The 24th edition of Fantasia Festival, one of the world’s most prestigious genre festivals, has announced the first two waves of titles.
For a little bit of a curtain raiser (as we call it in the industry), it seemed like a good time to put Asia in Focus again and look at some of the highly anticipated titles from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and beyond.
Despite shifting online due to the global pandemic, the fest hasn’t slowed down its amazing selection of films. Streaming from 20 August to 2 September, hit up their website for tickets once the full program is announced on 6 August.
Labyrinth of Cinema 海辺の映画館 キネマの玉手箱
Nobuhiko Obayashi, best known for Hausu (1977) and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (1983), defied all odds in making this film. Production started on this after he was diagnosed with stage-four terminal cancer, during which time he completed this and his previous film Hanagatami. That’s dedication. A love-letter to cinema, it’s a hell of a way to end a remarkable career. Read my full JAPAN CUTS review.
Tezuka’s Barbara
Macoto Tezka directs this adaptation of the 1970s manga by the legendary Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy, Black Jack, Phoenix). Starring former SMAP member Goro Inagaki and Fumi Nikaido (No Longer Human), it’s the master’s most sexually charged story. It’s also got Christopher Doyle on cinematography duties, so you know it’s going to look gorgeous.
I WeirDo
“Love in the Time of Corona” was how THR described this timely iPhone-shot Taiwanese film. Writer-director Liao Ming-yi follows an OCD couple who find their way of life tested by the world around them. The innovative film seems like a perfect offering at an online festival during a global pandemic.
Special Actors
Already a smash-hit at JAPAN CUTS this year, it’s the latest film from One Cut of the Dead director Shinichiro Ueda. Filled with a cast of mostly unknowns, expect meta twists on the genre film. Another cheeky insider look at the profession, this one has a little more heart and is (slightly) less bloody. You can read my earlier review here.
Beauty Water
This South Korean animated film from director Cho Kyung-hun is based on the 11-episode web comic series ‘Strange and Weird.’ It’s been described as an ugly duckling story about a woman who encounters water that allows her to change her appearance and stops at nothing to attain an ideal of perfected beauty. Yeah, good luck with that.
Crazy Samurai Musashi
Yûji Shimomura’s samurai epic is already gaining a fair bit of buzz in critic circles. Based on the most renowned sword battles of infamous swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, perhaps most famously portrayed by Toshiro Mifune in Hiroshi Inagaki’s Samurai Trilogy, the novelty is the single-take approach to the 400-plus group he’s opposing. If anybody is up to the task, it’s the Re:Born team of Shimomura and Tak Sakaguchi.
Detention
Based on a video game of the same name, here’s a film with a specific ready-made audience. A follow-up to director John Hsu’s VR short Your Spiritual Temple Sucks, this psychological horror blends genres and has already seen some box office success. Read my full review from TWFF.
Jesters: The Game Changers
It’s been almost a decade since Kim Joo-ho’s The Grand Heist, and the South Korean filmmaker’s return has been variously described as a Feudal Era ‘fake news’ comedy. It’s about a group of street entertainers paid to spread false rumours around town. So it’s a kind of proto-Facebook?
Life Untitled
Kana Yamada marks her feature directorial debut by adapting her own stage play. Focusng on women’s lives that collide with a Tokyo escort service, it stars Sairi Ito (who was recently seen in Netflix’s The Naked Director). At the recent JAPAN CUTS, the program compared it with the work of Kenji Mizoguchi – and that’s a mighty big compliment indeed!
Me and Me
Recognisable South Korean actor-director Jung Jin-young imagines a world where his character wakes up to find that his former life has disappeared, and everyone believes that he’s someone else. Don’t mistake this for Yesterday though. Speaking with Forbes, Jung explained that he didn’t take a traditional narrative path: “I deliberately eliminated detailed explanations…In zen dialogue, there is no such thing as an answer.”
My Punch-Drunk Boxer
Another contemporary South Korean film from an actor-director. Jung Hyuk-ki (Romance in Seoul) tells the story of former boxing champ Byeong-Goo (A Taxi Driver‘s Um Tae-Goo) intent on making a comeback despite his CTE diagnosis. It also stars the singular-named Hyeri (formerly of K-pop group Girls’ Day) in his support squad.
Project Dreams – How to Build Mazinger Z’s Hangar
Mazinger Z is one of the more recognisable anime robots in Japan, and this might just be the most novel spin on the influential 1970s cartoon. Probably the first film based on the Venn intersection of anime and a real life research paper, Tsutomu Hanabusa presents a fantasy adaptation of the techniques involved in building the famous underwater hangar in the real world. Plus: if there’s one thing we love, it’s a Japanese film with an incredibly long title.
Vertigo
Jeon Gye-soo’s film takes its title both literally and figuratively apparently! Seo-Young (Chun Woo-Hee) has climbed the corporate ladder in a South Korean company, but her high office floor make her physically dizzy. She then encounters a window cleaner (Extreme Job‘s Jeong Jae-Kwang) who dangles above the ground in this romantic drama.
The full lineup for the Fantasia festival’s 24th edition will be announced on 6 August on their website.
Read more coverage of Asian cinema from the silent era to festivals and other contemporary releases in our dedicated section called Asia in Focus.
