Every year, we publish one of these articles for Asia in Focus and it does exceptionally well for itself. In fact, the 2021 version of this article is one of the most read articles ever on this site. So if it ain’t broke, do another listicle.
The year of the Tiger will kick off with a Han Han film (The Four Seas), making it his third CNY film of the last five years. Song Yang (Goodbye, Mr. Loser) will present a film about a super-powered family, while Wang Fangfang anticipates 2022 Beijing Olympics with sports film Breaking Through.
Of course, the proliferation of online content has made it a lot easier to get in touch with East Asian cinema. Netflix has doubled down on their deals to bring us more Japanese and Korean content, while heavy-hitter directors like Naomi Kawase, Shinkai Makoto, Park Chan Wook, and Daigo Matsui. Other films got a limited festival release in late 2021 and had their theatrical releases delayed until 2022. Either way, there’s a lot to look forward to in 2022.
Read more: Best Asian films of 2021
So, here’s 22 films that have caught our attention for the year.
Kingmaker
With the South Korean presidential elections in March, the February release of Byun Sung-Hyun’s political film is the definition of topical. The film follows Sol Kyung-gu as a politician who dreams of attaining office and changing the world with the help of a political strategist (Lee Sun-kyun). This was originally due out in December 2021, but was postponed due to the Korean New Year holidays due to pandemic concerns.
What to Do with the Dead Kaiju?
It’s a legitimate question. This glorious titled film is coming out from director Satoshi Miki (Louder! Can’t Hear What You’re Singin’, Wimp!) this year is about the aftermath of a kaiju attack. As the giant monster lays rotting in the streets, a small team must race against time before bloated corpse explodes and destroys a nation. Why we aren’t all talking about this more, we may never know.
Suzume no Tojimari
Translating as something like Suzume Closes the Doors, the latest film from anime director Shinkai Makoto is something to get excited about. Following the one-two punch of Your Name and Weathering with You, it has been described as a road movie featuring haikyo (or abandoned structures). As the title would imply, someone named Suzume discovers a door opening to disasters at one of these locations, as well as the ability to close those doors. It will feature the character designs of Masayoshi Tanaka and animation direction by Kenichi Tsuchiya.
Tokyo 2020 Olympics
A film about the 2020 Olympics, which were actually held in 2021, will be released to cinemas in 2022. That about sums up the last few years. Noami Kawase, the Japanese filmmaker and novelist, will join the ranks of Kon Ichikawa with this documentary she spent part of 2021 shooting. She’s best know recently for films such as Hanezu, Still the Water, Radiance and most recently True Mothers. Often blending documentary techniques into her fictional narratives, she frequently evokes a kind of natural realism. It will be interesting to see how one of the few major public events of 2021 plays out on film.
Baby, Broker, Boxer
A new release from award-winning filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda should demand your attention, especially when Shoplifters won Palme d’Or at Cannes and Best International Feature at the Academy Awards. Following his French-language debut with The Truth, Kore-eda transplants his operations to South Korea. The title refers to the heated boxes that began appearing in Joosarang Community Church in Seoul for parents to leave unwanted children. The announced cast so far includes Song Kang-Ho, Gang Dong-Won, Bae Doo-Na and IU. We expect this to make its debut at Cannes this year. Also know by its working title Broker.
Photocopier
Indonesian filmmaker Wregas Bhanuteja debuted this film at the Busan International Film Festival in October last year, but thanks to Netflix the rest of the world gets to see it in 2022. The sharply relevant drama follows a youn woman who lost her scholarship due to photos of her at a party. A student investigates whether something else happened to her that night. Look out for this in January on the streaming service.
New Gods: Yang Jian
After the massive success of New Gods: Nezha Reborn this year, Light Chaser Animation is wasting no time in bringing a sequel to our screens. We saw a preview for this at the end of Green Snake, and it looks impressive. As with the first film Ming dynasty novel Investiture of the Gods, with a more modern setting that picks up where the first film left off.
Warriors of the Future
This Hong Kong action film, with a mammoth US$56 million production budget, is the definition of ‘anticipated.’ First announced in 2015, it was planned to start filming with the late Benny Chan. When it began production in 2017, it had already undergone a three year pre-production process. A teaser trailer was released in 2019, but then was delayed indefinitely. In December 2021, viral promos were released, finally suggesting a 2022 date for the film. Directed by Ng Yuen-fai — and starring Louis Koo, Sean Lau, Carina Lau, Tse Kwan-ho, Philip Keung, and Nick Cheung — the sci-fi film is set in 2055 and follows a military organisation that is fighting an alien plant species that has purified pollution but destroyed everything in its path. It is said to be the most special effects laden film in Hong Kong history.
Shin Ultraman
Following his work on Shin Godzilla, and finally finishing his Evangelion saga, Hideaki Anno breathes new life into another classic franchise. Director Shinji Higuchi will bring Anno’s script to the screen, having worked with the Evangelion legend since Gunbuster in 1988. Starring Takumi Saitoh as the human host of Ultraman, the cast will also include Masami Nagasawa and Hidetoshi Nishijima. It arrives in Japanese cinemas in May 2022 and is sure to be one of the biggest local box office hits of the year.
Jung-E
Train to Busan. Psychokinesis. Peninsula. When director Yeon Sang-Ho announces a new film, you pay attention. Continuing his relationship with Netflix following last year’s Hellbound series, this new film is a sci-fi scenario set on a 22nd century Earth where an uninhabitable Earth has forced humanity into a shelter. Jung-E (Kim Hyun-Joo) leads the allied forces in a war taking place in that shelter while Seo-Hyun (Kang Soo-Yeon) and Sang-Hun (Ryoo Kyung-Soo) work on a brain cloning experiment that’s key to the future of the planet.
