The New York Asian Film Festival Annouce First Highlights from the 22nd Edition

New York, NY (June 15, 2023) – On July 14, 2023, the New York Asian Film Foundation and Film at Lincoln Center will kick off the 22nd edition of the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF), with 60+ new and classic titles, a greatly expanded selection of short films, and an exciting slate of celebrated guests from Asia and the diaspora. The festival runs from July 14–30, 2023 at Film at Lincoln Center (FLC), with a special weekend of screenings (July 21–23) at a new venue, the historic Barrymore Film Center in Fort Lee, New Jersey, the birthplace of the motion picture industry in America.

“As filmmakers from Asia continue to earn the lion’s share of top awards (and attention) on the international film festival circuit, this year’s selection shows that those are still trees hiding a forest of talent,” said Samuel Jamier, executive director of NYAFF and president of the New York Asian Film Foundation. “We are thrilled to offer a platform that is ever more culturally relevant with new films from all corners of Asia. It is a year of massive expansion for us at a time when a growing number of American filmmakers of Asian descent are conquering screens and hearts. We look forward to bringing passionate stories to passionate audiences in a city that remains a global center of film culture and business!”

The NYAFF Opening Film is the North American premiere of the unique Korean genre mashup Killing Romance, directed by Lee Won-suk. The director will be joined at Film at Lincoln Center on opening night by his lead actor, Lee Sun-kyun (Parasite, A Hard Day), who turns in an unforgettable performance as the indescribably overbearing husband of a disgraced supermodel-movie star, fully armed with his history of versatile roles in everything from art-house collaborations with Hong Sang-soo to rom-coms to his SAG Award-winning turn in Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite. Director Lee Won-suk has a rich history with NYAFF—his first film, How to Use Guys with Secret Tips, premiered at NYAFF 2013, and Lee won the Audience Award at NYAFF 2015 with his second feature, the big-budget period drama The Royal Tailor. It’s a thrill to welcome him back with his third feature.

This year’s Hong Kong Panorama, point of origin and DNA of the festival’s programming (NYAFF started off as a Hong Kong movie showcase), is an explosive cocktail of genre nostalgia and humanistic drama, drawing the contours of a road map for the future of the island’s cinema. A new 4K restoration of Patrick Tam’s 1982 Hong Kong New Wave watershed Nomad (Director’s Cut) enhances the film’s outré mix of romance and violence, and one of Leslie Cheung’s early great roles. Cutting-edge noir auteur Soi Cheang’s Mad Fate harkens back to the region’s time-honored legacy of crime films with a new sense of urgency and manic energy; Amos Why’s Everyphone Everywhere captures pandemic-era life in Hong Kong via the city’s reliance on cell phones like no other film, and has more to say on recent social shifts than hours of CNN commentary; The Sunny Side of the Street sees the incomparable Anthony Wong lending salty sympathy to new immigrants; and A Light Never Goes Out highlights the city’s iconic neon craftwork and all its storied achievements, offering a unique love letter to the island’s culture.

As previously announced, actor and producer Louis Koo, one of Hong Kong’s biggest stars, is to be honored with NYAFF’s Extraordinary Star Asia Award. Koo has more than 100 credits to his name, including sci-fi action thriller Warriors of Future, the highest-grossing Asian film of all time in the territory following its release last August. The award highlights his work as a producer and philanthropist, recognizing his many exceptional contributions to the Asian film industry, including the One Cool Group, now an industry powerhouse, and his support of award-winning work both in and outside Asia. Of the many Koo-starring films featured at NYAFF over the years, recent highlights include the White Storm trilogy, Paradox, A Witness Out of the Blue, All U Need Is Love, and his new lifesaving drama Vital Signs, which he will be on hand to introduce. NYAFF will also present the latest One Cool production, In Broad Daylight, a shocking exposé of abuse at a care home based on real events.

NYAFF’s China lineup showcases novel work and a filmmaker-in-focus program/tribute to entrepreneur turned director and producer Zhang Wei, who has built a unique body of cinematic work, making the naturalistic portrayals of the marginalized in China’s rapidly changing society his signature. In the context of U.S.-China tension, and the frequent demonization of the country’s regime, showcasing his hard-hitting films The Empty Nest, Factory Boss, and The Rib (Director’s Cut) takes on a particularly acute significance; all stories focus unblinkingly on hot-button issues through unassuming characters and straightforward storylines that turn the spotlight on societal fault lines and fractures with impact far beyond the country’s borders. Making their North American premieres are Wang Chao’s A Woman, a tale both simple and sweeping in scope that chronicles the sexual and political day-to-day existence of a female factory worker during the years of the Cultural Revolution, and Liu Jian’s Art College 1994, a fond satire of student life told in his charmingly stark and sardonic animation style, made famous by his previous film, Have a Nice Day (2017).

NYAFF’s bold and diverse South Korean lineup, presented with the support of the Korean Cultural Center New York (KCCNY), includes Lee Hae-young’s Phantom, an action-packed spy drama set in 1933 that is one of this year’s biggest hits in the country; the boisterous family comedy Bear Man, from Park Sung-kwang, featuring Park Sung-woong in two indelible roles; Hail to Hell, the impressive feature debut of female helmer Lim Oh-jeong, about two oddballs who track down the bully who pushed them to the brink of suicide; the rousing underdog dramedy Rebound from Chang Hang-jun, in which a group of misfits come together to play nonstop basketball for eight days straight in the KBA National Tournament; and A Tour Guide from Kwak Eun-mi, the touching and timely story of a young North Korean defector who excels at leading Chinese-language tours of Seoul but lives a maladjusted, precarious life as a stranger in a strange land.

