nwasianweekly.com
June 2, 2007

“No Regret”
South Korea
June 1 at 9:15 p.m. at Harvard Exit; June 4 at 4 p.m.
at Egyptian Theatre

Seattle International Film Festival--Asian Film reviews

Here is an excellent selection of original reviews for the upcoming week from some of our writers. —ams

“The Banquet”

Hong Kong

June 7 at 9:15 p.m., Neptune Theatre; June 11 at 9:30 p.m., Lincoln Square Cinemas

Marlon Brando once wished death upon Truman Capote, after the latter’s unflattering prose portrait of the former. “Too late,” said Brando’s friend, “you should have killed him before you invited him to dinner.” Director Feng Xiaogang casts back to ancient times and a dinner where many people invite and accept to kill, and be killed. Marvel at the hues, textures and intrigue, but watch your neighbor’s hands — and his or her proximity to that salad fork. —Andrew Hamlin

“Dasepo Naughty Girls”

South Korea

June 4 at 9:30 p.m., Neptune Theatre; June 6 at 4:15 p.m., Egyptian Theatre

The first thing we learn in high school — or this high school, at any rate: The only student not getting laid (and hightailing him or herself to the STD clinic) is the fellow with one eye in the middle of his forehead.

Cybersex, gender mutability, karaoke video homages, a dirty-dancing competition in South Korea’s answer to the private sex club from “Eyes Wide Shut,” one ill-advised bathroom break, poetry, longing, a possessed principal spewing forth a demoness who plucks Instant Virgin Chips from her scalp like irksome grey hairs and, of course, a huge, all-singing, all-dancing graduation finale — I wish it all added up to something.  The karaoke video homages seemed plaintive. The rest, though, ranked right down there with the second “Austin Powers” movie, where Fat Bastard (or, in this case, the shuffling motif of depersonalized anality) had me wishing squinch-ability for not only the eyes, but the ears, nose and soul. —Andrew Hamlin

“Nanking”

USA

June 3 at 7 p.m. at Egyptian Theatre; June 5 at 4 p.m. at SIFF Cinema

Conceived as a cinematic memorial to the 70^th anniversary of Japan’s 1937 invasion and massacre of the former Chinese capital, this already-controversial documentary blends unflinching archival footage of war atrocities with the remembrances of survivors. Plus, there are readings from the diaries and letters of European and American ex-pats who stayed in Nanking to defend the city from Japanese soldiers. It was a conflict that made for strange bedfellows: The head of the Safety Zone Committee also happened to be a member of the Nazi Party. The Hollywood Reporter has praised “Nanking,” saying it “honors the highest calling of documentary filmmaking.” (Not previewed at press time.) —N.P. Thompson

“No Regret”

South Korea

June 1 at 9:15 p.m. at Harvard Exit; June 4 at 4 p.m. at Egyptian Theatre

One of the most sadistic films I’ve seen in over 30 years of movie-going. Though there’s comparatively little bloodshed, the South Korean writer-director Leesong Hee-il’s debut demonstrates its hatred and contempt for gay men through increasingly lurid and emotionally exploitative plot twists. What can one say for a movie that culminates in a man being buried alive in an open grave, his screams muffled by masking tape, as his “boyfriend” impassively watches?

The director shows some visual talent; he achieves a stunning chiaroscuro effect in a dark boardroom that’s illumined by a thin line of bay windows facing downtown Seoul. His screenplay, however, consists of such dreadful maneuvers as staging a needlessly graphic death scene for the one sympathetic character.

The lead actor Lee Yeong-hoon, as a laid-off factory worker-turned-table dancer, performs as well as anyone could, given the film’s ungenerous treatment of male prostitutes, yet his handsome face and equally handsome backside cannot redeem what amounts to homophobia in drag as a love story. —N.P. Thompson

“Outsourced”

United States

May 31 at 7 p.m., Lincoln Square Cinemas; June 3 at 7 p.m., Neptune Theatre

At my last job, taking surveys over the phone, a slightly deaf lady told me she and her slightly deaf husband needed telephone customer-service agents “from America. Because if there’s even a little bit of an accent, we can’t understand what’s being said.”

