As part of next week's annual Silk Screen Asian American Film Festival, a doubleheader of horror films show on Saturday as the "Silk Screem Horror Film Night": China's Nightmare (青魘) and Korea's Two Moons (두게의 달). On Sunday, Japan's Asura (アシュラ) and Singapore's Tatsumi make up Anime Film Night.
Nightmare (青魘) will play on Saturday at 5:30---and again on the 18th---at the Melwood Screening Room Classroom (map) A 2012 Film Business Asia review writes:
With a corkscrew, circular plot that slides back and forth in time between the present and the past, and between dreams and waking, in the hero's tortured mind, it's part psychothriller, part ghost story and part whodunit — and in its preposterous way actually makes some kind of sense. Carefully shot, and with multiple twists in the final section, it's exactly what it intends to be: a neat brainteaser with a few shocks that moves effortlessly along for a tight 85 minutes and keeps its audience with it.Korea's Two Moons (the literal translation of 두게의 달, but also called The Sleepless in English) is at 8:30---and again on the 17th---at the same place. Koreanfilm.org summarizes, and provides a fuller---if unflattering---review at the link:
In-jung, a high school student, Seok-ho, a young writer, and So-hee, a news-anchor-like beauty, find themselves waking up in a strange, isolated house, without any memory of how they got there. Worse, they are unable to leave the house and its vicinity. The forest seems to be haunted by what appears to be ghosts of hanged-by-neck murder (suicide?) victims. And there are two moons floating in the pitch-black night sky...On Saturday, Anime Movie Night starts at the Melwood Screening Room Classroom at 5:00 pm with Tatsumi, a Singaporean movie based on a Japanese source. The Silk Screen website summarizes:
The hand-drawn animated feature Tatsumi is in a class all of its own. The film chronicles the life of revered Japanese manga artist Yoshiro Tatsumi. He established a dark and harshly realistic animation style called Gekiga. Narrated by the artist himself, Tatsumi was Singapore’s official submission for the 2011 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The film was also selected by Cannes Film Festival during the same year.Asura plays at 7:30 at the same place. Both it and Tatsumi carry advisories for violence and nudity. SciFi Japan has a plot summary and review:
Mid-15th century Japan. Flood, drought and famine have transformed the landscape of the capital of Kyoto into a barren wasteland. More than 80,000 have perished in the three years between 1459 and 1461. This desolate state served as the backdrop to the beginning of the country’s greatest civil war. The victims of this dark period in Japan’s history were too great in number to include in the pages of history.
Orphaned as an infant after his mother tries to eat him alive, Asura is forced to learn the means to survive in the wild. He becomes a pint-sized murder machine, killing and eating everything in his path — human and animal alike — until he meets a beautiful village girl, Wakasa. Wakasa nurses him back to health, teaches him to speak, and works to turn him away from the path of barbarism. Through love she tames Asura’s beastly heart and teaches him the lessons of humanity.
The festival opens on Friday, and in addition to these four there are five other East and Southeast Asian movies playing this weekend. On Saturday:
Cha Cha for Twins - Taiwan, 1:30 pm at Regent Square Theater (map)And on Sunday:
Beijing Flickers - China, 4:30 pm at Melwood Screening Room
Key of Life - Japan, 8:00 pm at Melwood Screening Room
Two Shadows - Cambodia, 2:30 at Melwood Screening Room
Headshot - Thailand, 5:45 at Melwood Screening Room