ASIAN VIOLENCE!

I know, I know, I'm making Myself ripe for stalkers again. But since I have so many friends who are too cool for friendster or myspace and what is a blog other than a personal bulletin board anyway?

Do you like violence? movies? fucked up Asians?
If you answered yes to all of the above, I've got movies for you to see!

There is currently a series of flicks playing up at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater that I would like to see. I saw the first one last night, it was awesome, but woulda been better if I had anyone other than the ex to discuss it with.

SO...wanna go to the movies with me? if any of the following appeal to you, email or call me.

Here are the flicks I am going to see (whether any of you get your punk asses together to join me or not):

IZO (Did you see Audition (one of my all-time faves) or Ichi the Killer? same director, come with!)
Takashi Miike, Japan, 2004; 128m
Takashi Miike's new symphony of violence, IZO, featuring Takeshi Kitano, will not disappoint his fans. Izo is an angel of death traveling through Japanese history, leaving a trail of blood behind him. "While crisscrossing several centuries he slaughters thousands of victims on the road to deliverance built on the suffering of others. Positively outrageous even by Miike standards, it's a genuinely disturbing film and so packed with invention and ideas that you're constantly dazzled, exhilarated, and in the end, actually enlightened. And I haven't even mentioned the talking flowers or the howling singer-songwriter serving as Greek chorus." - Olaf Möller, Film Comment, Nov/Dec 04
Fri Feb 11: 1:30; Sat Feb 12: 4:15 & 8:30

SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE / BOKSUNEUN NAUI GEOT (same director as the violent mindfuck I saw tonight)
Park Chan-wook, Korea, 2002; 129m
"Park Chan-wook's remarkable thriller SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE was easily the highlight within the Korean program at Toronto International Film Festival 2002, a visually bold widescreen schlockfest that unfolds like a hardboiled Takeshi Miike fusion of Raymond Chandler and The Virgin Spring. As a wealthy industrialist hunts the cobalt-coiffed mute anarchist girlfriend responsible for his daughter's abduction, Park is given free rein to push the violence envelope, but the pervasive gore is alternated with scenes of true pathos. Almost comic in escalating brutality, SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE is strangely affecting as an exploration of grief and suffering." - Travis Crawford, Film Comment, Nov/Dec 02
Sun Feb 13: 7; Fri Feb 18: 8:30

THE TWO ABOVE I AM ABSOLUTELY GOING TO SEE, thinking about these as well

VITAL
Shinya Tsukamoto, Japan, 2004; 86m
Shinya Tsukamoto's latest film is at once one of his oddest, at least on a conceptual level, and perhaps his most nuanced. The seemingly omnipresent Tadanobu Asano (who could be doing virtually anything next - why not The Merchant of Venice? or a biography of Lincoln?) plays a young medical student who has lost the memory of his own name and past but none of his intellectual capacity. He remembers in stages: first, that he was in a car accident; second, that his girlfriend was in the car with him; third, that it's her body he's dissecting in class. Perhaps the only film you'll see this year in which pathology is offered as a form of therapy.
Thurs Feb 10: 6:15; Sat Feb 12: 6:45

MEMORIES OF MURDER / SALINUI CHUEOK
Bong Joon-ho, Korea, 2003; 130m
"An unexpected hit in 2003, Bong Joon-ho's brutal, striking, and funny film is based on the real-life hunt for a small-town serial killer in the late 1980s. It's centered on the fierce yet absurd police investigation and the authorities' extraordinary failure to ensure public safety - in an era of pervasive surveillance and harsh police tactics in which the state seemed to be suspiciously watching everyone. MEMORIES OF MURDER is the last word on an era in which Koreans, caught in the grip of the Chun dictatorship, could do nothing but watch helplessly." - Kim Young-jin, Film Comment, Nov/Dec 04
Mon Feb 21: 7; Wed Feb 23: 1 & 9