By Brian Hu
With DVD, video-on-demand, cable television, and online downloading (of varying legality), it's perhaps antiquated to make a list of the top 10 places to see Asian cinema in California. After all, what's available to view on 35mm is a miniscule fraction of the wealth of Asian cinema online, either for sale, rental, or download.
Perhaps it's just nostalgia, but the disappearance of Asian film on celluloid is precisely the reason for such a list. Are there still movie theaters where one can see the latest Chinese blockbuster, a classic Japanese film, or the current Bollywood hits? Can Asian movie stars still look bigger-than-life, stretched to glamorous magnitudes on the big screen? Do crowds still gather in droves to attend and discuss films in lobbies and parking lots? As a matter of fact, yes, though very few venues and film societies program Asian cinema 52 weeks a year. But though the frequency may be lacking, the number of American theaters and film festivals interested in Asian cinema is even more numerous than ten years ago, and they should congratulated.
A note on my criteria. First, I'm limiting the list to California, because in 2007, that was about the extent of my travels. Furthermore, my purpose here is to highlight some of the smaller, lesser-known programming that might be overlooked in a broader survey of theaters in the U.S. And of course, California, with its large immigrant population and relatively open-minded populace, attracts Asian cinema more than other states do. But just for the record, the best spot in the United States for Asian cinema is Subway Cinema's New York Asian Film Festival, and the best place in the world is the Pusan Film Festival in South Korea.
In terms of ranking, I weighed: the number of Asian titles shown in 2007, the frequency of Asian film programming, the quality of films, and the "sense of community" created out of the Asian selections. The last criterion is the most subjective, and perhaps is where my biases come through most strongly. But if much of the pleasure of seeing Asian film -- or any film rather -- is the feeling of being among fellow fans, then this last point is critical.
1. 4 Star Theatre (San Francisco)
Gone are the Grandview, the Sun Sing, the Kuo Hwa, the Pagoda, and the Garfield Theatres. And though San Francisco's 4 Star is only a ghost of those golden-age Chinese movie theaters, it's managed to retain their aura. Partly it's due to the sense of community created after the 4 Star nearly faced eviction due to a much-publicized legal war in 2005-06. So 2007 was a year of recovery for the 4 Star and its faithful patrons, and the theater's Asian film programming showed no sense of fatigue.
Though the 4 Star no longer shows first-run Chinese films -- in fact, it's for the most part become a second-run art house -- it's still the Mecca for Asian film exhibition, and distributors know it. Viz Pictures brought Linda Linda Linda, Hula Girls, and Taste of Tea and Eleven Arts brought Memories of Tomorrow and What the Snow Brings to the Richmond District theater. Other Asian titles that received regular theatrical runs at the 4 Star include: Amu, Journey from the Fall, Tazza: The High Rollers, Exiled, Miracle on 1st Street, and Small Town Rivals. Some of those films have no real U.S. distributor, meaning the 4 Star brought it in themselves and did their own publicity -- an incredible feat given how little interest most exhibitors have in passionately supporting unknown films.
And if that wasn't enough, the 4 Star also featured two of the best Asian film series anywhere. The Asian Movie Madness continued the theater's tradition of programming cult double features on Thursday nights in the summer. It's what the 4 Star does best: the newest Japanese action paired with Michelle Yeoh classics, Infernal Affairs plus the immortal Wang Yu, Zatoichi plus the Deaf Mute Heroine, and a Takashi Miike double feature.
Then there's the jaw-dropping "Extraordinary Cinema from Asia" series, a joint effort between the San Francisco Korean American Film Festival and the 4 Star's regular San Francisco Asian Film Festival -- both fantastic festivals alone, but together they are a force of nature bordering on the ridiculous. From Korea: Barking Dogs Never Bite, Grain in Ear, The King and the Clown, 200 Pound Beauty, and more. From Japan: Zebraman, Yakiniku, and more. From Hong Kong: Isabella, Dragon Tiger Gate, Perhaps Love, Initial D, Eye in the Sky, and more. And then there are showcases of classic Asian films: 1930s Ruan Lingyu heartbreaker The Goddess (albeit shown on DV), legendary South Korean director Shin Sang-ok's A Flower in Hell, and classic Korean war films Wild Flower in the Battlefield and Marines Who Never Returned. The best of Asian cinema -- art and mainstream, past and present -- makes the 4 Star a no-brainer to top this list.
