The North American premiere of the Korean genre mashup Killing Romance, directed by Lee Won-suk will kick off the 22nd edition of the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF). The director will be joined at Film at Lincoln Center on opening night by his lead actor, Lee Sun-kyun (Parasite, A Hard Day), who turns in an unforgettable performance as the indescribably overbearing husband of a disgraced supermodel-movie star, fully armed with his history of versatile roles in everything from art-house collaborations with Hong Sang-soo to rom-coms to his SAG Award-winning turn in Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite. Director Lee Won-suk has a rich history with NYAFF—his first film, How to Use Guys with Secret Tips, premiered at NYAFF 2013, and Lee won the Audience Award at NYAFF 2015 with his second feature, the big-budget period drama The Royal Tailor.

The New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) runs from July 14–30, 2023 with 60+ new and classic titles, a greatly expanded selection of short films, and an exciting slate of celebrated guests from Asia and the diaspora.

This year’s Hong Kong Panorama showcases a new 4K restoration of Patrick Tam’s 1982 Hong Kong New Wave watershed Nomad (Director’s Cut) featuring one of Leslie Cheung’s early great roles; cutting-edge noir auteur Soi Cheang’s Mad Fate; Amos Why’s Everyphone Everywhere captures pandemic-era life in Hong Kong via the city’s reliance on cell phones like no other film, and has more to say on recent social shifts than hours of CNN commentary; The Sunny Side of the Street sees the incomparable Anthony Wong lending salty sympathy to new immigrants; and A Light Never Goes Out highlighting the city’s iconic neon craftwork and all its storied achievements, offering a unique love letter to the island’s culture.

Actor and producer Louis Koo, one of Hong Kong’s biggest stars, is to be honored with NYAFF’s Extraordinary Star Asia Award. Recent films include the White Storm trilogy, Paradox, A Witness Out of the Blue, All U Need Is Love, and his new lifesaving drama Vital Signs, which he will be on hand to introduce. NYAFF will also present the latest One Cool production, In Broad Daylight, a shocking exposé of abuse at a care home based on real events.

NYAFF’s China lineup showcases novel work and a filmmaker-in-focus program/tribute to entrepreneur turned director and producer Zhang Wei, who has built a unique body of cinematic work, making the naturalistic portrayals of the marginalized in China’s rapidly changing society his signature. In the context of U.S.-China tension, and the frequent demonization of the country’s regime, showcasing his hard-hitting films The Empty Nest, Factory Boss, and The Rib (Director’s Cut) takes on a particularly acute significance; all stories focus unblinkingly on hot-button issues through unassuming characters and straightforward storylines that turn the spotlight on societal fault lines and fractures with impact far beyond the country’s borders. Making their North American premieres are Wang Chao’s A Woman, a tale both simple and sweeping in scope that chronicles the sexual and political day-to-day existence of a female factory worker during the years of the Cultural Revolution, and Liu Jian’s Art College 1994, a fond satire of student life told in his charmingly stark and sardonic animation style, made famous by his previous film, Have a Nice Day (2017).

NYAFF’s South Korean lineup includes Lee Hae-young’s Phantom, an action-packed spy drama set in 1933 that is one of this year’s biggest hits in the country; the boisterous family comedy Bear Man, from Park Sung-kwang, featuring Park Sung-woong in two indelible roles; Hail to Hell, the impressive feature debut of female helmer Lim Oh-jeong, about two oddballs who track down the bully who pushed them to the brink of suicide; the rousing underdog dramedy Rebound from Chang Hang-jun, in which a group of misfits come together to play nonstop basketball for eight days straight in the KBA National Tournament; and A Tour Guide from Kwak Eun-mi, the touching and timely story of a young North Korean defector who excels at leading Chinese-language tours of Seoul but lives a maladjusted, precarious life as a stranger in a strange land.

NYAFF’s Japanese lineup is led by the North American Premiere of veteran auteur Junji Sakamoto’s brilliant new jidaigeki, Okiku and the World, which he will be on hand to introduce. Also a must-see is the New York Premiere of Daishi Matsunaga’s heralded LGBTQ+ love story Egoist. The director will be joined on stage by leading actor Ryohei Suzuki (2015 NYAFF Audience Award winner; HK: Forbidden Super Hero; Last of the Wolves), a superstar in his native Japan, and the 2023 NYAFF Screen International Rising Star Asia honoree. A superstar of another sort, musician-actor Satoru Iguchi (King Gnu) will also be on hand at FLC for the North American Premiere of In Her Room, an otherworldly erotic tale by veteran female screenwriter Chihiro Ito (Crying Out Love in the Center of the World; Spring Snow), who makes her long-awaited directorial debut with this enigmatic love story.

