catching my coverage through Jon Jung of VCinema. It’s my pleasure to include them here.

Within each site listed below, the reviews are listed most recent first, earliest last. There's some cross-posting, particularly by Chris Bourne and myself, usually first at VCinema, then on our own blogs. In certain of these cross-posts, you'll find that the second postings differ somewhat from the originals.

VCinema

Haru’s Journey – Christopher Bourne

Wandering Home – Stan Glick

Torso – John Berra

Three Points

Bonus Episode 8: An Interview With Tsui Hark – an audio interview by Stan Glick

Rinco’s Restaurant – Stan Glick

Battlefield Heroes – Pierce Conran

The Last Days of The World – Rex Baylon

Love and Loathing and Lulu and Ayano – Christopher Bourne

The Recipe - Jon Jung

Machete Maidens Unleashed!

The Man From Nowhere – Pierce Conran

Haunters – Pierce Conran

Ringing in Their Ears – Christopher Bourne

“Won’t Somebody Think of the Children!!” (family friendly films at NYAFF & Japan Cuts) – Rex Baylon

Reign of Assassins – John Berra
The Seaside Motel – John Berra
A Night In Nude – Stan Glick

The Unjust – John Berra
The City of Violence – Stan Glick
Horny House of Horror – Christopher Bourne
Milocrorze: A Love Story – Stan Glick
BKO: Bangkok Knockout – Christopher Bourne

AsianCineFest – Dr. Stan Glick

An Interview With Tsui Hark – post linking to the audio interview at VCinema

The Food of Rinco’s Restaurant

Rinco’s Restaurant

Japan Cuts film festival arrives!

NYAFF Wu Xia Trailer & Remaining Screening Schedule

The “7 Courtesans of Tenzakuro” in Milocrorze: A Love Story
Milocrorze: A Love Story

The Bourne Cinema Conspiracy – Christopher Bourne

Haru’s Journey

City of Violence

Love and Loathing and Luly and Ayano

Ringing in Their Ears
The Recipe

Horny House of Horror

BKO: Bangkok Knockout

cineAWESOME!

Wandering Home – Lisa Kirchner
The Blade – James McCormick

The Unjust – Rufus De Rham

Top 7 Tuesday: NYAFF/Japan Cuts Edition – July 5^th Podcast of cineAWESOME’s personal top 7 choices from the two festivals

Karate-Robo Zaborgar – James McCormick

Episode 006: NYAFF – July 4^th Podcast includes consideration of what to watch at the New York Asian Film Festival

Ninja Kids!!! – Rufus De Rham

Milocrorze: A Love Story – James McCormick

Bonus Episode 001: Interview with Grady Hendrix – June 29 Podcast in which Rufus interviews Grady, one of the founders of Subway Cinema, the group that sponsors the New York Asian Film Festival, and the main frontman for NYAFF.

Toilet – Deangelo Willimas, Jr.
Troubleshooter – Deangelo Willimas, Jr.
A Night in Nude: Salvation – Deangelo Willimas, Jr.
Buddha Mountain – James McCormick

New Korean Cinema

The Recipe – Christopher Bourne

Meniscus - Christopher Bourne is also posting reviews here

The Blade

Buddha Mountain

Milocrorze: A Love Story

Dreamlogic.net

Into the White Night

Vengeance Can Wait

The Knot

The Seaside Motel

Three Points

Battle Royale (archived DVD review)

Gantz (archived movie review)

ACF 1103: Japan Society NY screens "Wandering Home" tonight at 9 PM

Wandering Home (a.k.a. Walking Home, at least at IMDb) joins a number of outstanding movies concerned with substance addiction, such as The Man with the Golden Arm (1955, drug addiction) and The Lost Weekend (1945, alcoholism). Sensitively directed by Yoichi Higashi (who wrote the screenplay based on a novel by Reiko Saibara), it tells the tale of Yasuyuki Tsukahara (Tadanobu Asano, looking nothing like Kakihara, the character he played in Takashi Miike's Ichi the Killer), a man in his late thirties, perhaps early forties, who is drinking himself into an early grave.

The film opens in a restaurant where a large group of young people are enjoying food, drink, and one another's company. A bit away from this group sits a solitary man whose attention is on one of the lovely young women facing in his direction. Using his thumbs and forefingers, he frames her in a rectangle, as a photographer or movie director might. After a moment, he passes out and tumbles on to the floor. Some of the staff, obviously familiar with this routine, come to help get him upright. Assisting them are the man's family, his wife and children, a son about eight or nine and a daughter a few years younger. Except the family is not really there; he's imagining their presence through his alcoholic stupor. Thus we meet Mr. Tsukahara.

