These are our fifteen recommended Asian films from the Berlin International Film Festival, taking place from February 15 – 25, 2024 in Berlin, Germany.

Note: This article may include movies made by filmmakers with Asian ancestry.

A Traveler’s Needs by Hong Sangsoo – Korea | 2024 – 90 minutes | World Premiere

Nobody knows where the woman comes from. She is sitting on a park bench and diligently playing a child’s recorder. She says she is from France. With no money or means of supporting herself, she has been advised to teach French. This is how she comes to have two Korean women as her pupils. The woman likes to walk barefoot and to lie down on rocks. And when she is feeling up to it, she tries to see each instant in a non-verbal way and to live life as rationally as she can. But things remain as hard as ever. She relies on the Korean alcoholic drink of makgeolli to provide a bit of comfort every day. (Berlinale 2024)

Clip:

Abiding Nowhere by Tsai Ming-liang – Taiwan, USA | 2024 – 79 minutes | World Premiere

The walker with the shaved head and dressed in a red robe is barefoot. He walks slowly but determinedly through the forest, over stones and grassland. He also makes his way through the shadows of trees and houses. He sets foot in the train station, the church and the museum. The sun rises and sets again. The walker passes through Washington, D.C. Another stranger is also on the move in the city. We are unsure whether or not he is following the walker.

Tsai Ming-liang began his Walker series in 2011; this is now the tenth film. In the role of the monk, his long-time collaborator and lead actor Lee Kang-Sheng travels all over the world. The figure is inspired by Xuanzang, a Tang Dynasty Buddhist monk who journeyed thousands of miles on foot between China and India. (Berlinale 2024)

All Shall Be Well by Ray Yeung – Hong Kong, China | 2024 – 93 minutes | World Premiere

Angie and Pat are a well-off lesbian couple in their mid-60s. They have lived together for 30 years in the flat Pat owns in Hong Kong. Their relationship is accepted by their friends and families and they are valued and loved by those around them. After Pat unexpectedly dies one night, Angie is not only emotionally supported by her circle of friends, but also – at least at first – by Pat’s family. However, little by little, arguments about the burial and inheritance lead to an estrangement. Angie has no legal right to remain in the flat she shared with Pat and is at the mercy of the dwindling goodwill of her dead partner’s family. Even though the couple shared the financial burden equally between them, Pat was the one who took care of everything in their relationship. Supported by her chosen family, Angie embarks on a later-life emancipation journey.

As in his film Suk Suk, Ray Yeung once again takes a precise look at the often precarious everyday life of the older queer community. In the character of Angie, he creates a quiet and yet impressively resilient lesbian heroine.(Berlinale 2024)

All the Long Nights by Shô Miyake – Japan | 2024 – 119 minutes | International Premiere

Misa Fujisawa suffers from premenstrual syndrome; that’s what makes her lose it, against her nature, even when around her superiors. She changes her job and surroundings and five years later is working at Kurita Optics, who produce astronomic sets, packaging individual parts and buying her sweets for colleagues. Takatoshi Yamazoe sits next to her and is also much younger than the rest of the staff, becoming the object of her gentle manner and care – a strange, silent guy, plagued by panic attacks. Based on Maiko Seo’s novel of the same name and carried by the sounds of DJ Hi’Spec and the gestures and voices of the two fantastic leading actors, Shô Miyake’s cinematic universe has people find each other before finding themselves. Attempting to survive in a world full of pressure and stress, capital and tradition, they look for assistance from doctors, self-help groups and even the sick mother. From this realism of today, Miyake crafts a fairy tale scene by scene that could not be more enchanting. Between toy planetariums and long nights of starry skies, a pure poetry of kindness emerges. Two people who get closer without falling in love, so close that they do each other good.(Berlinale 2024)

Trailer:

Brief History of a Family by Lin Jianjie – China, France, Denmark, Qatar | 2024 – 99 minutes | European Premiere

After an incident at their high school, the outgoing Wei, only son of a well-off Chinese family, and Shuo, his quiet but perceptive classmate, become closer. A mysterious energy seems to connect the two, drawing them into each other’s lives. Wei soon introduces his new friend to his father, a cell biologist, and his mother, a former flight attendant. Learning that Shuo comes from a troubled background, Wei’s parents encourage this boy with an enigmatic charm to spend more time in their home. As Shuo integrates himself more and more into the family, he gradually discovers that their comfortable existence is shadowed by unspoken secrets, unmet expectations and suppressed emotions. Then a tragic event causes old wounds and current fears to come to light.(Berlinale 2024)

Trailer:

