These are fifteen feature films you shouldn’t miss at the New York Asian Film Festival which will take place from July 14 – 30, 2023 in New York, USA.

Alice, a fiercely independent 40-year-old woman with a successful and noble career at an NGO, discovers she’s pregnant. On the outs with her moody, high-maintenance ex-boyfriend, and with no interest in raising a child, she jumps through the requisite hoops to arrange a safe abortion in a devoutly pro-life nation where it is illegal. The refreshingly multidimensional characters and their complex interpersonal relationships in director Anna Isabelle Matutina’s bold debut cover all the points and counterpoints of this sensitive issue. Alice’s overbearing mother and baby’s daddy relentlessly browbeat her to change her mind, further exacerbating her existential dilemma in a telling microcosm of the country’s own hypocrisies and struggles. Max Eigenmann’s award-winning star turn as Alice effortlessly drives home the urgent clarion call of Matutina’s smart and uber-timely film. (NYAFF 2023)

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Genki Kawamura, a best-selling author (“If Cats Disappeared From the World”) and star producer (on anime mega-hits like Belle, Weathering With You and Your Name) makes a poetic and visually stunning feature debut, adapted from his own novel, with A Hundred Flowers. Yuriko (veteran Mieko Harada, who made movie history in Akira Kurosawa’s Ran) is an aging piano teacher whose mind is fast fading as dementia fractures and undoes her grip on reality. Her son, Izumi (Masaki Suda) discovers her diary and finds himself transported back into the uncertain world of his own memories and the tangle of their common past, at the center of which lies a haunting experience of his mother’s disappearance. This intimate meditation on memory and identity, forgetting and forgiveness, both devastating and beautiful, won the Silver Shell for Best Director at the 70th San Sebastian International Film Festival, and is a must-watch cinematic experience. (NYAFF 2023)

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At first, the titular heroine Kong Xiu seems like a typical factory worker in Mao’s China. Lithe, demure, charming, and intelligent, she appears to be a model citizen. However, while she tows the party line on the surface, in her personal life she extolls the virtues of resilience and resistance against institutionalized sexism and other forms of oppression as best she can. As history marches on through two unhappy marriages and she raises her beloved children, Kong Xiu perseveres and eventually pursues what she thought was an impossible dream. Director Wang Chao’s adaptation of Zhang Xiuzhen’s semi-autobiographical novel is told in sweeping episodes that eloquently describe the hidden hardships of the era. Wang paints the fabric of the end and aftermath of the cultural revolution in broad but delicate strokes that subtly reveal the fissures of humanity in the shadow of the so-called ‘greater good.’

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Katsu (international star Shogen) is a former novelist whose career has stalled since his teen daughter was viciously murdered by a classmate. When he learns that the killer is now being retried since she had been convicted as an adult despite being 17 at the time, he’s enraged. He enlists his ex-wife to cooperate in the prosecution’s efforts to prevent the “monster” from being released from prison early. As the couple embarks on an agonizing moral journey, they are forced to confront not only their own past mistakes, but difficult questions of punishment, the thirst for vengeance and the price of forgiveness — especially when surprising facts are revealed. This riveting courtroom drama, written and directed by non-Japanese, wrestles with the controversial imprisonment of juvenile offenders and the gray areas of Japan’s criminal justice system, where the conviction rate is 99%. Like his award-winning Kontora, Anshul Chauhan’s new film also explores how we process grief and who deserves redemption. (NYAFF 2023)

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From acclaimed director Lee Byeong-heon comes one of the year’s most highly anticipated blockbusters. Both pulse-raising and heartwarming, this is the story of a virtuoso soccer player, Hong-dae (to whom Park Seo-jun lends his impossibly good looks and rather stunning skills with a ball), a star athlete with an attitude problem, who comes across fast-talking, cynical producer So-min (K-pop megastar IU). The two embark on an impossible journey to fix the athlete’s PR issue, and form a national soccer team made up of… homeless individuals. Inspired by the real-life Korean team that participated in the 2010 Homeless Football World Cup, Dream turns the spotlight on the resilience and determination of those who have truly hit rock bottom, and brings absolutely nothing that you’d expect from a conventional sports movie to the screen. (NYAFF 2023)

