NYAFF 2012

198) Vulgaria (2012) Dir: Ho-Cheung Pang Not Yet Released Date Seen: June 24, 2012 Rating: 3.5/5

ISF: Bank Robbery (198X) Dir: Ho-Cheung Pang Not Yet Released Date Seen: June 30, 2012 Rating: 3/5

ISF: Three Gangsta Bears (198X) Dir: Ho-Cheung Pang Not Yet Released Date Seen: June 30, 2012 Rating: 3.25/5

ISF: Summer Exercise (199X) Dir: Ho-Cheung Pang Not Yet Released Date Seen: June 30, 2012 Rating: 2.25/5

204) The Sword Identity (2011) Dir: Haofeng Xu Not Yet Released Date Seen: July 1, 2012 Rating: 4.25/5

205) The Swift Knight (1971) Dir: Chang-hwa Jeong Not Yet Released Date Seen: July 1, 2012 Rating: 3.25/5

206) Chips (2011) Dir: Yoshihiro Nakamura Not Yet Released Date Seen: July 1, 2012 Rating: 4/5

I wrote a lidda bit about what I liked and what I saw at this year's New York Asian Film Festival at:

The L Magazine: here, here, and here.

Press Play: here.

and Capital New York: here.

206) Confessions (2010), 207) Golden Slumber (2010), 212) Nightmare Detective II (2008) and 213) The Foreign Duck, the Native Duck and God in a Coin Locker (2007)

206) Confessions (2010) Dir: Tetsuya Nakashima Not Yet Released...Most Probably Never to Be Released in the US Date Seen: June 23, 2010 Rating: 4.25/5

207) Golden Slumber (2010) Dir: Yoshihiro Nakamura Not Yet Released Date Seen: June 23, 2010 Rating: 3.75/5

212) Nightmare Detective II (2008) Dir: Shinya Tsukamoto Not Yet Released Date Seen: June 27, 2010 Rating: 3.5/5

213) The Foreign Duck, the Native Duck and God in a Coin Locker (2007) Dir Yoshihiro Nakamura Not Yet Released Date Seen: June 27, 2010 Rating: 3.75/5

A very strong display at Japan Cuts 2010...almost all overlapping with NYAFF 2010, of course. See my write-up for the NY Press.

165) Fish Story (2009)

165) Fish Story (2009) Dir: Yoshihiro Nakamura Not Yet Released Date Seen: June 5th, 2009 Rating: 4.25/5

If you can't believe that the world will be saved from imminent meter-related destruction by a punk song in 2012, Fish Story, Yoshihiro Nakamura's modernist slacker comedy, is not for you. As it's title implies, Fish Story is the epically convoluted saga about how, because of the transformative power of music, the world is saved from all of its self-fulfilling prophecies of premature extinction. Weaving back and forward and back again through time, various vignettes show us how a pre-Sex Pistols garage band in 1975 changed everything in its own small way. Like Moby Dick except with world-ending meteors and supernatural cassette tapes.