We learn that at one time he was indeed a photojournalist, and his experiences documenting death and suffering were contributing factors to his alcohol addiction, as was his own father's alcoholism. Tsukahara did once have a family: a wife Yuki (Hiromi Nagasaku) and two children, his son Hiroshi and daughter Kaoru. But he verbally and physically abused his wife, who divorced him, and now he lives with his widowed mother, who teaches flower arrangement.

Returning to his mother's home from the restaurant, he proceeds to the bathroom where he spews up a great deal of blood, not for the first time as we subsequently learn. He's taken by ambulance to a hospital where he is visited by his wife, who clearly still loves the part of him that is not an alcoholic, and his children, who love him unconditionally but wish he would stop drinking. Repeatedly he's told by various doctors that his "numbers are so bad" that it's a wonder he's still alive.

After getting discharged, he tries to conquer his addiction as an out-patient but fails, and ultimately winds up in the alcoholism ward of a psychiatric hospital for treatment. While the film does address the medical issues and treatment involved, it is primarily devoted to the effects of the disease on the addict and those close to him (or her). The story is perhaps somewhat atypical in that Yasuyuki has remarkably supportive people in his ex-wife, his children, and his mother, all of whom want desperately for him to overcome his affliction. Also, both he and Yuki are particularly handsome individuals with winning smiles. Nonetheless, the story is entirely believable, and one cannot help but long for a positive outcome.

I'm not about to give away what ultimately happens, but I will say that near the end there's a scene that takes place at the shore. As the film cuts from a group of individuals near the water to a person on a low rise, probably a dune, the effect is disorienting, since at first it isn't clear how that person could have gotten there. With some shot/reverse shot cuts and a cut back to the shoreline, it suddenly becomes clear what's going on. It "got a bit dusty" in my apartment as I watched this scene play out on a DVD screener, and it has gotten dusty every time I've thought about it, including now as I write this. It's an honestly earned emotional response to a film that addresses it's subject with clarity, caring and concern.

Wandering Home is a touching, heartfelt adult drama, filled with love and humanity. It will be shown tonight, Thursday, July 21st at 9:00 PM at Japan Society, NYC. This screening, part of Japan Cuts 2011: The New York Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema, will mark the film's North American Premiere. For tickets, click here.

This review was initially posted in slightly different form at VCinema.

ACF 1102: Third set of updated links of cooperative coverage of New York Asian Film Festival and Japan Cuts

Into the White Night © 2011 “Into the White Night” Film partners

"Into the White Night" will be shown at Japan Society NY
on Friday, July 22nd, 2011 at 7:00 PM.
This will be the International Premiere of the film,
and the closing film of this year's Japan Cuts film festival.
Afterwards there will be a Closing Night Party! Tickets here.

Well, it's Wednesday, and that means it's again time to update the links to the cooperative coverage by four websites of the 10th Annual New York Asian Film Festival, co-presented by Subway Cinema and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and of Japan Cuts: The New York Festival Of Contemporary Japanese Cinema, presented by Japan Society. And while NYAFF ended last week, Japan Cuts runs through this Friday evening.

The four cooperating websites (in no particular order) are:
- VCinema
- AsianCineFest
- The Bourne Cinema Conspiracy
- cineAWESOME!

I’ve also included the following sites:

- New Korea Cinema website, which has had a relationship with VCinema for some time.

- Meniscus, which although not part of our cooperative effort, is where Chris Bourne has also posted some reviews

Within each site listed below, the reviews are listed most recent first, earliest last. There's some cross-posting, particularly by Chris Bourne and myself, usually first at VCinema, then on our own blogs. In certain of these cross-posts, you'll find that the second postings differ somewhat from the originals.

I intend to keep updating this list of links every Wednesday through the week after the festivals end. So be sure to check back.

VCinema

Haru’s Journey – Christopher Bourne

Wandering Home – Stan Glick

Torso – John Berra

Three Points - Stan Glick

Bonus Episode 8: An Interview With Tsui Hark – an audio interview by Stan Glick

Rinco’s Restaurant – Stan Glick

Battlefield Heroes – Pierce Conran

The Last Days of The World – Rex Baylon

Love and Loathing and Lulu and Ayano – Christopher Bourne

The Recipe - Jon Jung

Machete Maidens Unleashed!

The Man From Nowhere – Pierce Conran

Haunters – Pierce Conran

Ringing in Their Ears – Christopher Bourne

“Won’t Somebody Think of the Children!!” (family friendly films at NYAFF & Japan Cuts) – Rex Baylon

Reign of Assassins – John Berra
The Seaside Motel – John Berra
A Night In Nude – Stan Glick

The Unjust – John Berra
The City of Violence – Stan Glick
Horny House of Horror – Christopher Bourne
Milocrorze: A Love Story – Stan Glick
BKO: Bangkok Knockout – Christopher Bourne

AsianCineFest – Dr. Stan Glick

An Interview With Tsui Hark – post linking to the audio interview at VCinema

The Food of Rinco’s Restaurant

Rinco’s Restaurant

Japan Cuts film festival arrives!