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Taiwan’s indigenous population makes up about 3% of the county’s 24 million citizens. Gaga (Tribal Law), the third film by Taiwan’s first indigenous female director, Laha Mebow, offers such a rare, up-close and personal look at the storied Atayal tribe that the lines between documentary and fiction are magnificently blurred. It begins auspiciously with authentic tribespeople giving Taiwanese visitors an informative tour of their land and culture. The focus quickly switches to their family and what happens when their wise patriarch passes away, soon after his strongly independent granddaughter returns from studying abroad. This sets in motion a tangled web of drama across three generations, that includes a tumultuous mayoral election, tribal conspiracies, risk-reward gambles, unexpected visitors and other emotionally-charged challenges of life. Imbued with divinely tragicomic undertones, Gaga’s deceptively simple story allows the audience to bask in the glory of this endearing clan’s unique culture and effervescent personalities. (NYAFF 2023)

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Moon Jung lives in a makeshift vinyl greenhouse as she saves up to get a proper apartment for when her son gets out of juvenile detention. She works as a caretaker for a disabled elderly couple while trying to cope with her own, often debilitating psychological troubles in a local community therapy group. As hard as she tries, nothing seems to go her way. Soon sinister situations lead to disastrous accidents until everything starts to spiral out of control. This gripping slow-burn drama-cum-thriller deftly takes on a multitude of social and human issues, digging below the surfaces of its characters’ daily appearances to reveal stark emotional truths. Recalling the work of Lee Chang Dong, writer-editor-director Lee Sol-hui’s striking feature debut proves her a new visionary as she deftly balances a pervasive sense of dread with candid compassion. (NYAFF 2023)

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In this tar-black comedy, Na-mi and Sun-woo’s suicide pact is abruptly foiled when they find out that the bully who led them to this sorry fate is living happily ever after, far from their sleepy town. Vehemently vexed by both their own lot and their past persecutor’s good fortune, the oddball pair swear to wreak vengeance, determined to shame and expose the bully’s rotten roots, and show her for who she truly is. But when they find her, nothing goes as expected and they end up on a wild odyssey of biblical proportions. (NYAFF 2023)

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After helming two singular films (Blank 13, Zokki) movie star Takumi Saitoh (Shin Ultraman, NYAFF 2022) earns his directorial black belt with this sublime horror work. He first turns the genre on its ear, replacing the proverbial ‘old dark house’ with a bright, prefab idyll, a glaringly ambiguous symbol of the coveted utopian dream. Yet trouble never strays too far from paradise and no sin goes unpunished. Young patriarch Kenji (Masataka Kubota from Takshi Miike’s First Love) moves his expectant wife and young daughter from a chilly, dilapidated abode into preternaturally comfortable new digs. Little do they know, the claustrophobic basement that controls the always-perfect temperature will soon ominously reflect all of their collective nightmares. Brimming with palpable paranoia and striking visual metaphors, Saitoh’s latest exposes all the pretensions and secrets that make our imperfect society so dangerously duplicitous, while creeping the bejesus out of us at the same time! (NYAFF 2023)

Soi Cheang’s frenzied follow-up to the stylish, ultraviolent crime drama Limbo, Mad Fate carries in its DNA the legacy of old-school Hong Kong genre stylists, from Ringo Lam to Johnnie To, who serves as producer on the film. Hitting the ground running with a fake burial ceremony, the film follows the misfortunes and entanglements of an eccentric fortune teller (simply called “The Master”) with a psychopathic, cat-killing delivery boy (Lokman Yeung), possessed with an irrepressible urge for homicide. The plot soon thickens and darkens as sharp tools are put to macabre use and the Master frantically tries to reprogram the young man’s predicted path (upon which he is meant to graduate from sadistic voyeurism to murder most foul) while struggling to maintain his own sanity. Set in a surreal city of hookers, mystics, and psychopaths, Mad Fate is a crazed, morally complex addition to classic Cantonese mean-streets noir. (NYAFF 2023)