2. Naz8 Cinemas (Artesia, Fremont, San Jose, Riverside, Fresno)
At the Naz8 theater chain, excitement is plastered on the walls, shimmering off posters of Hrithik Roshan, Rani Mukherjee, and other stars sporting ample T&A and candy-colored motorcycle jackets. It's also on the giddy faces of Bollywood fans for whom no line and no crumbling shell of an old Hollywood megaplex can deter from seeing the latest blockbuster from the subcontinent. Parents take kids and siblings to the Naz8 as family outings. Visitors from miles away come to feel the fervor. And then there are the films. Because Naz8 screenings are limited to first-run commercial films from South Asia, there's a lot of junk among the treasures, and 2007 hasn't been a truly standout year in terms of quality. Then again, I was able to see Om Shanti Om, Salaam-E-Ishq, Chak De! India, and others on the big screen (and eat samosas!), so I have no reason to complain.
3. Pacific Film Archive (Berkeley)
The PFA's archival holdings contain some of the most important Japanese film collections outside of Asia. Not surprisingly, its film programming division features some the greats of Japanese cinema history. This year's crowning program was undoubtedly the 18-film Shohei Imamura retrospective, although even more impressive is that equal care was given to uncovering relative unknowns like "genre master" Tomu Uchida, who received a substantial retrospective of his own. Just as valuable were mini-retrospectives of Thai iconoclast Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Indian maverick Shyam Benegal -- both programs featuring directors in person. Meanwhile, October's "Spotlight: International Animation" shone lights on Japanese animator Naoyuki Tsuji and 1980s animation from mainland China, introduced by Beijing Film Academy professor Duan Jia. To top it off, the PFA was also the setting for some of the more adventurous fare from SFIAAFF and SFIFF (see #6 and #7 below).
4. Palm Springs International Film Festival (Palm Springs)
If the Palm Springs International Film Festival didn't have their "built-in quota system" (the festival automatically invites every country's submissions for the foreign-language Oscar), it would still have a stellar Asian film program, including some of the continent's best, like The Go Master, Summer Palace, and Woman on the Beach. With the Oscar submissions, Palm Springs boasts the most diverse Asian film programming in California, with entries from the Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand in addition to Japan, China, and South Korea. Asian films typically get good turnouts in Palm Springs, though the sense of community surrounding Asian cinema is practically non-existent.
5. AFI Fest (Los Angeles)
A year ago, I would have laughed at the suggestion that AFI Fest deserved a place on such a list, but this year's festival has proved me wrong, emerging as the best film festival in the Los Angeles area. The emphasis has turned away from press-friendly premieres and toward cinephile-friendly films that made a splash in Cannes, Venice, and elsewhere. As a result, L.A. film-lovers got relatively timely looks at Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine, Hou Hsiao-hsien's Flight of the Red Balloon, Johnnie To's Mad Detective, and others. The highlight of the festival was the tribute to late Taiwanese director Edward Yang, whose Terrorizers received a rare screening to a mesmerized audience.
6. (tie) San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (San Francisco), Visual Communications Filmfest (Los Angeles), San Diego Asian Film Festival (San Diego)
SFIAAFF, VC Filmfest, and SDAFF are the three big Asian American film festivals in California, and as always, they are also major venues for Asian cinema. Several films (Do Over, Summer Palace, King and the Clown, Hula Girls, The Rebel) played at more than one of the festivals, while each festival had sole bragging rights to some of the biggest titles coming out of Asia: SFIAAFF with Syndromes and a Century and Exiled, VC Filmfest with Invisible Waves and Eternal Summer, and SDAFF with I'm A Cyborg But That's Okay. If one had the edge, it'd be SFIAAFF for its invaluable retrospective of Hong Sang-soo's oeuvre.
7. (tie) San Francisco International Film Festival (San Francisco), Los Angeles Film Festival (Los Angeles)
SFIFF is the best international film festival on the west coast -- if not the entire United States. As always, Asian cinema is high on the priority list: Paprika, Heavenly Kings, Amour Legende, After This Our Exile, Vanaja. The Los Angeles Film Festival deserves credit for programming Peter Sellars' "New Crowned Hope" films commissioned to celebrate the 250th birthday of Mozart. The series include such important work as I Don't Want to Sleep Alone, Syndromes and a Century, and Opera Jawa.
8. Mpark4 (Los Angeles)
This new L.A. mini-plex had so much potential: situated in the heart of Koreatown, it would specialize in first-run films from the formidable Korean film industry. But every time I called the theater for information, I'd find that the films were unsubtitled, which wasn't surprising given that they were Korean films without U.S. distribution and without international festival appeal (which of course made me want to watch them even more). I'm not sure how well the films have been doing in terms of box office, but it's not a good sign that at last check, the theater's four screens comprised of one new Korean film and three Hollywood films with Korean subtitles. Nevertheless, Mpark4 deserves a spot on the list for its persistence, its community-building, and its help with the fantastic Subtitle Film Festival (see #10 below).
