« OLD CHINA OR NEW CHINA TO THE OSCARS? | Main | EARTHSEA COMES TO US IN...2009 »

September 26, 2006

FILM FEST UPDATE

The Pusan International Film Festival (Oct. 12 - 20) and the Chicago International Film Festival (Oct. 5 - 19) have both just announced their line-ups. Let's take Chicago first, simply because it's smaller and therefore easier to chew:

PAPRIKA - Satoshi Kon's new animated film

JASMINE WOMEN - older Zhang Ziyi film no one's seen yet.

TAKING FATHER HOME - it looks like one of those sentimental Chinese pics like GOING TO SCHOOL WITH MY FATHER ON MY BACK.

SUMMER PALACE - Lou Ye's banned film.

LITTLE RED FLOWERS - Zhang Yuan's exceptional story about schoolkids in China.

THE HOST - Bong Joon-Ho's monster-sized monster movie.

DIRTY CARNIVAL - Korean gangster movie.

HOST AND GUEST - a truly terrific Korean art film that's funny and savage. We wanted it in this year's festival in NYC but the slots all filled up too fast and we ran out of room.

KING AND CLOWN - Korea's massive word-of-mouth hit.

TIME - I think this is the North American U.S. premiere of Kim Ki-Duk's latest.

THE UNFORGIVEN - the movie about the harshness and inhumanity of Korea's military that earned lots of hate from the country's armed forces.

INVISIBLE WAVES - the latest collab between Chris Doyle, Tadanobu Asano and Pen-Ek Ratanaruang.

TRIAD ELECTION - it's ELECTION 2!

SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY - the latest art meditation from Thailand's Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

MIDNIGHT MY LOVE
- the truly terrific cab driver movie starring Thailand's Mum Jokmok. It would be a great movie if only it wasn't for that cyborg rape scene...

And as for Pusan? There're more movies than I know what to do with. The latest from Shinya Tsukamoto. Patrick Tam's new movie. A slew of premieres from the Philippines. Just go check it out.

September 26, 2006 at 10:39 AM in News | Permalink

Comments

Hrm. Three noticeable films left out of this list, the "Zeta Gundam" movie trilogy. The director, anime legend Yoshiyuki Tomino, is actually going to be in attendance...I think even eating dinner at some point with people who shell out 100 bucks. Seeing as how these three movies pretty much rocked the Japanese box office last year and this year, I'd figure they should get some mention. ^_^

Posted by: Johnathan N'Der | Sep 26, 2006 1:24:22 PM

I certainly recommend Host & Guest, The King and The Clown and Unforgiven (Unforgiven is long and not visually appealing but it has an important message to give with above average storytelling)


Posted by: eliza bennet | Sep 27, 2006 2:07:52 AM

I thought the cyborg rape scene in Midnight My Love was cool. Wacky. But cool.

Posted by: Wise Kwai | Sep 27, 2006 2:49:13 AM

I guess for me I was so sold on the movie that when the cyborg rape scene popped up it took me totally out of it. I was looking forward to crying at the end, too, until that point.

By the way: Steve points out that TIME played Toronto so that the Chicago date is its US premiere, not North American as I said.

Posted by: Grady Hendrix | Sep 27, 2006 5:31:29 AM

Post a comment