2007 Film Guide

A one-day drive to Yogjakarta turns into a three-day plunge into hedonism when nice, middle-class boy Suf (Nicholas Saputra) is joined by his liberated cousin Ambar. Riri Riza breaks every taboo in the Indonesian book as he argues for tolerance and a pluralist Islamic society. more...

An enigmatic piece by Nogami Suwami. more...

John Moon’s “modern fairy tale” sardonically updates the Biblical account of temptation in the Garden of Eden. Combining live-action and animation and shot in monochrome and red, it asks tricky questions about the quest for forbidden knowledge--and delivers a well-aimed uppercut to the advertising industry. more...

The first fiction feature by Santi Taepanich, director of Crying Tigers, collages the experiences of four residents of Bangkok whose lives are lived at night. They include a world-weary call-boy played by Ananda Everingham. Dragons & Tigers Award nominee. more...

Ishii Yuya’s debut feature is a droll dysfunctional family comedy: Taro tries to get away from his family by moving to the country with the girl he likes--but his bad-penny dad tags along. Dragons & Tigers Award nominee. more...

Drawn in charcoal, this Grimm tale could be seen as a critique of Shrek and its values. A boy and his younger sister, shape-shifters both, make their escapes after narrowly avoiding being eaten by their monstrous father. Strange and dark things happen. Tsuji Naoyuki (Trilogy About Clouds, VIFF 05) combines the spirits of underground manga and Marc Bolan. more...

“Freeze some sunshine and save it for winter.” Ms Kwon’s short is (a) a small lesbian poem, (b) the most justified use of CGI in world cinema this year, and (c) the breeziest film of its kind since Chungking Express. Wonderful! more...

The women in headscarves brigade: in Malaysia, they are capable of (almost) anything. more...

Screenwriter Joko Anwar’s second movie as director is a ghost story set in a time of tyranny and political corruption. The secret behind some dying words unlocks both a dirty secret and a Borgesian labyrinth. A highly entertaining thriller. more...

Fantastically ambitious for a student film, De-orbited is a philosophical sci-fi movie in the vein of Solaris. Gong Gui-Man works on an orbiting space station to track rogue space coffins and restore them to their intended orbit. The big job in hand involves the coffin of a Pope, but the closer he gets to it the more Gong finds himself lost in his unresolved feelings for his father. more...

Kim Sam-Ryeok’s debut feature is a wry comedy about a young man’s attempt to delay entering adult life. Sangho, born in the Year of the Sheep, accidentally becomes an indie film producer--a move that affects him psychologically, economically and sexually. Dragons & Tigers Award nominee. more...

For the 14th year running, The Festival is pleased once again to offer the Dragons & Tigers Award for Young Cinema to a new director from the Asia-Pacific region. It is given to a creative and innovative film, made early in the director's career, which has not yet won significant international recognition. more...

Prizewinning young Malaysian director Woo Ming Jin offers a seaside story of a young money-obsessed slacker and a middle-aged lonely fisherman. Set amongst plague, greed, and prostitution, and filmed in gorgeous long takes, its natural beauty and mischievous sense of humour are unexpectedly seductive. more...

This shattering new documentary from Wang Bing relentlessly exposes China’s insufficiently examined post-revolutionary history. Elderly writer He Fengming tells of her and her husbands persecution as “party enemies” during the 1950s and 60s, in a voice that is mesmerizing, poetic, and incontestably authoritative. more...

Liew Seng Tat's first feature is constantly, quietly, astonishing. This story of two little brothers who seem to live on their own, and an introverted mannequin designer with an aching heart, is equal parts childhood idyll, absurdist comedy, gentle social satire and family mystery. more...

Slum-dweller Thelma and her carpenter husband help make ends meet by fostering orphans until they can be adopted. Brillante Mendoza’s superb movie (which feels almost like documentary) follows Thelma’s last few days fostering the three-year-old John-John before handing him over to rich Americans. more...

What drives so many people in Fujian Province to illegally emigrate by any means possible? Weng Shouming’s dynamic debut tells two linked stories about delinquents and no-hopers which lay Fujian society bare. Dragons & Tigers Award nominee. more...

Zhang Yang recaptures the brio of his biggest hit Shower in this black-comedy road movie about a labourer (comedian Zhao Benshan) who tries to honour a promise to a dead colleague by carrying his body back to his home village for burial. Evading the cops and encountering strangers (some helpful, others decidedly not) at every turn, he uncovers plenty of funny/sad truths about China's current underclass. more...

This phenomenal movie is Kitano Takeshi’s 8 1/2, the lament of a blocked film director trying out new genres and regretting some of the ones he’s tried before. Contains Blue Raven: Ninja!, which is the closest he’s likely to come to another Zatoichi movie. more...

Singing Chen’s film is a major work, and it’s splendid. This ambitious multi-character drama features a hand model, a man who repairs statues of gods, a young thief, an aboriginal carver, and a pack of dogs. Its magic is gracefully easy, uncannily rhapsodic. more...

Yasmin Ahmad’s comedy-dramas are popular in Malaysia, but crowd-pleasing laughter and tears don’t come at the expense of depth. She concocts a rich mix of high comedy, smooth melodrama and utopian longing that resonates with the textures of Malaysia’s richly multicultural experiment. more...

A down and out stock trader’s loneliness draws him to a suicide prevention counsellor with a thing for eels, and a betelnut girl with a penchant for, well, complicated liasons. Sex, drugs and amazing cinematography power this eye-popping erotic comedy by Lee Kang-sheng. more...

The best film yet by the star of The Soup, One Morning, Hirosue Hiromasa. A mother with a problem son tries to become a sex worker; a failed salesman with huge debts hides out in her home and befriends the son. A wry and engaging look at troubled lives, with unexpected shafts of humour. more...

Joon Yoon-Suk's electrifying short uses Han Dae-Su’s song. more...

The only thing the members of the Dawn Team have in common, other than a love of soccer, is that most of them live on the street. This remarkable documentary follows the players as they prepare for the game of their lives at the annual Homeless World Cup in South Africa. more...

Eleven full years after Shall We Dance?, Suo Masayuki returns with a devastating account of the shortcomings and hypocrisies of Japan’s legal system. En route to his first job interview, Kase Ryo (Letters from Iwo Jima) is accused of groping a girl on a train; protesting his innocence marks the start of a season in legal hell. more...

What’s become of the Philippines 20 years after the “People Power” revolution which overthrew Marcos? Twenty indie directors offer answers, some amusing, some startling, some terrifying. They include the ever-surprising Lav Diaz and the ever-remarkable Raymond Red. more...

“Issun Boshi,” Japan’s answer to Tom Thumb, was the subject of a series of picture books published by Kodansha, known to everyone in the baby-boomer generation. Regular long-distance collaborators Tanaami and Aihara (Trip, VIFF 05) riff on their childhood memories of these books, stressing the latent eroticism, humour and malice they found there. Their Issun Boshi is a distinctly phallic figure... more...

Taiwan’s surprise box office hit of 2007, Chen Huai-en’s lyrical road movie is about university student Ming who bicycles around Taiwan in one week. Elegiac and intensely local, set off by breathtaking seascapes, it offers vivid portraits of the people he meets en route. more...