New York Asian Film Festival 10th Anniversary Edition

Source: Subway Cinema press release Special Thanks to Grady Hendrix Americas leading large-scale festival of popular Asian cinema celebrates its tenth anniversary with the New York Asian Film Festival 2011. Taking place at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater (July 1 - 14) and Japan Society (July 7 - 10), the festival will once again feature dozens of movies, world and US premieres, exclusive Q&A’s with filmmakers, and other special events. This year also marks the fifth annual collaboration between JAPAN CUTS and NYAFF. The following press release is courtesy of Subway Cinema... The New York Asian Film Festival is ten years old! So this year’s festival is a no-holds-barred anniversary celebration of Asian pop cultural masterpieces, erupting out of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Japan Society like two raging volcanoes of molten fun. In 2001, the NYAFF held the first major retrospective of Hong Kong’s greatest director, Tsui Hark, and so it’s with great pride that we bring Tsui Hark himself to the festival ten years later to headline our special focus, "Wu Xia: Hong Kong’s Flying Swordsmen." Presented with the support of the Hong Kong Economic Trade Office New York, we’ll be screening new and old classics of the wu xia genre. Wu xia movies are swordplay films with a touch of fantasy and they’re all visual marvels, teeming with flying swordsmen, magical blades and glowering female steel-slingers. Our line-up includes Tsui Hark’s mega-hit, DETECTIVE DEE AND THE MYSTERY OF THE PHANTOM FLAME, and several retrospective titles like Tsui’s astonishing, feral masterpiece, THE BLADE. From Korea comes "Sea of Revenge: New Korean Thrillers," presented in association with the Korean Cultural Service New York. The series will feature the new school of hardcore action movies that have been setting the Korean box office, and Cannes, on fire. Special guest, director Ryoo Seung-wan (CITY OF VIOLENCE), will be here to present his film, THE UNJUST, a sprawling corruption saga. and also screening will be THE YELLOW SEA from director Na Hong-Jin whose previous thriller, THE CHASER, was Koreas word-of-mouth box office smash of 2008. THE YELLOW SEA will be screening at the NYAFF fresh from its Cannes screening as part of Un Certain Regard From Japan, there’s Takahisa Zeze’s HEAVEN’S STORY. Zeze is known as one of Japan’s "Kings of Pink", and hes one of the most famous directors of pink films, Japan’s unique softcore porn genre that gave directors like Kiyoshi Kurosawa (TOKYO SONATA) their start. But HEAVEN’S STORY is no skin flick. Instead it’s a four-and-a-half-hour epic that follows the grief, pain and redemption that spill out over the decades from two random acts of violence. Tak Sakaguchi, Japan’s number one stuntman/actor/director and all-around two-fisted renaissance man will be here in person with his new film, YAKUZA WEAPON, and we’ll also be screening Noboru Iguchi’s biggest-budgeted movie to date, KARATE-ROBO ZABORGAR, a tongue-in-cheek feature film based on a popular 70’s series about a robot that can turn into a motorcycle-- and it knows karate! Exploitation cinema from the Philippines will get its due with a screening of the festival fave documentary MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED, which will be paired with the jaw-dropping 1980’s Filipino exploitation mind-blower, RAW FORCE. There’ll be a special focus on Taiwan’s great genre director, writer and producer, Su Chao-pin, presented with the support of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York. We’ll be screening his new movie, the wu xia blockbuster, REIGN OF ASSASSINS, starring Michelle Yeoh and Korean star Jung Woo-Sung, and co-directed by John Woo. We’ll also be screening some of Sus classic films like BETTER THAN SEX an adrenaline-propelled comedy about first love, hand amputations and porn. From movies about punk rock Buddhist monks (Yuji Sadai’s ABRAXAS) to bone-breaking, stuntman-destroying Thai action extravaganzas (Panna Rittikrai’s BANGKOK KNOCKOUT), to brain-frying Japanese whatzits (Yoshimasa Ishibashi’s MILOCRORZE: A LOVE STORY), this tenth anniversary edition of the New York Asian Film Festival has enough marvels to turn your mind into a blazing inferno of fun. The full line-up and Star Asia Awards recipients will be announced May 26. We’re still booking and confirming major films and massive guests so keep your eyes on subwaycinemanews for details as we get them. And prepare yourselves for the best New York Asian Film Festival yet!!!

---

About the Film Society of Lincoln Center

Under the leadership of Rose Kuo, Executive Director, and Richard Peña, Program Director, The Film Society of Lincoln Center offers the best in international, classic and cutting-edge independent cinema. The Film Society presents two film festivals that attract global attention: the New York Film Festival, currently planning its 49th edition, and New Directors/New Films which, since its founding in 1972, has been produced in collaboration with MoMA. The Film Society also publishes the award-winning Film Comment Magazine, and for over three decades has given an annual award (now named "The Chaplin Award") to a major figure in world cinema. Past recipients of this award include Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, and Tom Hanks. The Film Society presents a year-round calendar of programming, panels, lectures, educational programs and specialty film releases at its Walter Reade Theater and the new state-of-the-art Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, opening June 2011. The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from 42BELOW, American Airlines, The New York Times, Stella Artois, the National Endowment for the Arts, WNET New York Public Media, Royal Bank of Canada and the New York State Council on the Arts. For more information, visit FilmLinc.com.

About NYAFF

Subway Cinema is a New York-based film programming, exhibition, and marketing collective, committed to increasing exposure and appreciation for Asias popular cinema with year-round events and screenings. Its flagship event is the New York Asian Film Festival (July 1 - 14) which the New York Times has called "...one of the citys most valuable events..." Launched in 2002, the NYAFF is Americas leading and most influential showcase for popular Asian cinema. Each year, the Festival selects over 40 feature films, and only the best, the strangest, and the most entertaining make the cut. The NYAFF was the first North American film festival to put a spotlight on Johnnie To, Bong Joon-Ho and Park Chan-Wook and it also held the largest retrospective of Tsui Harks work outside of Hong Kong. It is widely considered invincible. The NYAFF is made possible through the support of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office New York, the Korean Cultural Service New York, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York, Japan Foundation and the Kitano Hotel.