NYAFF Wu Xia Trailer & Remaining Screening Schedule

The “7 Courtesans of Tenzakuro” in Milocrorze: A Love Story
Milocrorze: A Love Story

The Bourne Cinema Conspiracy – Christopher Bourne

City of Violence

Love and Loathing and Luly and Ayano

Ringing in Their Ears
The Recipe

Horny House of Horror

BKO: Bangkok Knockout

cineAWESOME!
The Blade – James McCormick

The Unjust – Rufus De Rham

Top 7 Tuesday: NYAFF/Japan Cuts Edition – July 5^th Podcast of cineAWESOME’s personal top 7 choices from the two festivals

Karate-Robo Zaborgar – James McCormick

Episode 006: NYAFF – July 4^th Podcast includes consideration of what to watch at the New York Asian Film Festival

Ninja Kids!!! – Rufus De Rham

Milocrorze: A Love Story – James McCormick

Bonus Episode 001: Interview with Grady Hendrix – June 29 Podcast in which Rufus interviews Grady, one of the founders of Subway Cinema, the group that sponsors the New York Asian Film Festival, and the main frontman for NYAFF.

Toilet – Deangelo Willimas, Jr.
Troubleshooter – Deangelo Willimas, Jr.
A Night in Nude: Salvation – Deangelo Willimas, Jr.
Buddha Mountain – James McCormick

New Korean Cinema

The Recipe – Christopher Bourne

Meniscus - Christopher Bourne is also posting reviews here

The Blade

Buddha Mountain

Milocrorze: A Love Story

ACF 1098: Three ☆ Points at Japan Society tomorrow night followed by After Party!

Miho Fujima (left) and Sora Aoi
Three☆Points © Three☆Points Syndicate 2011

Three Points / Suri Pointo
Directed by Masashi Yamamoto
Starring Sora Aoi and Jun Murakami
Japan, 2011, 117 minutes
When: Friday, July 15, 2011 at 8:30 PM
Where: Japan Society
333 East 47th Street, between 1st and 2nd Avenues, NYC
International Premiere / Centerpiece Presentation
Introduction and Q&A with Yamamoto and actress Sora Aoi
"1, 2...3 Points After Party following screening.

Three ☆ Points is somewhat of a hybrid movie.The title refers to three locals reflecting different aspects of Japanese Society: Kyoto, Okinawa and Tokyo. In Kyoto the focus is on several Japanese rappers. Apollo has been released after serving five years, and berates his long-suffering girlfriend Jun. Shoot recently got out of jail and is met by his friend and former rap partner Jey. Snorting coke in Jey's car results in a blackmail situation, but was it all really just a set-up? Finally there's Mention, who will be "leaving" for three years and whose cranky mouthed girlfriend Risa announces she will not be there waiting for him when he gets out.

The segments set in Okinawa, which are interspersed between those in Kyoto, are more like a documentary travelogue. The director and film crew visit and interview various personages. Tetchan recently moved to Onna ("Woman") Village from Kadena. In an out-door segment marked with somewhat jerky hand-held camera movement, he demonstrates his ability to dig for crabs. Higa-san shows a "Uganjo," a place that is visited to perform a ceremony to wish for a good crop. There are also interviews with an old timer who recalls the heyday of U.S. presence on the island during the Vietnam war and with several U.S. military personnel currently stationed there. While native sentiment against the U.S. military is evident, these interviews generally approach the young Americans as human beings, not monsters.

The finale segment, which is uninterrupted and basically constitutes the last half of the film. Saki Kuwashima (actress Sora Aoi, whose first name is sometimes spelled "Sola") is a lovely, young female office worker and quite a free spirit. We first meet her when she is out with an older, married man, and the two are accosted by a group of punks. A good-looking street-drifter named Iga (Jun Murakami) comes to their rescue. After her "date" leaves, Saki returns to find the man bleeding from a knife wound. He refuses her offer to call for an ambulance, but agrees to go to her apartment and allow her to clean his wound. Once settled in there, he decides to stay, even passing himself off as her "uncle" to one of her dates, a young man who works at a grocery/convenience store she frequents.

A strange and uneasy relationship develops between Saki, who claims that her promiscuity may stem from her mother's many husbands and lovers, and Iga, who reveals that he was married, but that his wife and daughter died in an accident. Saki begins to role play as Iga's wife, and a sensual and psychological drama begins to unfold that brings into question the things they have told one another.