Based on the increasing number of jobs headed from America to India, that couple may soon find themselves reduced to semaphore. “Outsourced” follows one fellow, in the slightly novel profession of novelty products, as he makes his way from Seattle to Mumbai in the name of training the people who put him out of work. Love ensues. Let’s hope love can make itself understood in any accent. —Andrew Hamlin

“Protagonist”

United States

June 1 at 7 p.m. at Pacific Place Cinema; June 3 at 1 p.m. at Lincoln Square Cinemas

Oscar winner Jessica Yu’s new documentary marks a quantum leap upwards in terms of style and subject from her previous feature, the distasteful “In the Realms of the Unreal.” Yu begins “Protagonist” with four men reminiscing about their fathers; from there, the film progresses to a kind of meditation on masculinity, with each man recounting how his father’s behavior (physically abusive or fearful and ineffectual) determined the son’s quest for identity. Yu’s husband, the martial-arts connoisseur Mark Salzman, amusingly speaks of watching “Kung-Fu” in the early 1970s and seeing in David Carradine a “model of a man who was custom-made for me,” as opposed to his own needlepoint-stitching pop.

Yu’s editing brilliantly dovetails unsuspected connections between her four disparate interviewees. What’s more, she uses ancient Greek tragedy as a counterpoint to their stories. Choruses of marionettes recite passages from Euripides in addition to enacting poignant recreations of bank robberies and bitter childhood memories. Janie Geiger’s puppet design and Robert Conner’s animation sequences are as refreshingly ingenious as Yu’s directorial choices. —N.P. Thompson

“Sakuran”

Japan

June 7 at 6:30 p.m., June 8 at 4:15 p.m.; Neptune Theatre

Mika Ninagawa’s directorial debut covers much the same territory as “Memoirs of a Geisha.” Her manga-inspired film, awash in so many vibrant kimonos, swirling cherry blossoms and rapid cuts that watching it is akin to being inside a kaleidoscope, largely succeeds where “Geisha” bombed. The entrancing beauty Anna Tsuchiya uses her expressive eyes to convey the highs and lows of a courtesan’s life; there’s more going on in her performance than in Yuki Tanada’s unsatisfying script, which foregoes character development but not melodrama. The images and music, however, are confident to a fault. Ninagawa and her cinematographer Takuro Ishizaka frame dazzling shots though the prism of flame-colored fish darting through glass cages. Composer Ringo Shena anachronistically weaves together a jazz trio, Brazilian tango, fuzz-guitar from the Jimi Hendrix school of playing and a brightly orchestrated, toe-tapping Broadway musical finale that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in “Chicago.” The handsome young actor Hiroki Narimiya has a few fine moments (too few, it turns out) as Tsuchiya’s first great love. —N.P. Thompson

“A Secret Genocide”

France

June 5 at 5 p.m., June 10 at 11 a.m.; Harvard Exit

Late last year, the diplomat and author Thant Myint-U published a history of Burma called The River of Lost Footsteps in which he wrote a section about an ethnic minority group called the Karens. The conflict between Karens and the rest of Burma remains more or less off the radar of most Westerners, but this new documentary, by Frenchman Alexandre Dereims, should put a face to the Karen struggle for freedom against the Myanmar military. At great personal risk, Dereims clandestinely gathered footage in the jungles of the Burma-Thailand border, an area where Burmese soldiers have orders to “shoot on sight.” The movie tracks several weeks in the lives of the Karen National Liberation Army, as the KNLA continues its out-numbered campaign. (Not previewed at press time.) —N.P. Thompson

“Sway”

Japan

June 7 at 9:30 p.m., Lincoln Square Cinemas; June 9 at 11 a.m., Harvard Exit

As the prodigal son of a small family in a small Japanese town, Odagiri Joe runs his own photography business and romances his assistant. He cruises boldly to his mother’s funeral from Tokyo in an American vintage Ford station wagon, steering a left-hand drive car on the left-hand side of the road to finger-snapping organ, bass and drum grooves. Back home, he runs into an old flame (Maki Yoko) now working in the family business, and his older brother (Kagawa Teruyuki), who may wish her hand in marriage. Soon the old flame is dead and older brother stands in the docket. What did younger brother see, and what did he see mean?

