NYAFF XXIII: Fifteen Titles To Feast Your Eyes On This Year’s Festival

The 23rd edition of the New York Asian Film Festival is just DAYS away, and you can guarantee some of the more favored titles are already sold out. Twilight Of The Warriors: Walled In, Soi Cheang’s overseas box office hit graphic novel adaptation, took two years to hit screens after circulating the markets and is now on deck to be one of the most exciting entries of this year’s event.

The same goes for Herman Yau’s upcoming Well Go USA acquisition, Customs Frontline, etching another history maker for leading man Nicholas Tse who gets to co-sign his screenfighting chops as action director. In addition, you have Baby Assassins: Nice Days, third in line for director Yugo Sakamoto who is not only readying an episodic spin-off drama for his franchise, but is also primed to collect the festival’s coveted Daniel A. Craft award for Excellence in Action Cinema.

There’s also the presence of NYAFF 2024 honoree Kento Yamazaki who will be reigning supreme this summer two-fold with Shimako Sato’s Yin Yang Master Zero and Shinsuke Sato’s Kingdom: Return Of The Great General, and the latter is a must-see for me, personally. The first film was a total thrill, and the next two installments only drew me in further, and these films played a huge role in why I’m part of the fanbase Yamazaki also has clammoring for a third volume of Netflix sci-fi thriller series “Alice In Borderland.”

On the South Korean front, we also have Don Lee starrer The Roundup: Punishment, marking the halfway point of the actor’s “Crime City” franchise which is presumably on track for at least four more installments. Capelight already released this film theatrically in select cinemas in the states after its festival circulation beholden to rounds of buzzworthy reviews jubilant at Lee’s ascension in the genre. I’m additionally looking forward to 12.12: The Day, directed by Kim Sung-su who’s been a favorite of mine since the heydays of Beat and City Of The Rising Sun.

More lithe and limber feats will be seen in Park Bum-soo’s 1999-set Korean cheerleading romp, Victory, starring Lee Hye-ri who will be on hand to present the film upon receiving her Screen International Rising Star Asia Award. I’m especially curious about the festival’s Centerpiece title, The Killers, an anthology from directors Kim Jong-kwan, Roh Deok, Chang Hang-jun, and Lee Myung-Se. The programming notes for this one have my interests piqued and I hope to get my eyes on it before long.

These are just some – among FIFTEEN – of the titles I’m throwing my hat in for in my piece aimed at raising the curtain for this edition of the festival. This will be year six in this site’s coverage of NYAFF, and I’ve loved every minute of it. Check out my picks below with the accompanying festival notes and visit nyaff.org for more info!

In this explosive Hong Kong thriller, superstars Nicholas Tse and Jacky Cheung ignite the screen as customs officers caught in a deadly web of arms smuggling. Tse, in a powerhouse performance that also marks his debut as an action director, plays the uncompromising Chow Ching-lai, whose unwavering dedication puts him on a collision course with the elusive mastermind behind the weapons trafficking, while Cheung, as Chow’s mentor and superior, brings a world-weary gravitas to the role. As the stakes rise and the body count mounts, Chow and his Thai counterparts race against time to thwart the shipment of stolen weapons. With pulse-pounding action, shocking twists, and a villain who seems to be everywhere and nowhere at once, this is a white-knuckle ride that will take you to the very edge of the law, a place where even the good guys can’t be trusted, and the only thing more dangerous than the criminals might be the truth itself.

Director: Herman Yau
Screenwriter: Erica Li
Cast: Nicholas Tse, Jacky Cheung, Karena Lam, Angus Yeung
Languages: Cantonese and English with English subtitles
2023; 120 min.

Just when you thought cinema had emptied the ammo on hitman flicks, along comes this wildly inventive anthology refreshingly re-targeting the genre. Ostensibly inspired by Hemingway’s 1927 short story, these four turbocharged riffs on contract killing in our chaotic times are the work of Korean genre masters making their NYAFF bona fides proud.The helmers have variously contributed a vampire thriller oozing sexy splatter and undead subversion; an assassins-gone-foolishly-awry black comedy like Quentin Tarantino karaoke; a dangerously seductive neo-noir drenched in triple-cross betrayals; and a whiplash-inducing experimental mash-up in gloriously assaultive monochrome. Each indelibly stylized entry achieves stratospheric levels of bravura excess. The versatile Shim Eun-kyung stars in three, indelibly transforming from one incarnation to another. But the entire A-list cast slays with relish. By anthology’s end, you’ll be double-tapped—creatively annihilated yet perversely revived.

