NY ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL July 14-30, 2023

[Chris Knipp]

DECEMBER ‘赦し’ (Anshul Chauhan 2022)

A crack in the brutal Japanese justice system appears in this emotional and suspenseful retrial of a juvenile offender who has been serving an adult sentence. Directed by non-Japanese rising director Chauhan, who was born in India.

Screened for this review as part of the 2023 New York Asian Film Festival.
Showtimes
Monday, July 24
6:00 PM Walter Reade Theater
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE · Q&A WITH ANSHUL CHAUHAN & SHOGEN

[Chris Knipp]

REDEMPTION WITH LIFE 兄弟 (Zhang Wei 2023)

Chinese director Zhang is the featured artist of the festival. This ambitious film about close friends and an investor who goes astray ends with a motorcycle club's ritual trip through spectacular mountain roads to Tibet.

Redemption with Life 兄弟 ("Brothers"), 94 mins., has its world premiere at the New York Asian Film Festival July 28, 2023. Screened as part of coverage of the festival.
Showtimes:
Friday Jul 28, 3:30pm (Walter Reade Theater, Film at Lincoln Center)
Saturday Jul 29, 8:00pm (Look Cinemas, Look Cinemas)

[Chris Knipp]

Art School 1994 (艺术学院 (Liu Jian 2023)

Animated film director Liu Jian (HAVE A NICE DAY, 2017, which was reviewed here (liked the images; the rest fizzled), this time makes an autobiographical remembrance of the atmosphere and the (then, seemingly) "deep" philosophizing and dorm debates of art school students, vintage 1994. There's something universal about them. But it doesn't go anywhere.

[Chris Knipp]

MAD FATE 命案 (Soi Cheang 2023)

Fate and free will have a mad free-for-all in Hong Kong in the rainy season in this gory absurdist comedy-mystery-thriller.

[Chris Knipp]

GREENHOUSE 비닐하우스 (Lee Sol-hui 2022)

In this quietly outrageous debut about a caregiver getting into a heap of trouble, you have to tune in and realize the action is not downbeat but deadpan.

Opening in Korea today, July 26, 2023, it premiered at Busan late last year. It shown in the NYAFF July 22, with a Q&A with Lee Sol-hui.

[Chris Knipp]

THE RIB (DIRECTOR'S CUT) 肋骨 (Zhang Wei 2018)

This treatment of the theme of the recognition of the rights of transgender people in China is significant, but feels a bit dutiful and drab, including the "meaningful" but anemic black and white images. Is Christianity a retro force in the country?

Included in NYAFF 2023 at Lincoln Center, Zhang Wei's 2018 THE RIB (Director's Cut) was shown Saturday Jul 22, 7:00 p.m.