LEAFF: Baby it's cold outside

London East Asia Film Festival held its closing gala tonight in Leicester Square, with the UK premiere of the sci-fi action thriller Warriors of Future. It's been a terrific festival, packed with unexpected delights on the screen, plus some seriously fabulous curated food and cocktails at the sponsoring venues. Here in Part 2 of 2 are comments on six more features and three more documentaries, followed by the award winners. The jury I headed presented best film, best documentary and a special jury prize, and I was also involved in presenting all of the other awards on-stage...

Anima
dir-scr Cao Jinling; with Eric Wang, Qi Xi 21/Chn ****
Gorgeously shot in spectacular locations by ace cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-Bing, this Chinese drama taps into some moving elemental themes as it tells the story of an indigenous foundling who grows up without losing his connection to nature. First-time writer-director Cao Jinling sets the story over several decades in northern Inner Mongolia, filming in all four seasons, including extreme winters. And while the plot is simple, the deeper themes are complex and powerful.

Warriors of Future
dir Ng Yuen-Fai; with Louis Koo, Sean Lau 22/Chn ***
With high ambitions, this sci-fi action thriller from Hong Kong looks terrific, and has some cleverly quirky touches in its premise about plucky soldiers battling a planet-gobbling plant. But also it's let down by an under-developed, over-serious script that relies on trite cliches. Thankfully, actor-producer Louis Koo and his up-for-it costars keep things thrilling through a series of well-staged set-pieces, turning this into a solid guilty pleasure.

A Hundred Flowers
dir Genki Kawamura; with Masaki Suda, Mieko Harada 22/Jpn ***.
Dreamy and observant, this low-key Japanese drama digs deeply into the connections between its complex characters. With a distinctive visual style, filmmaker Genki Kawamura deploys inventive filmmaking touches, as the story deals with issues surrounding both dementia and past trauma. Keisuke Imamura's cinematography is particularly skilful, remaining close to characters to offer perspective and insight. So even if it meanders, this delicate and evocative film carries real emotional power.

Pretty Heart
dir Terry Ng Ka-Wai; with Jennifer Yu Heung-Ying, Vincent Wong 22/Chn ***
From Hong Kong, this witty romantic comedy has a snappy pace that blends a variety of plot elements, including an opposites-attract love story and a darker emotional drama touching on grief, illness, regret and resentment. Set in a school, it's a very talkative movie, loaded with barbed banter as educators clash about teaching methods. And while it gets rather melodramatic, it's also charming thanks to its lively characters and brisk direction from filmmaker Terry Ng Ka-Wai.

The Sparring Partner
dir Ho Cheuk-Tin; with Alan Yeung, Mak Pui-Tung 22/Chn ***.
A sensational real-life 2013 double murder case is brought to the screen with edgy style. Using spiralling flashbacks, director Ho Cheuk-Tin assembles pieces of the story with a bracing focus on the characters, getting into the minds of the killers before the crime and then following them through the trial. Along the way, sparky relatives, lawyers and jury members also engage as they take their own journeys. The level of detail is riveting, even if the film feels both rushed and overlong.

The Apartment With Two Women
dir-scr Kim Se-In; with Lym Ji-Ho, Yang Mal-Bok 21/Kor ***.
 Extremely detailed characters bring this prickly Korean mother-daughter drama to vivid life, allowing fine actors to sustain the interest across an over-extended running time. With her debut feature, writer-director Kim Se-In is exploring enormous psychological issues that extend beyond being a parent and child, including resentment, neediness and the yearning for love and acceptance. This is done with a lacerating sense of pitch-black humour and honesty that's sometimes jaw-dropping.

Far Away Eyes
dir-scr Wang Chun-Hong; with Wang Chun-Hong, Chen Yi-Ting 21/Tai ***.
Although this is categorised as a documentary, it feels more like a freeform narrative feature. So maybe it should be designated as a reality art film. Taiwanese writer-director Wang Chun-Hong puts himself at the centre, intimately observing himself as he deeply considers various challenges. Gorgeously shot in black and white with an inventive use of long takes and reflective images, the film looks fantastic. Although its melancholic mood and aimless structure may try the patience.

Fanatic
dir Oh Se-yeon; with Oh Se-yeon, Kim Eun-bin 21/Kor ***.
As Korea produces the world's biggest popstars, movies and television series, the global fanbase has become frighteningly impassioned. Filmmaker Oh Se-yeon, a former K-pop obsessive herself, follows a several fans as they unflinchingly support their idols even when caught in a scandal. With deadpan narration, this witty film's fly-on-the-wall style captures some hilarious moments as it highlights the absurdity of worshipping a public figure, and also how much joy and love it brings.

To: My Nineteen-Year-Old Self
dir Mabel Cheung; with Katie Long, Karen Lo 22/Chn ***
A decade in the making, this documentary follows a group of 11-year-old girls as they grow into young adults. Filmmaker Maggie Cheung uses this time-span to observe their changing aspirations and expectations in a fly-on-the-wall style. The indulgent running time includes rather a lot of unnecessary side detail, while nonstop chatter makes reading subtitles for so long a chore. But it's a fast-paced film packed with large personalities and hilarious moments. 

