The Film Society of Lincoln Center and Subway Cinema announce the full schedule today for the 2012 New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) which will screen June 29 – July 15. Presented in partnership between the two organizations with programming support from Japan Society, the popular film festival will showcase over 50 feature films and 3 programs of short films from Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, USA and Vietnam. 2012 NYAFF will feature 20 films making their North American premieres and 1 more making its US debut.

Pang Ho-cheung’s VULGARIA will make it’s North American Premiere as the Opening Night Presentation. Chapman To plays a hapless movie producer trying to get his skin flick off the ground, and he’ll do anything to finance it, including auctioning off visitation rights to the daughter he adores, sucking up to gangsters named Brother Tyrannosaurus, and making not-so-sweet love to a mule. Hilariously offensive, The Hollywood Reporter calls it “laugh-out-loud” and “aptly titled.” Pang Ho-cheung will be at the screening.

Centerpiece Presentations include Kim Ji-Woon’s and Yim Pil-Sung’s DOOMSDAY BOOK and Ning Hao’s GUNS AND ROSES. Making its North American Premiere, DOOMSDAY BOOK is a three-part science fiction film about all the ways the world can end. Ranging from the hilarious, to the gory, to the existential, the film features a robot who achieves Buddhist enlightenment, a virus that turns humanity into death-crazed zomboids, and a meteor (or is it?) that smashes into the planet.

The second Centerpiece presentation will be the North American Premiere of GUNS AND ROSES. Director Ning Hao enjoyed success with CRAZY RACER in 2009, but his next movie was shelved by censors. He has followed that experience with a savagely funny action movie chronicling a gold heist in 1930’s Japanese-occupied Mongolia. Among the film’s familiar faces are Yang Kil-Young, Huang Bo.

Yoshihiro Nakamura’s POTECHI (CHIPS) will make its International Premiere as the Closing Night selection. The film follows two men – one, a star professional baseball player and the other, a petty thief, whose lives become intertwined in Sendei, epicenter of the 2011 Japanese earthquake.
NYAFF will honor Chung Chang-Wha with the 2012 Star Asia Lifetime Achievement Award. Chung Chang-Wha, the director of what is one of the most influential martial arts movies of all time, KING BOXER (FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH), started his career in Korea where he basically invented the modern day Korean action film. His movies earned him a Shaw Brothers contract and his FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH was the first martial arts movie to cross over in the West, paving the way for Bruce Lee and setting the tone for the hundreds of kung fu films to follow. Donnie Yen will be presented with the 2012 Star Asia Award. Following a long and steady career in the Hong Kong and Hollywood film industries, Donnie Yen made a major impact in Wilson Yip’s KILLZONE (SPL: SHA PO LANG) in 2005. Going from hit to hit, often working on Hong Kong-Chinese co-productions, he has turned in a remarkable body of work in only seven years, including IP MAN 1 & 2, BODYGUARDS AND ASSASSINS, DRAGON (WU XIA), FLASHPOINT, and PAINTED SKIN. The 2012 Star Asia Rising Star Award honorees will be Michelle Chen and Masami Nagasawa. Chen’s fateful meeting with director Giddens Ko in an elevator as they were leaving a party led to her being cast as the object of attraction in YOU ARE THE APPLE OF MY EYE. The movie has become a massive hit that’s swept Asia, turning Chen into a major star. Nagasawa started out appearing in Toho’s Godzilla series (GODZILLA: TOKYO SOS, GODZILLA: FINAL WARS) before she scored big with her performance in the romance CRYING OUT LOVE IN THE CENTER OF THE WORLD. Voted one of the most influential people in Japan, and topping polls for “Most Popular Actress” year after year, she will attend NYAFF with her musical comedy, LOVE STRIKES!, for which she won a Japanese Academy Award.

The 2012 New York Asian Film Festival will feature three special focuses:
WARRIORS AND ROMANTICS: NEW CINEMA FROM TAIWAN Presented with the support of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York, this special focus is a look at the new wave of Taiwanese blockbusters that are sweeping Asia. Despite being home to some of Asia’s great art house directors, like Hou Hsia-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang, for the past decade Taiwan’s domestic film industry has hit hard times. However, all that changed in 2008 when Wei Te-Sheng’s CAPE NO. 7 became the highest grossing Taiwanese movie of all time, setting a trend in which quality local movies suddenly became the hottest exports accross Asia.

