As FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) is currently warning residents living along the Pacific Coast to buy flood insurance due to the expected onslaught of El Nino, sunny San Diego is also shoring up for the 16th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival (SDAFF), which will be flooded with 130+ films from 20 Asiatic countries over a 10-day period (November 5–14). In case you didn't know, SDAFF is now considered the largest showcase of Asian cinema on the West Coast, and this year's festival will feature some remarkably amazing films and guest appearances.
Though Korean American Lee Ann Kim, the Pacific Arts Movement and SDAFF's founder and executive director, has placed more of the SDAFF's film programming in the hands of artistic director Brian Hu, she remains busy behind the scenes. As she explains it, "My involvement in the festival is that there are so many ingredients in the salad and I'm basically the dressing…once it's tossed, it tastes fantastic. Each ingredient, lettuce, tomato, don't all sit as well unless you have a good dressing to bring them all together. I connect the dots and make sure that people have the right resources and right direction."
One of this year's directions is that SDAFF has made sure that there's a trifectorate of martial arts films that spans three genres: horror, documentary, and Kung Fu. The Kung Fu film – Hou Hsiao-Hsien's The Assassin (2015) – is in the running for an Academy Award for best foreign language picture. The only other times this has happened for martial arts films is with King Hu's Come Drink With Me (1966), Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Zhang Yimou's Hero (2002) and House of Flying Daggers (2004), and Wong Kar-wai's The Grandmaster (2013). Taiwanese auteur director Hou has already received the Cannes Film Festival Best Director award for The Assassin, and critics worldwide have praised it for not being your typical wuxia epic, making it a definite must see.
With Taiwanese roots and in his fifth year with SDAFF, Chinese American Hu elaborates, "In the past we've tried to show martial arts films that promote different kinds of artistry, like special effects, wire work, use of 3-D and of course fight choreography. So we can see how these filmmakers are thinking when it comes to this genre and how they can do something innovative with it.
"This year, though, with The Assassin, I'm a bit trepid because audiences are going to watch the film because it has such a bad-ass title. Its imagery and storied scenes is my kind of movie. Yet it’s a film that almost has no action, almost no dialogue, almost no story, but it has an incredible amount of visual beauty and powerful ways of developing characters through peeking at them. As you watch it, you get a feeling that this is probably what it looked like during the Tang dynasty and what it was like to spend 10 minutes with someone from that era. Martial arts films are typically wall-to-wall action, but The Assassin reminds us that action happens in the context of loneliness, sadness and social pressures that lead you into a dark corner. Hou says that assassins get in there really close, kill, then get out of there and that’s it. No posing. This is what makes this a beautiful film."
The fights are reminiscent of old samurai films by Akira Kurosawa and the Kung Fu classics of the 1970s by Shaw Brothers auteur director Chu Yuan. If you've seen Toshiro Mifune in Kurosawa's Sanjuro (1962), the big finale duel is one simple sword-slashing strike to his opponent's heart.
Ten years since his last film and eight years in the making, The Assassin is Hou's first venture into the wuxia genre. Based on a short story from a compilation known as The Extensive Records Of The Taiping Eraand set during the Tang dynasty, The Assassin centers upon the legend of the female assassin Nie Yinniang (Taiwanese actress Shu Qi from The Transporter). Kidnapped as a child by a Taoist nun, Nie is trained to be a lethal, feared assassin tasked with killing corrupt officials. Yet everything begins to fall apart after Nie defies the order to kill Lord Tian Ji'an (Chang Chen).
Hu continues, "Nie almost has a problem with being an assassin; she doesn't flaunt it, just does the job, and waits for her next assignment. It's my favorite film this year. I'm a Hou Hsiao-Hsien fan and I love being surprised with everything he does, and this is a very stereotypical Hou model. Long takes, minimal dialogue, minimal story, in the spirit of wuxia. How he was able to pull this film off and rewrite the martial arts film genre completely surprised me, and it's really the Tang dynasty unlike anything you've ever seen before because it's grounded in a sense of realism. It's extravagant but has dust…it's such an achievement on so many other levels."
Yakuza vs. Zombies pretty much samuraizes what to expect from the Xtreme Japanese film Deadman Inferno, or as it is called in Japanese, Z Island. Z stands for Zeni, a place where opposing families of yakuzas, promiscuous karate teen girls, a dorky doctor, a reggae-rocking angler and a castaway cop attempt to “Gilligan Island” around running zombies…and, in a nutshell, zat is zee problem.
Hu shares that it's been a while since SDAFF has screened this kind of film mainly because the genre is clichéd, extremely misogynistic, and such films piled up to the point that their novelty wore off – plus fewer of such films were being made. "However, a film like Deadman is Xtremely special (no pun intended), and I was laughing a lot,” says Hu. “I was also really touched by it too, because it's about a family coming together because of these zombies, and now they're all forced to stand up for each other. In regard to this genre of films, there's a lot of very funny and totally random humor in Deadman, and it's also the film you've been waiting for. It's not as ultra-violent like past productions, but it gives you all the kicks (pun intended) you need."
Finally there's Winning Girl, a documentary that follows the trials and tribulations of 16-year old, 125-pound wrestling and judo champion Teysha Alo (a native of Hawaii) who has dreamed since kindergarten of becoming an Olympic gold medalist. Throughout her childhood and early teens, she's eked out a solid reputation as a force to be reckoned with by defeating boys, girls, and women twice her age. It's also a coming-of-age story, covering her life from age 12 to 16, showing the challenges and struggles Alo must face as a young woman advancing in two sports that someone her size and gender rarely excels in, never mind gaining national notoriety for participating in. Does this story sound familiar?
Kim and Hu have never heard of Ronda Rousey, who is arguably the biggest name and draw currently on the MMA circuits. The timing of this documentary is perfect, as the audience is privy to who could be the next Rousey in four or so years. Hu acknowledges Rousey, then points out, "We picked this film because it was about empowering young women and it reveals the specific challenges of doing this while you're in Hawaii. I'd assume if you do this in LA, there's competitions more readily available – drive to Vegas, etc. But in Hawaii, it's not that easy, you have to raise funds, need to have a supportive family that believes in you, and you really have to believe in yourself. The Hawaiian spin on it is very valuable, and it all further reinforces her commitment toward winning."
One of those neat things the festival offers – that no other film festival in the world does – is an interactive booth from Saturday, November 7, through Monday, November 9, where filmgoers can get a free Chi Reading for their health and well-being.
Kim closes, "I loved Winning Girl. Over the years, I've noticed that our audiences like life-changing, inspiring and uplifting documentaries. Who doesn't? They do very well here at the festival, and that tells me that we have the right audience, because our organization is not only here to entertain and inspire, but to also build a more passionate society, and part of that is to give inspiration, and to expose audiences and open their minds to more new experiences. The fact that our audiences have proven time and time again that these kind of stories are the most popular to them…it's really meaningful and touching. I've been through multiple generations of people here at Pac-Arts (formerly called the San Diego Asian Film Foundation), and I'm grateful for this work, and I believe I'm in the right place at the right time right now. The people that we have here are so special to me and this festival is our love letter to the community."
