As of right now , meaning my ability to hit up the 24th Annual Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival will probably mirror my inability to hit up this year's PAFF or adequately attend either of the documentary fests. But hope springs eternal, this looks like yet another strong AAPFF lineup, and since the fest opens eight days from now that's a good enough excuse to point out the movies that jumped out for me. Maybe I can hunt some of them down on dvd later. Whenever possible the links below go to a site related to the movie, some of them with trailers!
Chances are real good this entry will have to hold for the week, as I'm busy elsewhere.
WINGS OF DEFEAT
(United States/Japan, 2007) Dir.: Risa Morimoto; Wtr.: Linda Hoaglund
Video, 89 min., Color, Documentary, in English and Japanese w/E.S.
Internationally, kamikaze pilots remain a potent metaphor for fanaticism. In Japan, they are largely revered for their selfless sacrifice. Yet few outside Japan know that hundreds of kamikaze pilots survived the war. Through rare interviews with surviving kamikaze pilots, we learn that the military demanded pilots volunteer to give up their lives. Retracing their journeys from teenagers to doomed pilots, a complex history of brutal training and ambivalent sacrifice is revealed. Sixty years later, survivors in their eighties tell us about their training, their mindsets, their experiences in a kamikaze cockpit and what it meant to survive when thousands of their fellow pilots had died. Ultimately, they help us question what responsibilities a government at war has to its soldiers and to its people.
MAMO'S WEEDS
(USA, 2007) Dir.: Akira Boch; Scr.: Naomi Hirahara
Mamo
Ikeda, an elderly Japanese American gardener, is besieged with weeds.
And these are no ordinary weeds-they are the same type that Mamo was
accused of inadvertently spreading twenty years earlier. If this isn't
bad enough, Mamo also begins to receive a series of strange phone calls
from a mysterious woman who seems to know personal things about him.
Going from the gardeners' federation office to a retro chop suey house
in Little Tokyo to the lawns of Japanese American neighborhoods, Mamo
is in search of the truth-only to discover that the weeds are keys to
both his past and his future.
This
movie was written by the fantabulous mystery novelist Naomi Hirahara,
whose books feature an older Japanese-American gardener who keeps
ending up in these Situations. It's great stuff, and you can learn more
about her and her books by visiting her website, handily a click away.
BLOOD BROTHERS
(Hong Kong/Taiwan/People's Republic of China, 2007) Dir./Scr.: Alexi Tan
BLOOD
BROTHERS is set in 1930s Shanghai, a flourishing modern-day Babylon,
replete with warlords, politicians, wealthy industrialists, courtesans
and gangsters. Three innocent young brothers, Kang (Liu Ye, CURSE OF
THE GOLDEN FLOWER), Fung (Daniel Wu, BISHONEN: BEAUTY; AROUND THE WORLD
IN 80 DAYS) and Xiao Hu (Tony Yang), arrive in this seeming paradise in
search of a better life. Enticed by the rich and powerful world of
organized crime, the three brothers are hired to do the bidding for one
of the city’s largest mob syndicate. However, as friends turn against
friends and brother against brother, the days of innocence have passed,
and the three brothers must stand up as men and make their choices.
I think this is a remake of the damn-near masterful Bullet in the Head. If it is, I'm not sure I entirely Approve, even though Woo is involved. But I would go see it anyway.
UP THE YANGTZE
(Canada, 2007) Dir./Wtr.: Yung Chang
In
China, it is simply known as "The River." But the Yangtze-and the life
that surrounds it-is undergoing a truly spectacular transformation
wrought by the biggest hydroelectric dam in history, the Three Gorges.
From the vantage point of a luxury "farewell cruise" that wends its way
up the River, we witness the dramatic shift: peasant families are
forced to relocate their entire lives as floodwaters steadily engulf
their villages, young tour-boat employees warily grasp at a more
prosperous future, and Western tourists catch a final glimpse of a
disappearing culture. Returning to the scene of his grandfather's
riverbank youth, Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang has crafted a
singularly moving and cinematically breathtaking depiction of
contemporary China and a disquieting glance into a future that awaits
us all.
OUR PRIDE: THE SPIRIT OF BLACK JAPANESE IN GEORGIA
(USA, 2006) Dir./Wtr.: Yohei Suzuki
Video, 28 mins, Color, Documentary, English
OUR PRIDE foregrounds the experiences of mixed-race individuals of Japanese and African American descent who live in Georgia. Wanting to identify themselves as African American, they sometimes face criticism from African American friends who sometimes do not consider them as African Americans. The documentary raises social awareness of biracial and bicultural individuals and encourages those people to be themselves, urging the audience to accept different cultures, different races, and different ethnicities.
Here's another site related to this filmmaker.
S/HE
(Canada, 2007) Dir./Scr.: Gina Pei Chi Chen
S/HE deftly illuminates the struggle of one 12-year-old girl to follow her expected gender and cultural roles while at the same time exploring an emerging masculine nature.
WARRIOR BOYZ
(Canada, 2008) Dir./Wtr.: Baljit Sangra
WARRIOR BOYZ tells the story of a long-running gang scene that has claimed over 100 young lives in Greater Vancouver's South Asian community since the late 1980s. Surprisingly, many of these young gang members come from tight knit families in middle class neighborhoods. Filmmaker, Baljit Sangra, herself of South Asian descent, focuses on the often troubled and touching daily lives of two teenagers in danger of crossing the line from detention at school to confinement in jail; and on a scarred ex-gangster who shares his story of escaping the gang life. The film also spotlights an outspoken high school vice principal who has witnessed many young lives end tragically. This interconnected cast of real people provides an in-depth look at a disturbing trend within the urban immigrant landscape. WARRIOR BOYZ provides an insightful, ground-level exploration of the warrior/gangsta juxtaposition, which has become a part of the Indo-Canadian experience.
SF SHORTS.
All of the sf shorts, except for maybe the one that sounds boring, but they're shorts so it wouldn't be too painful to sit through.