RETURN OF THE KING: HONG KONG MOVIES 15 YEARS AFTER THE HANDOVER When Hong Kong returned to China in 1997, its film industry was already in a tailspin from the bursting of the production bubble and the first stirrings of the Asian Economic Crisis. A few years later, the industry, once the biggest film producer in Asia, was written off. But these days, Hong Kong movies like Ann Hui’s A SIMPLE LIFE are winning awards around the world, while Hong Kong-Chinese co-productions like DRAGON (WU XIA), helmed by Hong Kong directors and stars, are turning into international box office hits. The Return of the King Focus is presented with the support of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office New York, which is celebrating this year the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

CHOI MIN-SIK: MR. VENGEANCE The revered Korean star, Choi Min-Sik, shot to fame for his performance as a North Korean terrorist in SHIRI, the first blockbuster of the new Korean cinema. He went on to capture the attention of international audiences with his crazed, dazed, hammer-wielding performance as Oh Dae-Su in Park Chan-Wook’s OLDBOY. In 2006, he quit moviemaking to protest American pressure on the Korean film industry, but made a triumphant return a few years later with Kim Ji-Woon’s I SAW THE DEVIL. Presented in association with the Korean Cultural Service New York, NYAFF will present a series of new and classic Choi Min-Sik performances to honor the man himself.

Twenty films will make their North American premieres at NYAFF 2011. Those films are; ALL ABOUT MY WIFE; ASURA; THE ATROCITY EXHIBITION; BLOODY FIGHT IN IRON-ROCK VALLEY; DAED BITE; DIN TAO: LEADER OF THE PARADE; DOOMDAY BOOK; EAST MEETS WEST 2011; GUNS AND ROSES; HENGE; LET’S MAKE THE TEACHER HAVE A MISCARRIAGE-CLUB; LOVE STRIKES!; MAKE UP; NASI LEMAK 2.0; PANG HO-CHEUNG’S FIRST ATTEMPT; POTECHI (CHIPS); RED VACANCE, BLACK WEDDING; SCABBARD SAMURAI; SECRET LOVE; VULGARIA; and ZERO MAN VS. THE HALF VIRGIN. One film will be making its US premiere – MONSTERS CLUB.

Films by Country at NYAFF 2012:

Cambodia
GOLDEN SLUMBERS
China
GUNS AND ROSES
SACRIFICE
THE SWORD IDENTITY

Hong Kong
BOXER’S OMEN
DRAGON (WU XIA)
EAST MEETS WEST 2011
INFERNAL AFFAIRS 1
INFERNAL AFFAIRS 2
KILLZONE (SPL: SHA PO LANG)
KING BOXER (FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH)
THE LOST BLADESMAN
LOVE IN THE BUFF
PANG HO-CHEUNG’S FIRST ATTEMPT
A SIMPLE LIFE
THE SWIFT KNIGHT
VULGARIA

Japan
ACE ATTORNEY
ASURA
THE ATROCITY EXHIBITION
GOKE, BODYSNATCHER FROM HELL
GYO
HARD ROMANTICKER
HENGE
LET’S MAKE THE TEACHER HAVE A MISCARRIAGE-CLUB
LOVE STRIKES!
MONSTERS CLUB
POTECHI CHIPS
SCABBARD SAMURAI
SMUGGLER
TOKYO PLAYBOY CLUB
TORMENTED (RABBIT HORROR)
ZERO MAN VS. THE HALF VIRGIN

Malaysia
NASI LEMAK 2.0

South Korea
ALL ABOUT MY WIFE
BLOODY FIGHT IN IRON-ROCK VALLEY
COUPLES
CRYING FIST
DOOMSDAY BOOK
FAILAN
THE KING OF PIGS
KOREAN SHORT FILM MADNESS
NAMELESS GANGSTER
OLDBOY
RED VACANCE, BLACK WEDDING
SECRET LOVE
WAR OF THE ARROWS

Taiwan
10 + 10
DIN TAO: LEADER OF THE PARADE
HONEY PUPU
MAKE UP
STARRY, STARRY NIGHT
WARRIORS OF THE RAINBOW: SEEQIQ BALE 1 & 2
YOU ARE THE APPLE OF MY EYE

Thailand
DEAD BITE

USA
THE MIAMI CONNECTION

Vietnam
BLOOD LETTER

The New York Asian Film Festival is presented in association with the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Japan Society’s Japan Cuts: Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema. For more info: www.subwaycinema.com