Exhuma by Jang Jae-hyun – Korea | 2024 – 134 minutes | World Premiere

Young shaman Hwa-rim and her partner and co-medium Bong-gil respond to a call for help from the USA, where the wealthy Park family, Korean exiles, is plagued by irritations: something is wrong with the family’s descendants and the head of the family himself is hearing screams. The duo accept the job – after all, it’s well paid – and, along with a feng shui expert and an undertaker, they start to exhume the ancestors’ grave in the north of Gangwon-do province. In the process, something escapes from the coffin, people die, others prove to be obsessed and the real problems haven’t even started yet. Jang Jae-hyun’s third feature film is a horror mystery thriller full of humour and verve, addressing issues of class, history, tradition, religion and superstition. Unfolding around the strange coffin in this odd place is an episodic series of lushly staged incantation rituals with linguistic analyses of grave lids, that relishes in cinematic effects and is carried by a great cast – besides Oldboy star Choi Min-sik as the geomancer, above all Kim Go-eun.(Berlinale 2024)

Trailer:

It’s Okay! by Kim Hye-young – Korea | 2023 – 102 minutes | International Premiere

While In-young and her classmates at the Seoul International Arts Company are performing overseas, In-young’s mother tragically dies at home in Korea. In-young remains bravely resilient during the difficult first year of mourning. Threatened with eviction as a result of overdue rent payments, she secretly moves into the building of her dance school. Seol-ah, the head choreographer, discovers In-young’s hideout and reluctantly takes her into her home. The company’s 60th-anniversary performance is coming up and Seol-ah feels pressured to put on a flawless show. Meanwhile, In-young becomes the target of envy and bullying from the ensemble’s top dancer. Gradually, In-young and Seol-ah learn to reconcile their expectations with reality and find unexpected comfort in each other’s company.(Berlinale 2024)

Oasis of Now by Chee Sum Chia – Malaysia, Singapore, France | 2023 – 90 minutes | European Premiere

An apartment building in Kuala Lumpur that houses migrants. Hanh secretly meets with a girl who shares her ice cream with her. A familiar routine. Later, Hanh looks after a different girl, who is surprised when Hanh kisses her. No, she is not this girl’s mother. In each scene, the way this calm, polyglot woman is seen changes, ever present and active within the frame. Hands, again and again. Without complaint, she helps everyday life function better, washing up, tidying, taking out rubbish. Which of these households is hers? The film does not resolve its ambiguities and enigmas, feeding them back into the narrative instead. Hanh also seems to be lying in wait, evading attention. She is in constant motion on the stairs and open walkways of the building. Like the others here, she has no papers. She cannot provide for the daughter she brought with her from Vietnam. Bound to badly paid jobs and threatened by the police, at times she disappears into her dreams. This Malaysian debut makes no distinction between dream and reality and wanders through the spaces of an existence denied rights. The seemingly unremarkable Hanh, played by nail artist Thi Diu Ta, is its quiet star. (Berlinale 2024)

Trailer:

Shambhala by Min Bahadur Bham – Nepal, France, Norway, Hong Kong, China, Turkey, Taiwan, USA, Qatar | 2024 – 150 minutes | World Premiere

In the heart of the Nepalese Himalayas, the spirited Pema embraces a polyandrous marriage with Tashi and his two younger brothers. They initially lead a harmonious life, but when Tashi fails to return from a trading trip to Lhasa, the legitimacy of Pema’s unborn child is questioned by her community. Determined to prove her love and purity, she embarks on a quest to find Tashi. Accompanied by her brother-in-law, her now de facto spouse Karma, she goes into the wilderness. Karma is a monk. After initially resisting giving up his monastic life, he gradually comes to appreciate the simple existence of a secular life. However, urgent duties call him back to the monastery and Pema is left alone. As she navigates the harsh Himalayan terrain, her quest transcends the search for her missing husband. Pema becomes increasingly immersed in a spiritual search for meaning in which every step brings her closer to self-discovery and liberation. (Berlinale 2024)

Some Rain Must Fall by Qiu Yang – China, USA, France, Singapore | 2024 – 98 minutes | World Premiere

Cai, a 45-year-old housewife, has lost track of who she is and who she wants to be. During one of her daughter’s basketball matches, she inadvertently injures an elderly woman. This seemingly trivial event is a catalyst that causes her life to spin out of control as past events resurface while she heads into an uncertain future.