Tokyo-based Indian director Anshul Chauhan and actor Shogen will appear with their film December, a riveting courtroom drama. Erstwhile New York City resident Takeshi Fukunaga will return with his third feature, the haunting allegory Mountain Woman, a mythic tale of female oppression and liberation starring Toko Miura (Drive My Car). Also showcased in the Japan lineup are A Hundred Flowers, the award-winning directorial debut by Genki Kawamura (superproducer of Monster, Your Name, Belle, and Rage); Ryūichi Hiroki’s tragic study of the maternal instinct in the form of a Rashomon-like procedural, Motherhood; the thrillingly dark genre gem #Manhole by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri; and Shinichi Fujita’s superheroine (or supervillain?) ode to the literal and figurative empowerment of young women, Mayhem Girls.

NYAFF’s Taiwan lineup features movie star Kai Ko’s directorial debut, Bad Education, a controversially dark coming-of-age comedy-thriller; the LGBTQ+ action-comedy Marry My Dead Body foments a gender-fluid revolution with its premise of a macho cop who unwittingly marries a gay ghost; and Gaga, by Taiwan’s first indigenous female director, Laha Mebow, who will be in attendance, chronicles a tangled web of drama across three generations of an Atayal tribe family.

NYAFF reaches further across the continent for even more incredible cinematic discoveries. Philippines: I Love You, Beksman is the fabulously campy tale of a “straight guy with a queer eye” who must overcome his gay family’s apprehensions when he meets the superfly girl of his dreams; based on a shocking real-life story, Where Is the Lie? boasts out-of-the-box storytelling and an extraordinarily luminous performance by trans actor EJ Jallorina as the tragically lovelorn target of a sexy but vicious cyberbully; the timely drama 12 Weeks chronicles a fiercely independent 40-year-old woman’s attempts to arrange a safe abortion in a devoutly anti-choice nation where it is illegal. Singapore: Geylang is a wild pop-art genre joyride seething with the tropically hot melting pot flavors of the city-state put through a riotously macabre Moebius strip of neon-noir influences. Thailand: Kitty the Killer is an anarchic action-comedy about a team of top-notch female assassins who must transform a ridiculously goofy young man from zero to hero in order to wreak bloody vengeance on the agency that betrayed them; You & Me & Me is the directorial debut of real-life identical twin sisters, and art may be imitating life in this glorious teenage coming-of-age fever dream where two look-alike siblings fall for the same boy and must confront their true feelings and who they really are, as they experience the pangs of first love. Vietnam: Glorious Ashes, the first film in over a decade from cinematic poet Bui Thac Chuyên, spins a poignant and dizzying tale of love, loneliness, and pyromania in a devastating omnibus-like tangle of interconnected romance gone wrong in yesteryear’s Mekong Delta.

The New York Asian Film Festival is co-presented by the New York Asian Film Foundation and Film at Lincoln Center, and takes place from July 14–30, 2023 at FLC’s Walter Reade Theater (165 West 65th Street, New York, NY), and on July 21–23 at the Barrymore Film Center (153 Main Street, Fort Lee, NJ).

FIRST WAVE OF LINEUP

(43 feature films, 20 short films)— more titles to be announced
(Please note the program is still subject to change.)

CHINA

Art College 1994 | dir. Liu Jian, China, 2023 | North American Premiere
The Cord of Life | dir. Qiao Sixue, China, 2023 | New York Premiere
The Empty Nest | dir. Zhang Wei, China, 2020 | North American Premiere
Factory Boss | dir. Zhang Wei, China, 2014 | Special Screening
The Rib (Director’s Cut) | dir. Zhang Wei, China, 2018
A Woman | dir. Wang Chao, China, 2022 | North American Premiere

HONG KONG

A Light Never Goes Out | dir.Anastasia Tsang, Hong Kong, 2022 | U.S. Premiere
Everyphone Everywhere | dir. Amos Why, Hong Kong, 2023 | North American Premiere
In Broad Daylight | dir. Lawrence Kan, Hong Kong, 2023 | North American Premiere
Mad Fate | dir. Soi Cheang, Hong Kong, 2023 | North American Premiere
Nomad (Director’s Cut) | dir. Patrick Tam, Hong Kong, 1982, Restored 2023 | East Coast Premiere
The Sunny Side of the Street | dir. Lau Kok-rui, Hong Kong/Malaysia, 2022 | New York Premiere
Vital Signs | dir. Cheuk Wan-chi, Hong Kong, 2023 | North American Premiere