L E A F F   2 0 2 2   A W A R D S

Critics' Circle Award for Best Film: Anima - by Cao Jinling

Documentary: Virga - by Won Ho-Yeon, Jung Tae-Kyoung

Special Jury Prize: Mama Boy - by Arvin Chen

Performance: Lee Jung-Eun - Hommage

Rising Star: Yim Si-Wan - Emergency Declaration

Outstanding Achievement: Louis Koo - Warriors of Future

Honorary Award: Lee Jung-Jae - Hunt

Note that a longer review will appear on the site if a film gets a cinema release. 

LEAFF: If looks could kill

The London East Asia Film Festival is packed with terrific movies and events, bringing the culture of Korea, Thailand, Japan, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines to venues around town. I'm the head of this year's competition jury, which is made up of Critics' Circle members. And it's been great to watch a series of films that would otherwise be very difficult to find in the UK. Here's half of the competition programme, six narrative features and two docs. Part 2 of 2 will follow...

Hunt
dir Lee Jung-Jae; with Lee Jung-Jae, Jung Woo-Sung 22/Kor ***.
Acclaimed Squid Game star Lee Jung-Jae steps into directing duties for this action-packed political thriller. Set in a period of real-life political turmoil, the script adeptly weaves fictional conspiracies and counterplots that keep the audience guessing right to the end. And the smartest touch is to scramble motivations, questioning what makes someone a hero or villain. This adds something to think about during an adrenaline rush of a movie... FULL REVIEW >

Missing
dir Shinzo Katayama; with Jiro Sato, Aoi Ito 22/Jpn ****
Complex and twisty, this riveting Japanese drama centres on an offbeat father and daughter who become entangled with a friendly serial killer. Beautifully directed by Shinzo Katayama, the story unfolds in layers that reveal surprising motivations. It also defies expectations at every turn, bristling with messy connections and wrenching emotions, plus situations that have a blackly comical edge to them.

Mama Boy
dir Arvin Chen; with Kai Ko, Vivian Hsu 21/Tai ***.
Two mother-son relationships intertwine to find warm, witty connections in this offbeat Taiwanese drama. Filmmaker Arvin Chen creates vivid characters who transcend stereotypes to surprise each other and the audience, worming their way under our skin to elicit sympathy even when they do something thoughtless. It's an involving film that gets a bit melodramatic but remains charming to the end.

Virgin Blue
dir-scr Niu Xiaoyu; with Ye Zi, Shengzhi Zheng 22/Chn ***.
Thoughtful and evocative, this subdued drama has a striking visual sensibility that plays on perceptions to scramble time and relationships. It's a story about a woman with dementia and her cheeky granddaughter sharing a flat that's haunted by ghosts from the past. Colourful musical fantasy sequences add to feel that we're watching dreams within memories.

The Abandoned
dir Ying-Ting Tseng; with Janine Chun-Ning Chang, Ethan Juan 22/Tai ***
Set in a particularly rainy Taiwan, this relatively standard serial killer thriller is spiced up with deeper emotions. There's also some sharp topicality in the setting among undocumented workers and human trafficking. It's sharply written and directed to dig beneath the surface even as the plot follows the expected twisty route to its conclusion. And it gets very grisly indeed.

Manchurian Tiger
dir Geng Jun; with Zhang Yu, Ma Li 21/Chn ***
With minimalistic dialog, this blackly comical Chinese drama features an ensemble cast playing a range of eccentric people wrestling with the realities of modern life. Observational, the film moves at its own quirky pace, barely bothering to string a narrative together. Filmmaker Geng Jung has a terrific eye for detail, vividly capturing the culture of this wintry northeastern city. But the film is long and rambling.

Virga
dir Won Ho-Yeon, Jung Tae-Kyoung; with Shasha, Enzo, Jamie, James 22/Kor ****
A truly global documentary, this powerful film explores the situations for a variety of children who, because their parents are undocumented migrants, have no nationality of their own. Filming in several countries in Southeast Asia, directors Won Ho-Yeon and Jung Tae-Kyoung hone in on a handful of kids to tell their distinctly personal stories. The result is eye-opening, moving and staggeringly important.

Salute
dir Hung-i Yao; with Fang-yi Sheu, Ying-Hsuan Hsieh 22/Tai ***.
While it runs too long, this documentary about iconic dancer Fang-yi Sheu is packed with wonderfully inventive sequences, telling her story through music, dance and performance rather than interviews or voiceovers. It gorgeously traces the life of this gifted dancer from childhood to her late 40s, facing retirement but still going strong. Which makes the film both beautiful and inspiring.

Note that a longer review will appear on the site if a film gets a cinema release.

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C R I T I C A L    W E E K

Non-festival films I've watched this week include the riotously inventive animated adventure-comedy Wendell & Wild, the offbeat and unnerving horror thriller Barbarian, the enjoyably camp 1950s drama Please Baby Please, the lavish biopic Hilma and the earthy Israeli drama Like Me.

This coming week, in addition to more Asian movies, I'll be watching the biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, action thriller Medieval, quirky horror Something in the Dirt and acclaimed foreign-language films Holy Spider and All Quiet on the Western Front.