As the younger brother, the popular Odagiri deftly turns the pages from big-city cocky to fumbling to anguished. Kagawa, with face sloping down from starry-night eyes to a wide, determined mouth and a jutting jaw, dares his brother to call him a liar. Can they ever reconcile, even leaving aside their hardheaded father and dissolute lawyer uncle? Can any truth be wrung from the twists and torque of the courtroom? —Andrew Hamlin

“Syndromes and a Century”

Thailand

June 4 at 9:30 p.m., June 7 at 4:30 p.m.; SIFF Cinema

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s magnificent new film (a much more mature work than his last offering, “Tropical Malady”) appears to be about what’s lost in human interaction as “progress” and technological advances dominate us.

The movie takes place in two different hospitals. The first is an almost-country doctor sort of establishment, where voluptuous palm fronds define the landscape; the second, sleeker and more urban, has an impersonal, almost science-fiction coldness about it. A few of the same scenes play out in both, yet the rustic setting allows for some deliciously deadpan dialogue. A young monk confides to his dentist, “I’d like to be a normal person, but some mysterious force has a hold on me. It keeps me cloaked in saffron robes I can’t seem to leave.” The monk confesses his dream of becoming a radio DJ, whereupon the dentist reveals that he has a second career as a country singer. Later, the dentist tries to give the monk a CD he’s recorded: “Normally, I sing about teeth and gums. But this album is all love songs.”

There’s also a bit of soulful guitar playing by Kosin Wongtes, who sounds like a pop version of Segovia, another reason not to miss this priceless piece of art. —N.P. Thompson

“White Light/Black Rain”

USA

June 7 at 7 p.m. at Harvard Exit; June 10 at 4 p.m. at SIFF Cinema

Director Steven Okazaki interviews 14 survivors from the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and when his made-for-HBO documentary ended, I was left wanting to spend more time among the old people, learning from them and about them. The interviews are chopped up and spliced in with one another — a few seconds here, a few seconds elsewhere — so that it takes more than half the movie’s 85-minute length for a connection to build, to take root in our hearts and minds. There should be a cut of this film, someday, geared to viewers who have longer attention spans. The delicate Sakue Shimohira made the strongest emotional impression on me, especially as she describes her sister’s response to their mother’s death.

Okazaki edits a montage of drawings and paintings made by children who survived the bombings; these dark, colorful portraits of the apocalypse and its aftermath prepare us — to an extent — for the almost impossible, a look at footage of the victims’ burn wounds, of the infected sockets where eyes and limbs once were.

Except for the use of Brian Eno’s “Late October,” most of Okazaki’s music backgrounds are too distracting. Still, the movie cannot help but be devastating to experience. —N.P. Thompson

“Woman on the Beach”

South Korean

June 3 at 9:30 p.m. at Egyptian Theatre; June 5 at 4 p.m. at Pacific Place Cinema

In his follow-up to “Woman is the Future of Man,” South Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo has etched one of the wittiest, most perceptive takes on romantic bad behavior — on the petty cruelties we commit in the name of love and lust. There isn’t anyone working in America now who can match Hong both for the punch of his writing and his technical mastery. (As a director, he has a refreshing aversion to close-ups; he shows us his characters from top to toe, yet never loses intimacy.)

The film follows a swaggeringly sexual movie director, Kim Joong-rae, who takes off for the weekend to Shinduri Beach; in tow are his sweetly sincere assistant, whose idolatry of Kim will take quite a beating, and the assistant’s date, a radiant young woman named Moon-sook. Kim wastes no time in trying to come between them: “Chang-wook, I admire you. … It’s hard for a married man to openly bring along his girlfriend … you must really trust me.” The neurotic one-upmanship grows grittier, even as Hong’s style remains softly aloof. The three main performances — Kim Seung-woo as the predatory artist, Kim Tae-woo as Chang-wook and Ko Hyeon-gang as their object of desire — are flawless. —N.P. Thompson

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