New York Asian Film Festival 2010 Starts Friday

 

There are plenty of film festivals these days, but none quite like the New York Asian Film Festival , which runs June 25-July 8. Featuring the vital, exciting, offbeat and enjoyable films from Hong Kong, Korea, Thailand, Japan, etc. there is  always something to sink your teeth into. This year it moves uptown to Lincoln Center's Walter Reade theater which will be great fun to watch audiences there squealing to kung fu fighting, mutant girls, killer pigs and other crazed delights.

Some highlights this year:

Power Kids (Thailand)
Four kickboxing tykes sneak into a hospital held hostage by terrorists to race down the clock getting a designated heart transplant for their little brother.

Gallants
(Hong Kong) A dweebish (but cute) office worker is sent to a village tea house to settle a property dispute and gets involved with martial arts, coma patients and a neck brace-wearing nemesis from his youth.

Kung Fu Chefs (Hong Kong)
A wildly entertaining film starring the great Sammo Hung (who is a special appearing guest this year) about a master chef regaining his mantle (and ceremonial cutting knife) with the help of a cocky young male apprentice. Think- Iron Chef but with wild kicks to the head.

Mutant Girl's Squad (Japan)
Teenage girls are mutating into alarming weapons. They form a revolutionary posse to fight the military soldiers, but a few of the girls rebel against their mutant leader. With ass chainsaws, blades coming out of breasts, plenty of splitting heads and lots of arterial spray.

Yatterman (Japan)
Director Takashi Miike's (Audition) LSD-fueled live action take on a 1970s TV anime superhero show (pictured above). A kiddie movie like none you have ever experienced on this planet.

Chaw (Korean)
A policeman in Seoul is uprooted (with his pregnant wife and batty mother) to a remote "crimeless" village only to deal with a giant killer boar suddenly attacking the townspeople. Like The Host, the offbeat comedy is nicely mixed with the thrills. There is a fabulous attack by the beast at the Town Hall during a night of celebration, and a hair-raising chase through the woods and down a train track at the end. 

Golden Slumber (Japan)
My absolute favorite so far. This film, by director Yoshihiro Nakamura (Fish Story), is about a sweet delivery man who is implicated in the assassination of a Prime Minister and goes on the run trying to prove his innocence. It's  long, convoluted, Hitchcockian paranoid tale but exciting and great fun.