Directors: Kim Jong-kwan, Roh Deok, Chang Hang-jun, Lee Myung-Se
Cast: Shim Eun-kyung, Yeon Woo-jin, Hong Xa-bin, Oh Yeon-a, Ko Chang-seok
Languages: Korean with English subtitles
2024; 119 min.

In a genre as overexposed as a zombie’s flesh, Kongkiat Komesiri’s masterful excursion into the undead realm is a striking standout, transcending well-trod territory with poignant food for thought and a gut-wrenching meditation on the dehumanizing effects of war. The maestro behind the Khun Pan trilogy (NYAFF 2018) is no stranger to the macabre, and he’s wielding his genre-bending scalpel on a dark chapter of recent Asian history. Set during Thailand’s traumatic WWII involvement, a Japan-engineered chemical weapon creates a voracious superhuman horde of Thai soldiers leaving a blood-soaked path of ultra-violence and destruction. Yet the greatest victims are the abject undead themselves, who, cursed with both an irrepressible hunger for human flesh and a moral conscience, face daunting physical and emotional pain as they verbally and viscerally clamor for peace. Komesiri’s tragic tale, anchored by a patriotic officer and his conscientious-objector brother (Chanon “Nonkul” Santinatornkul, Bad Genius, NYAFF 2017), is a soul-stirring elegy for lost humanity in a world where even the damned deserve empathy and a shot at redemption.

Director: Kongkiat Komesiri
Producers: Lakkana ‘Naam’ Palawatchai, Piyaluck Mahatanasab
Cast: Nonkul, Awat Ratanapintha, Supitcha Sangkhachinda, Akkarat Nimitchai, Thawatchanin Darayon
Languages: Thai, Japanese with English subtitles
2024; 109 min.

For the legions of devotees of the Kingdom saga for the past five years—as well as those who will be new to it—the historical juggernaut about China’s warring states era has officially reached towering new heights with its thunderous fourth chapter and is having its big-screen showing at NYAFF! Shinsuke Sato’s latest manga-to-film battlefield epic, whose previous chapters have reaped multiple awards, is a maelstrom of clashing swords, deafening cavalry charges, and Machiavellian court intrigue. Megastar Kento Yamazaki is magnetic as the ascendant warrior Shin, finally leading his elite Hishin unit into their baptism of fire against the dreaded Cho forces. But the upstart, now allied with legendary general Ohki (Takao Osawa) faces overwhelming odds. Yet the grandly-scaled action sequences are matched by an undercurrent of deeply-felt humanity. Sato expertly intercuts the orgiastic spectacle of massive armies and rolling heads with quiet interludes charting Shin’s bond with childhood friend Eisei (Ryo Yoshizawa). The rousing battles hit like a warhammer, but it’s the stirring emotion that truly conquers. For manga fans and action aficionados alike, Kingdom: Return of the Great General is a gargantuan, soul-rousing wonder—a work of operatic grandeur where swords aren’t merely crossed but forged into immortal art.

Director: Shinsuke Sato
Producer: Shinzo Matsuhashi
Cast: Kento Yamazaki, Ryo Yoshizawa, Kanna Hashimoto, Takao Osawa
Languages: Japanese with English subtitles
2024; 145 min.

In 12.12: The Day, director Kim Sung-soo takes the pulse of a nation in crisis and finds it racing towards oblivion. This is history not as dusty textbook, but as living, breathing nightmare, a real-time thriller that puts you in the trenches of the 1979 Seoul military coup. Kim, who proved his chops with the gritty crime epic Asura: The City of Madness, here trains his unflinching eye on the corridors of power, where the serpentine General Chun Doo-hwan (played with oily menace by Hwang Jung-min as the hardly fictional “Chun Doo-gwang”) is staging a “grand revolution” that’s about as grand as a back-alley shakedown. As Chun’s tentacles spread, the film becomes a pressure cooker of paranoia, with Jung Woo-sung’s ramrod-straight Commander Lee Tae-shin the last man standing between order and anarchy. Kim’s surgical screenplay lays bare the rot at the heart of the military establishment, while Lee Mo-gae’s cinematography has the jittery urgency of a documentary. 12.12: The Day is a wallop of a movie, a reminder that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. It’s not just a recreation of history, but a warning shot across the bow of the present. In a world where democracy feels increasingly fragile, it’s a film that makes you feel history in your bones. A triumph of Korean cinema.

