The "News from Asia" program again offers an exciting expedition to Asia. This year, we present six film highlights from five countries: Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, and Taiwan, among them one European and two German premieres.
Japan, being one of Asia’s most productive film countries, is represented with two films: as a European premiere, we show the black comedy HEY JAPANESE! DO YOU BELIEVE PEACE, LOVE AND UNDERSTANDING? by Ryotaro Muramatsu. This film reflects Japan’s crazy everyday life through several parallel stories.
Fans of the unusual cinema are in for a special treat from Japan: Noboru Iguchi’s THE MACHINE GIRL is blood-soaked splatter-fun, starring a heroine loaded with a machine-gun arm who’s out to revenge her family’s death.
Johnnie To has become a cult director not only in Hong Kong by now. His latest work SPARROW is an exceptionally choreographed film about pickpockets which has already been shown in the Berlinale competition, and which wows the viewer with fascinating images and a brilliant soundtrack.
As a German premiere, we present SINGAPORE QUEENS – BORN TO DANCE by Royston Tan, an enchanting musical-tragicomedy about the "Papaya Sisters" who want to conquer the glitter world of the Getai singers in Singapore. Elaborate costumes and rousing musical numbers make this film a unique spectacle.
Two films from Thailand and Taiwan address the subject of interpersonal gravity. PLOY by internationally renowned Thai director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang tells about a ménage à trois in a Bangkok hotel room. A long-married couple’s little world is shaken by a young girl.
From Taiwan, we present HELP ME EROS by Kang-Sheng Lee. Director Lee has become known mainly as an actor and has starred in every film by cult director Ming-Liang Tsai. exground filmfest shows his second directorial work HELP ME EROS as a German premiere. This exceptional erotic drama deals with a man who has lost all his money in the stock market and now seeks to compensate all his frustration through bacchanal sex adventures and joints.
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