NYAFF, 6/19.

The update you want first on how things are going at the New York Asian Film Festival comes from co-founder Grady Hendrix himself, predictably honest and entertaining.

"While other festivals are highlighting Asia in their midnight program with bland horror films like Korea's Voice, Subway has been serving up one of the most diverse selections of Asian films in the country - rivaled only by the Philadelphia International Film Festival - and this year is no exception," writes Michael Lerman before presenting a few don't-misses at indieWIRE.

Aaron Hillis catches The Great Yokai War, "a mildly subversive, nearly family-friendly epic fantasy that must be [Takashi Miike's] most approachable and entertaining film since 2001's The Happiness of the Katakuris," A Stranger of Mine, " a pulp-fictional exercise in deviating viewpoints," and The Magicians, "a bittersweet 95-minute drama shot in one continuous Steadicam take. You might say it's the East Asian version of Sokurov's Russian Ark, minus the, uh, centuries' worth of revolutionary history in the Hermitage stuff."

"Ram Gopal Varma is unquestionably one of the most talented filmmakers working in India (or anywhere) today," writes David Austin at Cinema Strikes Back. The occasion: NYAFF is presenting the world premiere of Shiva and screening a few other films he's directed or produced. "For those who dismiss Indian films out of hand as musicals and melodramas, these films will prove you wrong so fast that your head will spin."

Posted by dwhudson at June 19, 2006 12:50 PM