Director: Kim Seong-su
Cast: Hwang Jung-min, Jung Woo-sung, Lee Sung-min
Languages: Korean with English subtitles
2023; 140 min.

You think you’re mad for action? That you crave chaos? That nothing can satisfy your depraved yen for bone-pulverizing fury? Well, brace yourselves, fight freaks and gore gourmands – _The Roundup: Punishment _is here to administer a barbaric bouncer’s beat-down to your senses! This fourth dementedly delirious installment in the unstoppable Korean action-comedy juggernaut wasn’t just the biggest blockbuster on the peninsula in 2024 – it was a runaway worldwide phenomenon! A steady IV drip of punishing fight-stravaganzas straight into the bloodstream. Once again, it’s all about the unstoppable force of nature that is Don Lee’s “Beast Cop” Detective Ma Seok-du. That glowering, fist-swinging human wrecking ball may be Korea’s second biggest export after k-pop. Paunchy, scowling, and boarish, he’s a blunt instrument making rubble of criminal scum with his bare hands. But oh, what satisfyingly feral fun he has doing it! The premise this time? An illegal online gambling ring with added murder in Manila. Not that plotting matters when the real money shots are Lee’s awesomely choreographed beatdowns of sniveling tech-bro villains and their viper-smiling enforcer goons. Director Heo Myeong-haeng, a long-time Lee stunt collaborator, knows better than to let too much comedic flab get in the way of the deliriously bone-crunching action sequences. This baby’s all about the buzz-saw brutality – a defiantly un-PC, fists-first exercise in cinematic masochism. Slick, pacy, and gleefully retrograde, Punishment is brain-dead ecstasy for pupil-dilating fight freaks. No amount of deconstruction or auteurist analysis will dull its dumb-bellied impact. Like Ma (AKA Don Lee) smashing a chair over some goon’s skull, it reduces you to a puddle of id-raddled adrenaline and awe.

Director: Heo Myeong-haeng
Cast: Don Lee (Ma Dong-seok), Kim Moo-yul, Park Ji-hwan, Lee Dong-hwi
Languages: Korean, English, Filipino with English subtitles
2024; 109 min.

Shimako Sato’s The Yin Yang Master Zero is a game-changer for Japanese cinema—the country’s first big-budget fantasy flick directed by a woman, and it’s a doozy. The film brings to life the story of Abe no Seimei, Japan’s most badass onmyoji (that’s a yin yang master to the neophyte). These guys were the real deal in the Heian Era (794-1185), using their mad skills in divination, sorcery, and exorcism to keep the capital safe from all kinds of nasties. Sato’s crafted a killer origin story that’s sure to spawn a franchise, with jaw-dropping visuals from Shirogumi, the Oscar®-winning effects wizards behind Godzilla Minus One, led by Sato’s hubby, Takashi Yamazaki. But it’s not all flash and no substance—the film’s got some serious contemporary vibes, with a tug of war between men of magic and men of science, and a deep dive into truth vs. fact. Plus, Kento Yamazaki and Shota Sometani are a dream team as the leads, with a rapport that’s sure to keep this saga going strong.

Director: Shimako Sato
Cast: Shota Sometani, Nao, Kento Yamazaki
Languages: Japanese with English subtitles
2024; 113 min.

Seasoned martial arts actor Marc Ma’s balls-to-the-wall directorial debut is an action-packed opus of hyperbolic midnight cinema influences. Channeling both the sleazy exploitation and “heroic bloodshed” stylings of classic 80’s and 90’s Chinatown grindhouse fare, the stage is set when an evil conglomerate is threatened by a lone-wolf assassin out for vengeance. In a fictional Southeast Asian country, the Hong Tai group profits from human trafficking while its leader is poised for local governance. But when a mysterious vigilante (Nick Cheung) kidnaps the boss’ daughter and wreaks bloody havoc on the domineering organization, dreadful secrets are revealed and all hell breaks loose. Adding to the mix a scenery-chewing rouge cop (Ethan Juan), conflicted villains and various other intrigue, this Chinese box-office smash offers up a smorgasbord of Asian popcorn madness at its most sinfully hysteric.

