Words

Essays

Correspondence

Reviews

  • Journey to the West 宇宙探索编辑部 (2021, dir. Kong Dashan 孔大山 | China): Adventure time in Southwest China
  • Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021, dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi | Japan): In between concidences and fate
  • The One Who Runs Away is the Ghost 九楼日记 (2022, dir. Lei Qinyuan, China): Qinyuan Lei’s debut is a poetic tale about homecoming
  • Ripples of Life 永安镇故事集 (2021, dir. Wei Shujun 魏书钧 | China): Wei Shujun’s sophomore feature is a sharp look into the filmmaking process and the pursuit of realism
  • Barbarian Invasion 野蛮人入侵 (2020, dir. Tan Chui Mui 陈翠梅 | Malaysia, China): Everything is film
  • The Edge of Daybreak (2021, dir. Taiki Sakpisit | Thailand): The Fall of the House of…
  • As We Like It 皆大歡喜 (2021, dir. Cheng Hung-I & Muni Wei | Taiwan): Between the visions of utopia and the retreat to status quo
  • Last Days at Sea (2021, dir. Venice Atienza | Philippines)
  • I Didn’t Dare to Tell You 不敢跟你講 (1970, dir. Mou Tun-fei 牟敦芾 | Taiwan): (Art)house Violence
  • Peony Birds 牡丹鳥 (1990, dir. Huang Yu-Shan 黃玉珊 | Taiwan): Family constellations in Huang Yu-Shan’s severely overlooked gem
  • Typhoon 颱風 (1963, dir. Pan Lei 潘垒 | Taiwan): Cat on a cold mountain top
  • Tiong Bahru Social Club (2020, dir. Tan Bee Thiam | Singapore): Singaporean director Tan Bee Thiam’s visions of utopia
  • Hot Soup (2020, dir. Zhang Ming, China): Four women of different ages
  • Old Town Girls 兔子暴力 (2020, dir. Shen Yu, China): Writer-director Shen Yu debut is a stylish neo-noir with a hint of newspaper yellow
  • MAMA (2020, dir. Li Dongmei, China): Xiaoxian and her sisters
  • The Girl and The Gun (2020, dir. Rae Red, Philippines): The girl (in the uniform) walks home alone at night…
  • The Best Director (2019, dir. Zhang Xian, China): A cosmopolitan versus a provincial hometown…
  • Outcasts (1986, dir. Yu Kan-ping, Taiwan): Portraits and alluring inconsistency of transitional times…
  • Not Simply a Wedding Banquet (1997, dir. Mickey Chen & Mia Chen Ming-hsu, Taiwan): But come on, it’s 1997 now!…
  • Baseball Girl (2019, dir. Choi Yoon-Tae, South Korea): The girl and the game…
  • My Prince Edward (2019, dir. Norris Wong, Hong Kong): Sharp Hong Kong directorial debut reassessing the rationale behind marriage…
  • The Cloud in Her Room (2020, dir. Zheng Lu Xinyuan, China): Drifting homecoming or the burden of being the child of cool parents…
  • Gull (2020, dir. Kim Mi-jo, South Korea): Street market chronicle of mindless violence
  • Princess Aya (2019, dir. Lee Seun-gang, South Korea): Controlled escapism and social responsibility…
  • Suk Suk (2019, dir. Ray Yeung, Hong Kong): Framing gentle kisses and modern-day romanticism…
  • Coming Home Again (2019, dir. Wayne Wang, USA/South Korea): Eating the memories and sipping the sorrow [serves 4]…
  • Nina Wu (2019, dir. Midi Z, Taiwan/Malaysia/Myanmar): Violence, symbolic power and ultimate horror in Midi Z’s latest film…
  • My Name Ain’t Suzie (1985, dir. Angie Chen, Hong Kong): Atomic pen and feminist Gothic
  • Kuldesak (1999, dir. Riri Riza, Nan Achnas, Mira Lesmana, Rizal Mantovani, Indonesia): I-Sinema manifesto 20 years later
  • The End of the Track (1970, dir. Mou Tun-fei, Taiwan): Tracking neorealism in Taiwan cinema…
  • Happy Old Year (2020, dir. Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit, Thailand): Minimalism-obsessed adult versus messy memories of youth…
  • Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue (2020, dir. Jia Zhangke, China): Negotiating Between Propaganda and the Private
  • Fukuoka (2019, dir. Zhang Lu, South Korea/Japan): Ghosts, literature, mind travels in time and space…
  • Interchange (2016, dir. Dain Said, Malaysia/Indonesia): Dain Said moves from rural kampong village to modern Southeast Asian city, a take on Malaysian film noir
  • Gundala (2019, dir. Joko Anwar, Indonesia): Twisted eugenics and apocalyptic immorality…
  • Boluomi (2019, dir. Lau Kek-huat & Vera Chen, Taiwan/Malaysia): Basic necessities of life in a deeply divided world…