The Land of Happiness
Director Choo Chang-Min (Seven Days of Night) has been touting this film for a couple of years now, and it looks to be finally coming out this year. Starring Cho Jung-Seok (Exit) as a lawyer who is striving to save a person, most of the descriptions talk about it being a case that will ‘shake modern history.’ Consider us shook.
Decision to Leave
This is going to be on the top of a lot of anticipated lists for 2022: and rightfully so. It’s been five years since Park Chan-wook’s (Oldboy, Snowpiercer) staggeringly good last feature film, The Handmaiden. Starring Tang Wei and Park Hae-il, it follows a detective who falls for a mysterious widow after she becomes the prime suspect in his latest murder investigation. While no official release date has been set, Park is said to be in post-production and it’s a fairly good bet for a festival release this year.
xxxHolic
Photographer, visual artist and filmmaker has seen a busy couple of years, serving as an executive board member of the Tokyo Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games of 2020 between films No Longer Human and Netflix series Followers. Known for her use of bright colours and stylish aesthetics, she brings these to a live action adaptation of the popular Clamp manga. Ko Shibasaki and Ryūnosuke Kamiki will play Yuko Ichihara and Kimihiro Watanuki respectively, and it’s currently planned to drop in Japan during April.
Just Remembering
Daigo Matsui’s Remain in Twilight was one of our favourite films of last year. With films like Our Huff and Puff Journey and Japanese Girls Never Die under his belt, Matsui remains a staple on our list of filmmakers to get excited about. Described as a bittersweet love story inspired by a Jim Jarmusch masterpiece, it follows a Tokyo Film Festival debut for a February 2022 release.
Police Story 2022
There’s a lot of us fans of Hong Kong cinema that saw Jackie Chan and the original Police Story series as a gateway drug to vast range of stories coming out of Hong Kong. Following Police Story 2013, Leo Zhang (Bleeding Steel, Fox Hunt) will direct a script by Ding Ding, bringing back Chan to the franchise alongside Kevin Lee. This is going to be fun.
Cat Has Escaped
The prolific Rikiya Imaizumi returns with a story of a couple on the verge of divorce and their interactions with friends — depending on who gets to keep the cat. The director of Little Nights, Little Love and His is a perennial favourite on these lists due to his amazing ability to get up close to these characters and find hidden meanings ion their everyday lives.
Hunt
Directorial debut of Korean actor Lee Jung-Jae, mostly recently seen in the lead role of Squid Game. The veteran actor co-stars with Jung Woo-Sung (Beasts Clawing at Straws) as a couple of National Security Agency operatives on the titular hunt for a North Korean spy director sent to South Korea.
Oksu Station Ghost
Web comics (or ‘webtoons’) have proven to be fertile ground for South Korean cinema, and this one follows the mysterious goings on of the titular station in Seoul. Starring Kim Bo-Ra and N.Flying’s Kim Jae-Hyun in his feature film debut, director Jeong Yong-Ki adapts Ho Rang’s source material with a script by none other than Hiroshi Takahashi, best known for The Ring and its sequels.
Love Like the Falling Petals
Another of the headliners in Netflix’s heavy investment in South Korea and Japan, the film (formerly known as My Dearest, Like a Cherry Blossom) comes from the prolific director Yoshihiro Fukugawa (Sagrada Reset). It follows Kento Nakajima (best known from idol bands Sexy Zone and Yuma Nakayama w/B.I.Shadow) as he falls in love with hairdresser Honoka Matsumoto (His, Mio on the Shore) before she is diagnosed with an accelerating ageing disease. It could be an 80s movie of the week or the tearjerker we need to expunge our pent-up emotions of the last few years.
Bubble
Director Tetsurō Araki, best known for the Death Note anime and a little something called Attack on Titan, works with screenwriter Gen Urobuchi (Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Fate/Zero and many more) for a yet another Netflix debut! This teen dramady features character designs by Takeshi Obata (Bakuman) and a score from Hiroyuki Sawano (Kill la Kill, Attack on Titan), so you know it’s going to be one of the cult hits of the year. It’s set to hit Netflix in April before having a theatrical run in Japan from May.
Salvation
Formerly known as Be Water, My Friend, referring to the famous quote from Bruce Lee, director Anthony Pun (Extraordinary Mission) brings the legendary Chow Yun-Fat as a gambler looking to connect with his autistic son. Apart from vaguely recalling the star’s role in God of Gamblers, it will be terrific to see the actor in a film with a script by Felix Chong (Project Gutenberg). Speaking of which…
Once Upon a Time in Hong Kong
Not to be confused with the 2021 sequel to I Corrupt All Cops, this Hong Kong action thriller reunites Andy Lau and Tony Leung Chiu Wai on screen for the first time in two decades. Set in the 1980s, writer/director Felix Chong reverses their Infernal Affairs roles as Lau stars as an investigator at the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) on the tail of Leung’s multi-billion-dollar company founder loosely baed on George Tan. With a stacked cast that also includes Simon Yam, Charlene Choi, Alex Fong and Philip Keung, it sounds like it will be some awesome throwback Hong Kong action.
Bonus Pick
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Although this Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Swiss Army Man) is entirely a US production, this one has us excited. Michelle Yeoh stars as an “ageing Chinese immigrant is swept up in an insane adventure, where she alone can save the world by exploring other universes connecting with the lives she could have led.” It also stars Stephanie Hsu (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) and the triumphant screen return of Ke Huy Quan (known to a generation as Short Round from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom).