Director: Marc Ma
Cast: Nick Cheung, Ethan Juan, Danny Chan
Languages: Mandarin with English subtitles
2023; 107 min.

In a tale that’s equal parts earnest coming-of-age drama and feel-great rip-roaring romp, Victory captures the essence of what it means to be young and ready to take on the world, one cheer at a time, handing out more positive vibes than a self-help seminar in the process. It’s 1999, and in the sleepy southern town of Geoje, a group of high school girls are about to shake things up in a way that only big teenage dreams and unabashed enthusiasm can. Meet Pil-Sun (Lee Hye-ri), a girl with a passion for dancing that’s as infectious as it is unstoppable. Together with her ride-or-die bestie Mi-Na (Park Se-Wan) and the enigmatic transfer student Se-Hyun (Jo A-Ram), fresh from the Big City (Seoul), Pil-Sun joins the school’s cheerleading club, the Millennium Girls. Soon, the group dives headfirst into the world of pom-poms and perfectly synchronized routines, all the while facing the highs and lows of adolescence in a place where everyone knows your name and your business. But with each high kick and every triumphant cheer, the Millennium Girls prove that the greatest victories are the ones that happen off the sidelines, when the crowds have gone home and all you’ve got is each other.

Director: Park Beom-su
Cast: Lee Hye-ri, Park Se-wan, Lee Jeong-ha
Languages: Korean with English subtitles
2024; 120 min.

Buckle up, folks, because director Yugo Sakamoto and action director Kensuke Sonomura, the mad geniuses behind the teen contract-killer series, are back and they’re ready to blow your mind with Nice Days. The dynamic duo practically invented the hitman-comedy genre in Japan and turned the world of stuntwomen on its head, and now they’re taking things to a whole new level of butt-kicking, fist-pummeling, knife-wielding, gun-slinging insanity. We’ve watched Chisato and Mahiro grow up and go pro, and this time, these BFFs and roomies are heading to a resort town for a little work and play. But their vacation plans go out the window when a lone-wolf assassin with a serious case of bloodlust shows up, looking to notch his 150th kill. And if that wasn’t enough, two major movie icons are joining the party, making their debuts as lean, mean fighting machines and injecting some serious star power into the mix.

Director: Yugo Sakamoto
Producers: Yusuke Suzuki, Seiyo Uchino
Screenwriter: Yugo Sakamoto
Cast: Akari Takaishi, Saori Izawa, Sosuke Ikematsu, Atsuko Maeda
Languages: Japanese with English subtitles
2024; 103 min.

Leo Wang (The 9th Precinct), a _wunderkind _director who, of his own admission, watched the Ocean’s movies more times than you’ve had hot dinners, has cooked up a hyperbolically hilarious reverse-heist action-comedy. With a star-studded cast firing on all cylinders and bringing their own brand of funny to each character and situation, Wang pulls off a dizzying array of crazy set pieces and head-spinning antics that look like they were raided from the prop closet at Looney Tunes HQ. A gang of scheming super-thieves, fresh off the steal of the century, are forced to put the money back thanks to some sticky extenuating circumstances. We’re talking laser-beam obstacle courses, cockroach catastrophes, and more sardonic fun than you can shake a stick at. Wang, a self-proclaimed “Hollywood Kid,” has taken his love for American TV and movies and spun it into a gloriously clever and explosive blockbuster satire that’s both a hat-tip to the classics and a beast all its own. But beneath the hijinks, there’s a heart that beats to the rhythm of Wang’s story.

Director: Leo Wang
Cast: Chen Bolin, Cecilia Choi, Frederick Lee, Kent Tsai, JC Lin, Wu Kang-ren
Languages: Chinese with English subtitles
2024; 99 min.

A glorious ensemble of Thai stars Ananda Everingham (Shutter), Thaneth Warakulnukroh (Bad Genius, among others) bring their A-game to this bodacious postmodern crime-action opus set in the country’s notorious “sin city” destination. At the center of the madness is an ex-con-assassin-turned-drug-dealing pizza maker, a corrupt cop with a twinkle in his eye and a rumble in his belly, a tarot card-dealing femme fatale, and a megalomaniacal crime king who makes Scarface look like a choir boy. These ne’er-do-wells cross and double-cross paths in an elaborate quest for riches in gold, leaving in their wake a trail of ultra-violence, rampant sexuality, with a sprinkle of Thai-flavored dark humor into the bargain. With a little help from movie friends Yang Kil-Yong, action director from the legendary Oldboy and producer Shang Na, of Detective Chinatown 3, and Sheep Without a Shepherd fame, seasoned Chinese director Yang Shupeng, a NYAFF 2017 guest, has whipped up a plethora of pulpy influences into a furious cinematic cocktail that’s equal parts Tarantino, Woo, and something entirely its own.