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Hand it to star auteur/director Giddens Ko to adapt one of his own wild short stories into a gangster-romcom mash-up ripe with his patented raunchy stylings. After a fledgling hair dresser (superstar Vivian Sung) inadvertently saves the life of a gang boss, he takes a shine to her and pretty soon she’s coifing all the young hooligan’s heads with untenable abandon. The star-crossed lovers’ courting is so brazenly frank that it revs up from zero to sixty in no time flat while her whole family cheers them on to do the deed. Running parallel with their refreshingly uncouth love story is mob vs. mob intrigue and a boisterous baseball backstory that renders this whole madcap venture a bloody and heartfelt showstopper. (NYAFF 2023)

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As Mountain Woman opens, Rin goes about the job of helping a family dispose of a newborn. Her Tohoku village is in its second year of a devastating famine, and babies are being discarded because they are simply extra mouths to feed. Rin’s family are outcasts, and she is obliged to do the other residents’ dirty work. When a local seer declares the village cursed, Rin is chosen as the first offering to appease the gods. Fortunately, she flees to the forbidden realm of Mt. Hayachine before she can be trapped. There, her quest for survival gradually transforms into a journey to self-actualization. This haunting film (atmospherically shot in all-natural lighting by cinematographer Daniel Satinoff of “Tokyo Vice”), may be set in the late 18th century, but its existential tale of man vs. nature, of rural human cruelty, of generational shame, and of individual resilience in the face of impossibly harsh discrimination resonates across the centuries. (NYAFF 2023)

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Imagine no vengeance. Imagine no bloody retribution. Imagine no star-crossed lovers, no North vs. South. And yet, here it is, a quintessentially Korean tale of building a winning squad from a ragtag group of misfits and underachievers, against the worst odds. Rebound tells the inspiring true story of Busan Jungang High School’s underdog team, led by the fiery passion of its coach Yang-hyun (Ahn Jae-hong). Faced with the challenge of assembling a competitive team from basically nothing, his ingenuity and steely commitment bring his players together, transforming them into serious challengers against a seemingly infinitely superior opponent, Seoul’s Yongsan High, which has all the talent money can buy. Transcending the sports genre and eschewing the pitfalls of easy sentiment and melodrama, Chang Hang-jun’s Rebound elevates its premise with a singularly rousing screenplay, co-written by Kwon Sung-hui (The Spy Gone North, As One) and Kim Eun-hee (Netflix’s Kingdom). (NYAFF 2023)

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The discovery of a woman’s corpse ironically saves the life of Wu Jie, a down-on-her-luck police detective whose life is falling apart. Soon more bodies and ominous clues emerge, revealing the work of a vicious serial killer targeting illegal migrant workers. With a local broker for the immigrants as a potential suspect, Wu Jie tenaciously pursues the case and finds herself vaulted from her own dire existential crisis into a harrowing realm of madness. Director Tseng Ying-ting (The Last Verse, NYAFF 2018) masterfully blends the police procedural with psychological themes and social issues into a transcendently insightful examination of the human psyche. Painting the world of The Abandoned with haunting cinematic strokes, deftly reflecting the modern malaise of a world gone wrong, he also offers a shining glimmer of hope. (NYAFF 2023)

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Identical twin sisters You & Me revel in fooling anyone they can as they use their twinship to their own personal advantage. Soon after the shocking news of their parents’ impending divorce, they are sent to spend the summer at grandma’s in the countryside while mom and dad work things out. There they just happen to meet up with their school mate Mark, who has a crush on one of them but can’t tell them apart… yet. Love triangle shenanigans ensue as the girls have to face up to their own identities and confront the feelings of first love together. This charmingly insightful directorial debut by real-life twins Weawwan and Wanweaw Hongvivatana puts a buoyantly ironic spin on summer romance. (NYAFF 2023)

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For more information, please visit: https://www.nyaff.org/nyaff23/films