For me, the Tokyo Chapter was easily the finest of the three "points" of the film. It was well developed and intriguing, and both Murakami and Aoi were very good in their roles. Aoi is a former A.V. (adult video) actress who has been moving into more legitimate film fare. Billed as "Sola" Aoi, she previously starred in Yamamoto's man woman and the Wall (2006), in which she played the new neighbor of a young man who, not surprisingly, listens through their adjoining wall to what goes on in her apartment. That film, a surprisingly smart consideration of audio "voyeurism" is available from Ricochet Releasing in fine DVD that includes a quite good Making-Of Featurette. Aoi (again billed as "Sola"0 also starred in Big Tits Zombie (a.k.a. The Big Tits Dragon, 2010), a delightful cult film with a terrible and misleading English title. While she is amply endowed up top, Aoi plays an exotic dancer and zombie killer, not a zombie.

While in her portion of Three ☆ Points, as well as in the two other films I've mentioned, Aoi does spend some time displaying her physical charms, it's clear that she is well-suited for the transition she's begun. She's charming and unaffected, a real natural. While she certainly isn't ready for heavy drama -- at least not yet -- she is much more than capable of handling the age-appropriate roles she has begun undertaking. Nowhere is this more evident than in Three Points, a fragmented film worth seeing on the whole, but particularly for the Tokyo-based segment.

Tickets for Three ☆ Points here.

ACF 1096: Updated links of cooperative coverage of New York Asian Film Festival and Japan Cuts

Kou Shibasaki as Rinco in Rinco's Restaurant,
which screens tonight at 6:30 PM at Japan Society

The cooperative coverage by four websites of the 10th Annual New York Asian Film Festival, co-presented by Subway Cinema and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and of Japan Cuts: The New York Festival Of Contemporary Japanese Cinema, presented by Japan Society, has produced a slew of reviews.

The four cooperating websites (in no particular order) are:

- VCinema
- AsianCineFest
- The Bourne Cinema Conspiracy
- cineAWESOME!

Thanks to a reminder from Rufus at cineAWESOME!, I've listed relevant podcasts as well as written reviews.

I’ve also included the following sites:

- New Korea Cinema website, which has had a relationship with VCinema for some time.

- Meniscus, which although not part of our cooperative effort, is where Chris Bourne has also posted some reviews

Within each site listed below, the reviews are listed most recent first, earliest last. There's some cross-posting, particularly by Chris Bourne and myself. In certain of these cross-posts, you'll find that the second postings differ somewhat from the originals.

I intend to keep updating this list of links every Wednesday through the week after the festivals end. So be sure to check back.

VCinema

Rinco’s Restaurant – Stan Glick

Battlefield Heroes – Pierce Conran

The Last Days of The World – Rex Baylon

Love and Loathing and Lulu and Ayano – Christopher Bourne

The Recipe - Jon Jung

Machete Maidens Unleashed!

The Man From Nowhere – Pierce Conran

Haunters – Pierce Conran

Ringing in Their Ears – Christopher Bourne

“Won’t Somebody Think of the Children!!n” (family friendly films at NYAFF & Japan Cuts) – Rex Baylon

Reign of Assassins – John Berra

The Seaside Motel – John Berra

A Night In Nude – Stan Glick

The Unjust – John Berra

The City of Violence – Stan Glick

Horny House of Horror – Christopher Bourne

Milocrorze: A Love Story – Stan Glick

BKO: Bangkok Knockout – Christopher Bourne

AsianCineFest – Dr. Stan Glick

The Food of Rinco’s Restaurant

Rinco’s Restaurant

Japan Cuts film festival arrives!

NYAFF Wu Xia Trailer & Remaining Screening Schedule

The “7 Courtesans of Tenzakuro” in Milocrorze: A Love Story
Milocrorze: A Love Story

The Bourne Cinema Conspiracy – Christopher Bourne

City of Violence

Love and Loathing and Luly and Ayano

Ringing in Their Ears

The Recipe

Horny House of Horror

BKO: Bangkok Knockout

cineAWESOME!

The Blade – James McCormick

The Unjust – Rufus De Rham

Top 7 Tuesday: NYAFF/Japan Cuts Edition – July 5^th Podcast of cineAWESOME’s personal top 7 choices from the two festivals

Karate-Robo Zaborgar – James McCormick

Episode 006: NYAFF – July 4^th Podcast includes consideration of what to watch at the New York Asian Film Festival

Ninja Kids!!! – Rufus De Rham

Milocrorze: A Love Story – James McCormick

Bonus Episode 001: Interview with Grady Hendrix – June 29 Podcast in which Rufus interviews Grady, one of the founders of Subway Cinema, the group that sponsors the New York Asian Film Festival, and the main frontman for NYAFF

Toilet – Deangelo Willimas, Jr.

Troubleshooter – Deangelo Willimas, Jr.

A Night in Nude: Salvation – Deangelo Willimas, Jr.

Buddha Mountain – James McCormick

New Korean Cinema

The Recipe - Christopher Bourne

Meniscus - Christopher Bourne is also posting reviews here

The Blade

Buddha Mountain

Milocrorze: A Love Story