Director: Yang Shupeng
Cast: Ananda Everingham, Jirayu Tantrakul, Krissada Sukosol, Laila Boonyasak, Thaneth Warakulnukroh, Gulasatree Michalsky, Gigi Velicitat
Languages: Thai with English subtitles
2024; 117 min.

Gritty, pulse-pounding, Chan Tai-Lee’s action-drama opus hurls us in a fall-and-rise-again gangster tale that boasts both bone-crunching action and gut-wrenching emotion: Shi Xiu, once a gang leader of mythic proportions known as the “Desperate Third Son” for his almost suicidal loyalty and willingness to risk everything in the name of the jiang hu code, finds himself reduced to a humble working-class worker, struggling to reconnect with his estranged son and atone for a life of crime. Shi’s legend was forged through acts of brazen daring, like his infiltration of an enemy stronghold to rescue the wrongly imprisoned Lu Jun-yi from certain execution. Patrick Tam, in a performance of searing intensity, breathes life into a character confronted with the ghosts of his outlaw past, and clinging to hope for rebuilding his fractured life and finding new purpose. Chan, the acclaimed writer of the “Ip Man” franchise, infuses the film with a sense of hard-bitten optimism, suggesting that even in the darkest of times, an indomitable spirit can light the path to a better tomorrow.

Director: Chan Tai-Lee
Cast: Patrick Tam, Locker Lam
Languages: Cantonese with English subtitles
2024; 100 min.

A heart-stirring, time-hopping romance that’ll have you reaching for a box of tissues and a plane ticket, this Japan-Taiwan co-production takes us on a soul-searching journey from the sun-dappled streets of Tainan to the serene snow-capped landscapes of Nagano and Niigata, as the lovelorn protagonist (Taiwan megastar Hsu Kuang-han, of Marry My Dead Body fame, a massive NYAFF 2023 hit) chases the ghost of his youthful passion: a Japanese backpacker lost to a caprice of fate. It’s a quest prompted by a single postcard, a relic from a more innocent era (think late ’90s, early 2000s), when handwritten messages held more power than a thousand tweets. The film wears its influences proudly, nodding to Shunji Iwai’s Love Letter and Taiwanese gem Blue Gate Crossing, while May Day and Mr. Children’s nostalgic tunes underscore the bittersweet ache of a first love’s afterglow. Ultimately, it stands as a poignant reminder that the past is never truly past, and that the greatest voyages begin with a single, haunting “what if?”

Director: Michihito Fujii
Cast: Hsu Kuang Han, Kaya Kiyohara
Languages: Japanese, Mandarin, Taiwanese with English subtitles
2024; 123 min.

For this dizzying plunge into the sweaty, scuzzy glory days of 1980s Kowloon Walled City, director Soi Cheang summons a meticulously recreated enclave of urban blight and unfettered criminal anarchy to vivid life. The plot follows an illegal immigrant (Raymond Lam) caught between warring triad bosses in the City’s cramped corridors. But the true star is the delirious production design: a ramshackle metropolis fused into one fetid super-organism of exposed wires, makeshift shanties, and human desperation–teeming with triads, refugees, and wuxia-powered henchmen sporting rat-tail hair. If this doesn’t sell it, the deliciously unhinged fight scenes definitely will. Throughout the protagonist’s journey, combatants grab mopping equipment, blowtorches, or whatever’s handy. Bodies careen off rickety balconies into the cramped crevasses below, in a bone-crunching choreography staged with admirable clarity amid the mind-melting frenzy. OTT villains like Sammo Hung’s pimped-out triad chief and Philip Ng’s unforgettable “Iron Shirt”-powered psycho sidekick elevate the pulpy decadence.

Director: Soi Cheang
Producer: John Chong
Cast: Louis Koo, Raymond Lam, Terrance Lau, Philip Ng, Richie Jen, Sammo Hung
Languages: Cantonese with English subtitles
2024; 125 min.