9. Redcat (Los Angeles)
Inspired programming by the folks over at the California Institute of the Arts makes Redcat the best spot for experimental cinema in Southern California. And any venue with professor/curator Berenice Reynaud among its team is bound to include solid Asian selections. This year saw an Apichatpong Weerasethakul program and a night featuring important Chinese documentarian Wu Wenguang in person. Redcat also co-hosted a Chinese film series with the UCLA Film and Television Archive, so L.A. audiences were also able to see the latest from underground filmmaker Cui Zi'en, as well as Tsai Ming-liang's The Wayward Cloud, which received its much-belated L.A. premiere.
10. Subtitle Film Festival (Los Angeles)
In a city overcrowded with new film festivals, the Subtitle Film Festival was a welcome -- if peculiar -- addition. How did a freshman festival manage to snag rights to the North American premiere of the high-profile Confession of Pain, the U.S. premiere of the award-winning After this Our Exile, and the L.A. premieres of Royston Tan's 4:30 and Miwa Nishikawa's Sway? The festival only had nine films: the other five were Edmond Pang's Isabella, Songyos Sugmakanan's Dorm, Toshiaki Toyoda's Hanging Garden, Yukihiko Tsutsumi's Memories of Tomorrow, and Lee Jin-woo's Sundays in August, all of which would have found a natural home in any of the established festivals on this list. One can only imagine what 2008 will be like...
Honorable mentions (in no particular order):
New Beverly Cinema (Los Angeles):
We can always count on the New Beverly to play Wong Kar-wai double-features and various widely-available Asian action films. But what stood out this year was the Grindhouse Film Festival programmed by Quentin Tarantino out of his own collection. Bruce Li, Bolo Yeung, and other disreputable B-stars of the 1970s had audiences howling, as did the trailers of dubbed kung fu films from Hong Kong cinema past.
The Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theatre (Los Angeles):
Cinefamily, programmed by the crazy kids over at cult movie haven Cinefile, just launched so it's too early to judge their place in the crowd, though their Asian Sundays selections have been top-notch. Stephen Chow classics and Jang Joon-Hwan's underappreciated Save the Green Planet! have made appearances, but it's going to be series like "Deploy all Monsters" -- featuring grisly classics from the Toho dungeon -- that distinguish Cinefamily as a true original.
ImaginAsian Center (Los Angeles):
Also too new is ImaginAsian Entertainment's latest venture in L.A.'s Little Tokyo. Occupying the real estate of the old Linda Lea Theatre, the ImaginAsian Center promises to house Asian and Asian American cinema, although kicking off with a clunker like Midnight Eagle was probably not the most triumphant housewarming. But if ImaginAsian Center is anything like its counterpart in Manhattan, then it will be a major player in Asian film exhibition.
UCLA Film and Television Archive (Los Angeles):
Most years, the UCLA archive's programming would clinch a spot on this list -- if not at the very top. 2007, unfortunately, was a transitional year for the archive, which moved its programming from the UCLA campus to the new Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum. Their only Asian cinema this year was the Chinese film series co-sponsored with Redcat (see # 9 above). If the archive deserves an honorable mention nevertheless, it's for including one of the city's greatest film events of recent years: the 4-hour director's cut of A Brighter Summer Day to celebrate the late director Edward Yang.
Indian Movie Center (San Jose):
The Indian Movie Center specializes in South Asian cinema, in particular Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Punjabi films. Unfortunately, the quality of films never rises to the level of Naz8 or even Mpark4. That said, at the Indian Movie Center, film quality isn't as important as the fact that it is a priceless cultural institution to its respective communities.
Korean Film Festival in Los Angeles (Los Angeles), Vietnamese International Film Festival (Orange County), Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (Los Angeles), 3rd I South Asian Film Festival (San Francisco):
These festivals are among the best of their kind anywhere in the U.S., providing depth and context in their programming. VIFF in particular continues to be one of the world's best sources for Vietnamese and diasporic Vietnamese cinema. Unfortunately, none of these festivals have managed to fully transcend their ethnic communities and bring their respective cinemas to other demographics.
On the outside:
And then there are the international film festivals that have yet to really create an identity in terms of Asian film programming. The Santa Barbara Film Festival, as always, has some big titles (The Host, Daisy, Election 1 and 2, Paprika, Summer Palace), but the selections are getting more obvious, as opposed to previous years, which featured sections for button-pushing cult films. The usually terrible Newport Beach International Film Festival had a slight turnaround this year by getting its hands on Exiled and Tazza: The High Rollers. Finally, the Mill Valley Film Festival clearly doesn't make Asian cinema a priority, with big titles like Lust, Caution and Tuya's Marriage, but nothing else.
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Best of 2007:
Asian Film
Asian American Film
Performers
Cringe-worthy Moments
Behind the Scenes
Music
Wordsmiths
Film Venues in CA
YouTube clips
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