Vancouver International Film Festival: Asian Spotlight

The 33rd annual Vancouver International Film Festival welcomes the world's finest films to our city. From September 25 to October 8, almost 365 films from over 70 countries will play on nine screens. Dozens of directors, writers and actors will also be on hand for insightful and occasionally provocative post-screening Q&A sessions. For full film listings and tickets, visit www.viff.org.

Men Who Save the World (Lelaki harapan dunya)

Liew Seng-tat (MALAYSIA/NETHERLANDS/GERMANY/FRANCE, 93 min)
Thu. Oct 2, 10:30 am, International Village #9
Mon. Oct 9, 7:00 pm, Cinematheque
Pak Awang wants to give his daughter a wedding gift: a house he finds in the jungle. He enlists fellow villagers to literally move it, on their shoulders, to their Malaysian village. But when an illegal African immigrant sheltering there is mistaken for a ghost, a madcap series of hilarious misunderstandings ensues. Black humour with a serious political/allegorical twist.

Revivre (Hwajang)

Im Kwontaek (South Korea, 93 min)
Mon. Oct 6, 9:00 pm, Playhouse
Im Kwontaek’s 102nd film is no less compelling than any of his earlier masterworks. Ahn Songgi stars as a company director who knows better than to develop a crush on his new woman marketing manager--especially while caring for his dying wife. Elegantly shot, this is a wise and worldly film, all the more moving for its subtlety and emotional restraint. - Tony Rayns

Black Coal, Thin Ice (Bairi yanhuo)

Diao Yi’nan (CHINA, 106 min)
Fri. Oct 3, 9:30 pm, International Village #10
Sun. Oct 5, 11:30 am, International Village #10
Diao Yi’nan's film noir is a stylish, exhilarating descent into a nightmarish wintery Manchurian mystery. Following a series of murders, alcoholic former cop Zhang Zili's (Liao Fan) suspicions are aroused by laundress Zhichen (Taiwan superstar Gwei Lun-mei), who seems intimately linked to the victims. China's biggest art-house box-office hit so far. Winner, Golden Bear (Best Film), Silver Bear (Best Actor), Berlin 2014.

Blind Massage (Tui Na)

Lou Ye (CHINA/FRANCE, 114 min) 
Sat. Oct 4, 10:30 am, International Village #9
Thu. Oct 9, 9:00 pm, Vancouver Playhouse
Based on Bi Feiyu’s best-selling novel, Lou Ye's sensual drama explores a Nanjing massage parlour and the desires of the sightless masseurs and masseuses employed there. As the camera and actors (including the extraordinary Guo Xiaodong and Qin Hao) grow as intimate as lovers and Lou artfully conveys how his characters experience the world, the film becomes "entirely engrossing...” - Variety. Winner, Best Cinematography, Berlin 2014.

Coming Home (Gui lai)

Zhang Yimou (CHINA, 111 min)
Wed. Oct 8, 8:45 pm, Centre for Performing Arts
Fri. Oct 10, 12:30 pm, Centre for Performing Arts
The radiant Gong Li is magnificent in this staggering period piece about a woman with Alzheimer's-like symptoms who anxiously awaits her husband's return despite the fact he's already come home to her. "Chinese master Zhang Yimou’s... family drama of guilt, love and reconciliation set during the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution [is] heartbreaking in its depiction of ordinary lives affected by political upheaval."—Variety.
The Iron Ministry (Tie dao)

J.P. Sniadecki (CHINA/USA, 82 min)
Thu. Oct 2, 9:15 pm, Cinematheque
Sat. Oct 4, 12:15 pm, Cinematheque
Award-winning documentary filmmaker J.P. Sniadecki travelled throughout China by train for three years, capturing--with dazzling range and astonishing intimacy--the public and private spaces, faces and thoughts of Chinese people on the move. The film’s visceral forward-charging play of light and sound is pure cinema; what its Chinese passengers have to say to us is nothing short of revelatory. 

A Corner of Heaven (Tiangtang jiaoluo)

Zhang Miaoyan (CHINA/FRANCE, 94 min)
Mon. Oct 6, 9:30 pm, Cinematheque
Thu. Oct 9, 2:30 pm, Cinematheque
Abandoned by his mother, a small village boy sets out to find her on a Dickensian adventure through the horrors of China’s brutal economy. First he’s a factory slave, then he’s abducted by thieves... Zhang’s film, however, is shockingly, poetically beautiful, with a black and white floating camera-eye that turns every shot into lyrical poetry. 

The Jungle School (Sokola Rimba)

Riri Riza (INDONESIA, 90 min)
Sat. Oct 4, 9:15 pm, Cinematheque
Wed. Oct 8, 10:00 am, Cinematheque
Riri Riza follows his exploration of Timor’s civil war in Atambua 39° C with a very different but equally engrossing movie. A young woman is giving "primitive" children their first schooling in a huge preservation area in southern Sumatra. She finds herself fighting tribal prejudices, bureaucratic arrogance... and illegal loggers.

Ow (Maru)

Suzuki Yohei (JAPAN, 89 min)
Wed. Oct 1, 7:00 pm, Cinematheque
Fri. Oct 3, 10:00 am, Cinematheque
The mysterious sphere which appears in an ordinary suburban house seems to stop time and scramble the brains of the Suzuki family. Maybe it’s a cousin of 2001’s monolith? The police are too dopey to care much, but an intrepid reporter goes where angels fear to tread... A brilliantly original debut feature, scary and funny. The accompanying short’s great too! 

Haemoo (aka Sea Mist)

Shim Sungbo (SOUTH KOREA, 130 min)
Sun. Oct 5, 4:30 pm, International Village #10
Tue. Oct. 7, 9:15 pm, Centre for Performing Arts
Co-written (and reputedly also supervised) by Bong Joonho, this is an exceptionally gripping story set at sea between Korea and China. A fishing-boat skipper is persuaded (against his better judgment) to smuggle a group of North Korean illegals ashore: what could possibly go wrong? Like Memories of Murder, this is based on a real incident notorious in Korea. 

Man on High Heels

Jang Jin (SOUTH KOREA, 125 min)
Thu. Oct 2, 8:45 pm, Vancity Theatre
Mon. Oct 6, 10:00 am, Cinematheque
Yoon (Cha Seungwon) is the ultimate hard man, a battle-scarred cop who gets his man by any means necessary. But Yoon has a secret: she’s a woman trapped in a man’s body. Arch-satirist Jang Jin delivers all the thrills and ultraviolence we’ve come to expect from Korean cop/gangster movies, but with a very subversive twist.