NYAFF’s Japanese lineup, supported by the Japan Foundation, is led by the North American Premiere of veteran auteur Junji Sakamoto’s audacious, aesthetically brilliant new jidaigeki, Okiku and the World, which he will be on hand to introduce. Also a must-see is the New York Premiere of Daishi Matsunaga’s heralded LGBTQ+ love story Egoist. The director will be joined on stage by leading actor Ryohei Suzuki (2015 NYAFF Audience Award winner; HK: Forbidden Super Hero; Last of the Wolves), a superstar in his native Japan, and the 2023 NYAFF Screen International Rising Star Asia honoree. A superstar of another sort, musician-actor Satoru Iguchi (King Gnu) will also be on hand at FLC for the North American Premiere of In Her Room, an otherworldly erotic tale by veteran female screenwriter Chihiro Ito (Crying Out Love in the Center of the World; Spring Snow), who makes her long-awaited directorial debut with this enigmatic love story.

Tokyo-based Indian director Anshul Chauhan and actor Shogen will appear with their film December, a riveting courtroom drama. Erstwhile New York City resident Takeshi Fukunaga will return with his third feature, the haunting allegory Mountain Woman, a mythic tale of female oppression and liberation starring Toko Miura (Drive My Car). Also showcased in the Japan lineup are A Hundred Flowers, the award-winning directorial debut by Genki Kawamura (superproducer of Monster, Your Name, Belle, and Rage); Ryūichi Hiroki’s tragic study of the maternal instinct in the form of a Rashomon-like procedural, Motherhood; the thrillingly dark genre gem #Manhole by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri; and Shinichi Fujita’s superheroine (or supervillain?) ode to the literal and figurative empowerment of young women, Mayhem Girls.

NYAFF’s Taiwan lineup features some of the most striking and daring new films from the “beautiful island.” Movie star Kai Ko makes his directorial debut with Bad Education, a controversially dark coming-of-age comedy-thriller; the LGBTQ+ action-comedy Marry My Dead Body foments a gender-fluid revolution with its premise of a macho cop who unwittingly marries a gay ghost; and Gaga, by Taiwan’s first indigenous female director, Laha Mebow, who will be in attendance, chronicles a tangled web of drama across three generations of an Atayal tribe family.

NYAFF reaches further across the continent for even more incredible cinematic discoveries. Philippines: I Love You, Beksman is the fabulously campy tale of a “straight guy with a queer eye” who must overcome his gay family’s apprehensions when he meets the superfly girl of his dreams; based on a shocking real-life story, Where Is the Lie? boasts out-of-the-box storytelling and an extraordinarily luminous performance by trans actor EJ Jallorina as the tragically lovelorn target of a sexy but vicious cyberbully; the timely drama 12 Weeks chronicles a fiercely independent 40-year-old woman’s attempts to arrange a safe abortion in a devoutly anti-choice nation where it is illegal. Singapore: Geylang is a wild pop-art genre joyride seething with the tropically hot melting pot flavors of the city-state put through a riotously macabre Moebius strip of neon-noir influences. Thailand: Kitty the Killer is an anarchic action-comedy about a team of top-notch female assassins who must transform a ridiculously goofy young man from zero to hero in order to wreak bloody vengeance on the agency that betrayed them; You & Me & Me is the directorial debut of real-life identical twin sisters, and art may be imitating life in this glorious teenage coming-of-age fever dream where two look-alike siblings fall for the same boy and must confront their true feelings and who they really are, as they experience the pangs of first love. Vietnam: Glorious Ashes, the first film in over a decade from cinematic poet Bui Thac Chuyên, spins a poignant and dizzying tale of love, loneliness, and pyromania in a devastating omnibus-like tangle of interconnected romance gone wrong in yesteryear’s Mekong Delta.

Once again this year, the festival will be co-hosting, with Korean Cultural Center New York and Film at Lincoln Center, a free outdoor screening in Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park. Set for July 21 is Bong Joon Ho’s 2006 masterpiece The Host, arguably one of the greatest monster movies ever made. Highlighting the type of hilarious, ragtag family dynamics that would win him an Oscar for Parasite years later, Bong’s David-versus-Goliath story stars Song Kang-ho and Bae Doona.

A second wave of announcements will be made shortly, containing NYAFF’s Centerpiece and Closing films, the Uncaged Competition lineup and jury, special guests and award honorees, master classes and panels, and other exciting events. NYAFF is also thrilled to host the Opening Night Market on July 14 and the Monday Matsuri to Midnight on July 24, both with live music and Asian food stalls, as well as other parties and receptions.

From the deadly serious to the gleefully absurd, from the disquieting to the freaky, NYAFF continues to celebrate the most vibrant and provocative cinema out of Asia today.

The New York Asian Film Festival is co-presented by the New York Asian Film Foundation and Film at Lincoln Center, and takes place from July 14–30, 2023 at FLC’s Walter Reade Theater (165 West 65th Street, New York, NY), and on July 21–23 at the Barrymore Film Center (153 Main Street, Fort Lee, NJ). It is curated by executive director Samuel Jamier, associate director Claire Marty, China region expert and consultant Hiroshi Fukazawa, and programmers David Wilentz, Karen Severns, Koichi Mori, and Jenny Lin.