JAPAN

(presented with the support of the Japan Foundation)
Manhole | dir. Kazuyoshi Kumakiri, Japan, 2023 | East Coast Premiere
December | dir. Anshul Chauhan, Japan, 2022 | North American Premiere
Egoist | dir. Daishi Matsunaga, Japan, 2023 | New York Premiere
A Hundred Flowers | dir. Genki Kawamura, Japan, 2022 | New York Premiere
In Her Room | dir. Chihiro Ito, Japan, 2022 | North American Premiere
Mayhem Girls | dir. Shinichi Fujita, Japan, 2022 | International Premiere
Motherhood | dir. Ryūichi Hiroki, Japan, 2022 | U.S. Premiere
Mountain Woman | dir. Takeshi Fukunaga, Japan/USA, 2022 | North American Premiere
Okiku and the World | dir. Junji Sakamoto, Japan, 2023 | North American Premiere

PHILIPPINES

I Love You, Beksman | dir. Percival Intalan, Philippines, 2022 | North American Premiere
12 Weeks | dir. Anna Isabelle Matutina, Philippines 2022 | International Premiere
Where Is the Lie? | dir. Quark Henares, Philippines, 2023 | New York Premiere

SINGAPORE

Geylang | dir. Boi Kwong, Singapore, 2022 | North American Premiere

SOUTH KOREA

(co-presented with Korean Cultural Center New York)
Bear Man | dir. Park Sung-kwang, South Korea, 2023 | North American Premiere
Hail to Hell | dir. Lim Oh-jeong, South Korea, 2022 | North American Premiere
The Host | dir. Bong Joon Ho, South Korea, 2006 | Special Screening
Killing Romance | dir. Lee Won-suk, South Korea, 2023 | North American Premiere
Phantom | dir. Lee Hae-young, South Korea, 2023 | North American Premiere
Rebound | dir. Chang Hang-jun, South Korea, 2023 | New York Premiere
A Tour Guide | dir. Kwak Eun-mi, South Korea, 2023 | North American Premiere

TAIWAN

(presented with the support of Taipei Cultural Center in New York)
Bad Education | dir. Kai Ko, Taiwan, 2022 | North American Premiere
Eye of the Storm | dir. Lin Chun-yang, Taiwan, 2023 | International Premiere
Gaga | dir. Laha Mebow, Taiwan, 2022 | East Coast Premiere
Marry My Dead Body | dir. Cheng Wei-hao, Taiwan, 2022 | East Coast Premiere
Miss Shampoo | dir. Giddens Ko, Taiwan, 2023 | North American Premiere

THAILAND

Kitty the Killer | dir. Lee Thongkham, Thailand, 2023 | International Premiere
You & Me & Me | dir. Weawwan Hongvivatana and Wanweaw Hongvivatana, Thailand, 2023 | North American Premiere

VIETNAM

Glorious Ashes | dir. Bui Thac Chuyên, Vietnam/France/Singapore, 2022 | North American Premiere

DIASPORIC CINEMA

A-Town Boyz | dir. Eunice Lau, USA, 2023 | World Premiere
The Effects of Lying | dir. Isher Sahota, U.K., 2023 | North American Premiere

NARRATIVE SHORTS SHOWCASE

Animation

Borderline | dir. Kong Son-hee, South Korea, 2022 | World Premiere
Confusion of the Afternoon | dir. Yung-Chieh Lee, Taiwan, 2023 | East Coast Premiere
Goose Mountain | dir. Hu Rui and Chen Liaoyu, China, 2023
Handwritten | dir. Jaime Sunwoo, USA, 2022 | New York Premiere
Hidari | dir. Masashi Kawamura, Japan, 2023
Impurrfection | dir. Chiang Yao, Taiwan, 2022 | New York Premiere
Little Pig Demon (Nobody) | dir. Yu Shui and Chen Liaoyu, China, 2023
The Kidnapping (Old Man Yang) | dir. Gu Yang, Liu Kuang, Chen Liaoyu, China, 2023
Ship Down the Well | dir. Chen Xi, Zhou Xiaolin, Chen Liaoyu, China, 2023
What We Leave Behind | dir. Kang Nam-jin, South Korea, 2022 | International Premiere

Live Action

All Your Fault, PD | dir. Kim Sun-yeun, South Korea, 2022 | North American Premiere
Fix Anything | dir. Le Lam Vien, Vietnam, 2022 | North American Premiere
Hunchback | dir. Tahmineh Bahram, Iran, 2023 | World Premiere
Infant (Perzent) | dir. Karash Zhanyshov, Kyrgyzstan, 2022 | U.S. Premiere
Kumbang (Bugs) | dir. Gwai Lou, Malaysia, 2023 | World Premiere
Neo Portraits | dir. Gazebo, Japan, 2023 | International Premiere
Resellers | dir. Lee Seung-ju, South Korea, 2022 | International Premiere`
A Roadside Banquet | dir. Peiqi Peng, USA/China, 2023 | East Coast Premiere
Sweet Refuge | dir. Maryam Mir, USA, 2023 | East Coast Premiere
Will You Look at Me | dir. Shuli Huang, China, 2022