Director Qiu Yang follows a series of short films with his debut feature, an intimate drama about a woman forced to confront the wreckage of her life and her longing for change. (Berlinale 2024)

The Adamant Girl by Vinothraj PS – India | 2024 – 100 minutes | World Premiere

Two Indian families are planning the wedding of their daughter Meena and son Pandi. The trouble is: Meena is in love with someone else – what’s more, from a lower caste. The film opens when all is said and done, and the family’s will has left Meena cold. She has lapsed into a monumental silence. Her family can find just one logical explanation for this state of affairs: Meena must be possessed. Once exorcised, nothing can stand in the way of happiness. So the double family party rattles and creaks their way to see a vanquisher of demons. It is a dark tale that gradually unfolds on the side of the road. With all his senses and sharp wit, P.S. Vinothraj’s The Adamant Girl relentlessly retraces the steps of the families’ supposedly righteous violence towards Meena. Again and again, the film shows just how physical the natural order of things really is. Morality, superstition and misogyny are inextricably linked. Who owns whom here seems to have been a foregone conclusion since time immemorial. Only when Pandi realises that magic has no power over Meena, only over him, does the “natural order” fall apart. Folklore-free, hard-hitting and up close. (Berlinale 2024)

Trailer:

The Box Man by Gakuryu Ishii – Japan | 2024 – 120 minutes | World Premiere

A man with a cardboard box over his head wanders the streets of Tokyo. Peering at the world through a peephole, he incessantly writes down in a notebook what he can see. The photographer Myself spots the man and is fascinated. He decides to do the same thing and become a box man himself. But his path to get there is not easy; countless challenges and dangers lie in wait. They include a fake doctor who wants to rob him of his box-man identity; a military man who seeks to use him for the perfect crime; and a mysterious woman who does everything she can to seduce him. Can Myself achieve his dream of becoming a box man? Hako Otoko is an adaptation of the 1973 novel “The Box Man” by Kōbō Abe. (Berlinale 2024)

The Cats of Gokogu Shrine by Kazuhiro Soda – Japan | 2024 – 119 minutes | World Premiere

Steep steps lead up to the Gokogu Shinto shrine in Ushimado. The local children play on them and the older residents attend to their upkeep, even planting mint on either side. Kazuhiro Soda presents these steps as a site of transition that also forms a key element of this tiny set-up. For this elevated shrine isn’t just somewhere to visit for spiritual purposes – Ushimado’s feline community has also set up home here, an occasionally dynamic collective consisting of cats abandoned by their owners and their subsequent offspring. They need to be cared for, even as their population must be kept in check. Kazuhiro Soda’s documentaries – many of them which have already screened at the Forum – always follow his own set of rules and show the seemingly innocuous, yet still weighty requirements of co-existence. Slowly, yet persistently, The Cats of Gokogu Shrine expands his gaze; the focus on details, everyday tendernesses and discipline gives this chronicle of a year a dimension that is at once down-to-earth and universal. And the presence of Kazuhiro Soda himself, who has lived in Ushimado for several years, can also be experienced first-hand in a restrained, honest manner. (Berlinale 2024)

Trailer:

The Great Phuket by Liu Yaonan – France, Hong Kong, Germany, Belgium | 2024 – 97 minutes | World Premiere

Fourteen-year-old Li Xing lives in a southern Chinese city in Great Phuket, a district full of decay and reconstruction. He doesn’t get along well with his mother who refuses to leave the family home which is slated for demolition. He also encounters nothing but problems at school. One day, Li and his only friend, Song, discover a tunnel that leads to a strange hideout where stones have recorded sounds from the past. During a chase with security guards from an abandoned factory, Song is so badly injured that he has to go to hospital. Song’s mother forbids the two boys from seeing each other again. Filled with despair and guilt, and feeling lonelier than ever, Li returns to the tunnel. But stranger and stranger things are happening there. Gradually the tunnel transforms into a creature that traps Li inside his sad memories. Step by step, Li finds the way out to the outside world. But as a trace of his passage, Li’s poem about his homeland and the people around him remains, recorded by the mysterious shelter of stones. (Berlinale 2024)

Trailer:

Voices of the Silenced by Park Soo-nam, Park Maeui – Japan, Korea | 2023 – 142 minutes | International Premiere

Park Soo-nam was many things in her long life: a writer, single mother, BBQ restaurant owner, activist and above all a documentary film-maker. Now she’s well into her eighties and losing her eyesight. With great care, love and a shared sense of humour, her daughter Park Maeui takes on the transgenerational task of conveying her mother’s important legacy to our present times, in which fascism and militarism are on the rise worldwide. This film, made with and about her mother, opens up a rich, decolonial archive: born in Japan as the descendant of Korean immigrants from the colonial period, Park Soo-nam made it her life’s work to document her community’s experiences of violence that had been repressed by Japanese society. She interviewed countless contemporary witnesses: survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of massacres, forced labour, forced mobilisation and forced prostitution. This collaborative film, and her mother’s film material in it, document an alternative history and preserve that community’s memories. Alongside the words of those who suffered injury to life and limb, their work together focuses on the expressive power of the body. (Berlinale 2024)

For more information, please visit: https://www.berlinale.de/en/home.html