  • A Yellow Bird (2016, dir. K Rajagopal, Singapore/France): Does Singapore’s diversity have an opportunity to sing its own song?
  • Snakeskin (2014, dir. Daniel Hui, Singapore/Portugal): History and myths, ghosts of alternative pasts and futures undone…
  • Lost Daughter (2016, dir. Chen Yu-jie, Taiwan): The Crossing back again, second families and split identities
  • School in the Crosshairs (1981, dir. Nobuhiko Ôbayashi, Japan): Teenage superpowers against institutions and demons from Venus, all the not-so discreet charm of 80’s teenage fantasy horror films
  • Made in Hong Kong (1997, dir. Fruit Chan, Hong Kong): Revisiting the Handover 20 years on, through Fruit Chan’s debut
  • 52 Hz, I Love You (2017, dir. Wei Te-sheng, Taiwan): Taipei in Technicolor
  • Duckweed (2017, dir. Han Han, China): Progress and nostalgia, China’s own Back to the Future
  • Tokyo Idols (2017, dir. Kyoko Miyake, Japan/UK/Canada): When music documentary meets social phenomenon
  • Haruneko (2017, dir. Sora Hokimoto, Japan): Deep woods, death wish and the traps of modernism
  • Goodbye Taipei (1969, dir. Xu Fengzhong, Taiwan): Taiwanese identities and Japanese farewells in an extraordinary piece of film history
  • The Lost Kingdom (1999, dir. Li Xiangxiu, Taiwan): Tale of old theatres, forgotten kingdoms and native culture
  • Have a Nice Day (2017, dir. Liu Jian, China): Tales from Southern China: small small heist
  • Youth ( 2017, dir. Feng Xiaogang, China): Sweet-smelling Chinese teen spirit
  • Garage Rockin’ Craze (2017, dir. Mario Cuzic, Japan): DIY and passion projects
  • White Rabbit (2018, dir. Daryl Wein, USA): Millenials and the inadequacy of “Asian American” label
  • Satan’s Slaves (2017, dir. Joko Anwar, Indonesia): Tales from the Muslim graveyard
  • Metal Politics Taiwan (2018, dir. Marco Wilms, Germany/Taiwan): The intricacies of Taiwan soft power
  • The Tailor (2017, dir. Tran Buu Loc, Vietnam): Ao dai designs and multiple modernities
  • Dukun (2008/2018, dir, Dain Said, Malaysia): The investigation into supernatural and other postcolonial clashes
  • Sad Beauty (2018, dir. Bongkod Bencharongkul, Thailand): The beauty and the drama
  • Respeto (2017, dir. Alberto Monteras, Philippines): Boyz n the Slums… of the Philippines
  • Dahufa (2018, dir. Busifan, China): Once Upon a Time in Peanut Town
  • A Land Imagined (2018, dir. Yeo Siew Hua, Singapore / France / Netherlands): Total immersion, fish tanks and the mystery of what Singapore is made of
  • Meili (2018, dir. Zhou Zhou, China): Return to the rough realism and character’s doomed fate, pity the alternative way to survive seems to be out of the question
  • The Taste of Betel Nut (2017, dir. Hu Jia, China/Hong Kong): Bringing back to life the ghosts of Chinese pop culture past
  • As You Were (2014, dir. Liao Jiekai, Singapore): Deliberate imprisonment in memories and negotiating identity in relation to institutions
  • Whole (2019, dir. Bilal Kawazoe, Japan): Escape from overtheorizing hybrid identity, turn towards a personal take on duality and feeling of incompleteness
  • A First Farewell (2019, dir. Wang Lina, China): Between Chinese institutions and Uyghur private lives
  • Your Face (2018, dir. Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan): Reading faces carved by time and life experience or 13 portraits of Taipei People
  • Reside (2018, dir. Wisit Sasanatieng, Thailand): Thailand’s own Mystery Inc. possessed by spirits and haunted by the past
  • The Return (2019, dir. Qin Hailu, China): Ultimate homecoming and Cold War cultural heritage…
  • Send Me to the Clouds (2019, dir. Teng Congcong, China): Dreams of spirituality within an utterly materialistic world…
  • Love Boat: Taiwan (2019, dir. Valerie Soe, Taiwan/USA/Canada): Shifting identities, extreme infatuations and clueless authorities…
  • Okja (2017, dir. Bong Joon-ho, USA/South Korea)
  • The Great Buddha+ (2017, dir. Huang Hsin-yao, Taiwan)
  • The Crossing (2018, dir. Bai Xue, China)

Interviews

Festival reports

Miscellaneous