The New York Asian Film Festival kicks off this week on Friday, June 19 with a fascinating array of films from China, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, and Taiwan. Three movies on the NYAFF '09 roster should be especially interesting to manga fans: Antique and two installments of the 20th Century Boys trilogy.
20th Century Boys and 20th Century Boys: The Last Hope are both based on the manga of the same name by Naoki Urasawa from VIZ Signature / VIZ Media. The first two installments of the movie trilogy were box office hits in Japan, and hopes are high for the third installment, which is due out in August 2009. Tickets are now available for the New York City premiere of 20th Century Boys:
- Sunday, June 21, 2009 at IFC Center (323 6th Avenue / between 3rd & 4th Streets). Showings at 11:30 am 20th Century Boys) and 2:15 pm (20th Century Boys 2)
- Saturday, July 4, 2009 at Japan Society (333 East 47th Street, between First and Second Avenues). Showings at 11:45 am (20th Century Boys) and 2:30 pm (20th Century Boys 2)
Also of interest to manga fans is Antique, the Korean romantic comedy / musical adaptation of Antique Bakery by Fumi Yoshinaga. Take a slightly crabby rich guy, a gay pastry chef "of demonic charm," a boxer with a sweet tooth and a shy bodyguard, and swirl it around with lots of mouth-watering pastries, a sprinkling of boys love sass and a few music and dance numbers, you've got a movie that'll make K-drama and bishonen fans swoon.
There are two showings scheduled of this South Korean film:
- Monday, June 22, 2009 at IFC Center (323 6th Avenue / between 3rd & 4th Streets). Showing at 1:25 pm.
- Saturday, June 27, 2009 at IFC Center Showing at 5:40 pm.
If you haven't read these manga yet (and why the heck not?) here's NYAFF's fab descriptions of these movies:
20th Century Boys and 20th Century Boys 2: The Last Hope
"On the landscape of Japanese pop culture, 20th Century Boys looms like a national monument.... Imagine Stephen King’s IT with giant robots instead of killer clowns and you’ve got an idea of what 20th Century Boys is all about.""1969. Middle school student Kenji ties up the manager of the school radio station, dedicated to broadcasting 101 Strings 24 hours a day, and drops the needle on T. Rex’s 20th Century Boy. 'I thought the world would change,' he says. 'I believed rock would change it. But nothing changed. Nothing changed.' And on that melancholy note we drop in on Kenji and his friends as they hide from the local bullies in a secret clubhouse and write their sci-fi inspired “Book of Prophecies.” In it, they imagine the world in the year 2000, under assault by killer viruses and giant robots and they imagine themselves the heroes who save it from total destruction."
"Cut to 2000 and their childhood dreams are all forgotten. Kenji and his friends have grown up to be salarymen and wage slaves, and even Kenji, who wanted to be a rock star, is just the manager of a convenience store. But when one of his buddies kills himself, he and his old pals find themselves drawn together because their “Book of Prophecies” seems to be coming true. Not only that, but one of their number, a creepy little brat they always hated, seems to have become a masked cult leader, Friend, who’s pulling all the strings from the shadows. Now, against all odds, it’s up to Kenji and his broken down buddies to actually do what they dreamed about doing as kids: they need to save the world. Which is hard to do when you’ve got kids and a mortgage and a beer belly."
If that didn't get you ready to buy tickets to this flick, check out this description of Antique:
Antique
"Can anyone be unhappy eating cake?" Sun-Woo (Kim Jae-Wook) certainly thought so; he confessed his boy-crush on classmate Jin-Hyuk (Ju Ji-Hun), only to take a gorgeous gateau in the face. Years later, they reunite: pastry-hating playboy Jin-Hyuk is still a brusque homophobe, while Sun-Woo has blossomed into an Alpha Male gay love god. Jin-Hyuk is opening the Antique Bakery and needs a master chef. Sun-Woo, the irresistible siren of Parisian patissier circles, is eager for the challenge, but he warns Jin-Hyuk that his charms are mystical beyond human understanding. "Don't laugh," he deadpans. "I'm a Gay of Demonic Charm." With this fateful partnership formed, Antique opens its doors in a sugar-coated swirl of flavored fantasy, and your senses will never be the same.""As the little cake shop that could becomes the tastiest talk of the town, its multicolored delights are swept off the shelves in a cloud of pixie dust and the everyday grind gives way to musical daydreams, a heady melange of Baz Luhrmann-by-way-of-Willy Wonka. Days segue into tortured nightmares filled with shadowy demons, however, as Jin-Hyuk flashes back to a dark childhood trauma hidden deep within his subconscious. When a string of local child abductions leads back to Antique, Jin-Hyuk's personal agenda for opening up the cake shop becomes clear. Can the beautiful, beautiful boys of Antique Bakery solve the macabre crimes and stop Sun-Woo from going back to Paris forever? And why is this movie not presented in Smell-O-Vision?"
Check out the rest of the films featured at this festival, the full NYAFF 2009 schedule and find out how you can buy your tickets now so you don't miss out on any of these must-see manga movies.
Image credit: © 2008 "20th Century Boys" Film Partners; ©
2009 SubwayCinema.com; © 2000 Naoki Urasawa/STUDIO NUTS;
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