New York Asian Film Festival 2021: Five Must-See Movies to See in Theaters or Watch from Home

“A Leg” (dir. Chang Yao-sheng)

2020 was a year during which even the biggest Hollywood movies were swept under the rug, so it’s no surprise that a Taiwanese melodrama would fall through the cracks, even one that swept the Golden Horse Awards, got shortlisted for an Oscar, and was named best film of the year by Variety’s Chief Film Critic — all while hiding in plain sight on Netflix for anyone to find. Nevertheless, “A Sun” shone brightly on those who saw it, and made it clear to the uninitiated that filmmaker Chung Mong-hong was a major force in Taiwanese cinema. 

While Chung’s next directorial effort is set to premiere in Venice next month, NYAFF has exclusive dibs on another, presumably lighter movie that bears the signature of his genius. Co-written between Chung and director Chang Yao-sheng, “A Leg” is a deliriously erratic tragicomedy about a ballroom dancer in Taipei (“Black Coal, Thin Ice” femme fatale Gwei Lun-mei) who’s determined to reunite her late husband’s body with his amputated leg before he’s buried without it. 

Unfolding on parallel timelines that allows for neon-drenched flashbacks and flourishes of poetic romanticism in a way that should appeal equally to fans of Diao Yinan and Wong Kar-wai, “A Leg” careens between tender heartache and ultra-broad comedy so fast, the film should come with its own neck brace. There’s something exquisitely beautiful to Chang’s metaphor — a phantom limb as the memory for a marriage that always struggled to stand on its own two feet — but this off-kilter movie is never stronger than when it’s about to lose its balance, which helps to explain why it often falls back on a horn-driven score that sounds like a veritable chorus of clown farts. The absurdity of it all only strengthens the film’s subversive kick, as Chung continues to examine the beautiful human fallout of perverse bureaucratic decisions.

Screening August 14 at SVA and August 15-20 on Film at Lincoln Center’s virtual cinema.

“Ninja Girl” (dir. Yu Irie)

NYAFF is a great place to see the latest mega-budget Korean action movie or get a first glimpse at a bonkers genre sensation from Kazakhstan before it goes supernova at Fantastic Fest a few months later, but perhaps the most rewarding aspect of the festival is that it also invites people to experience the kind of low-budget, legitimately independent fare that may never be given another foothold on the world stage. That portion of the programming has long been embodied by NYAFF favorite Yu Irie (“8000 Miles”), whose scrappy comedies offset small budgets with enormous hearts, and do so without the flashiness of someone who’s angling for international recognition. 

Everything about “Ninja Girl” seems primed for breakout potential, but it’s to this socially conscious film’s credit that it never betrays its local concerns. Saki Fukuda stars as a bookish young government worker in a rural Japanese city where unemployment is on the rise thanks to the one-two punch of a major earthquake and a worldwide pandemic. Her xenophobic bosses are pushing for an ordinance that would ban immigrants, but her ailing grandfather — a former journalist — senses that something shady is afoot, and urges our heroine to investigate. For encouragement, he shares an ancient secret with her: She descends from a family of ninjas. 

The next thing you know, this extremely regular girl is practicing her blow dart skills in the backyard (hilarious) and sneaking through the office in all black. “Trust the vibes,” her grandpa tells her. “You’re good at sneaking up on people.” Irie is too; his latest movie is another gentle charmer that works its magic in such a casual register you hardly even feel it happening. His ninja girl may not slink through the shadows with the same deadly stealth the movies have always endowed her kind, but no shuriken or smoke bomb is as powerful as the self-belief that you can actually change this world for the better.

Screening August 15 at SVA.

“Raging Fire” (dir. Benny Chan)

“Raging Fire” might be difficult to prioritize above so many of the other titles in this year’s NYAFF slate, as Well Go USA will be releasing this incendiary cops-and-robbers extravaganza in theaters next Friday. But when it comes to sampling the latest in Hong Kong cinema, it’s wise to remember the one golden rule that will almost never lead you astray: If Donnie Yen is in it, just shut up and start watching. 

Yet the legendary action star (“Iron Monkey,” “Ip Man,” etc.) might not even be this bruising epic’s biggest draw, as “Raging Fire” is destined to be remembered less for Yen’s performance as a morally unyielding cop, or for Nicholas Tse’s heartthrob turn as his homicidal former protégé, than it is for being the last film that “New Police Story” director Benny Chan was able to make before he died from cancer during post-production in August 2020. It’s a fitting testament to Chan’s legacy as a master of morally ambiguous Hong Kong crime movies, as Yen’s supercop values are tested, torched, and beaten to hell as his duel with his estranged mentee sparks a broader reckoning with police corruption.

If “Raging Fire” makes room for clumsy domestic melodrama, courtroom screaming matches, and even a “Saw”-inspired sequence or two, Chan obviously delights in showing off what Yen can do. A blowout mid-movie fight scene in, atop, and through the wreckage of a Kowloon shantytown is worth the price of admission unto itself, as the 58-year-old Yen leverages his physical fallibility in a way that only makes his full-body performance all the more impressive.

Screening August 9 at SVA

“Spiritwalker” (dir. Yoon Jae-keun)

“Spiritwalker” confronts you with a labyrinthine plot involving a Korean pharmaceutical conspiracy and a Jason Bourne-like amnesiac who’s endowed with all sorts of semi-forgotten skills, but the sooner you stop sweating the details and allow yourself to embrace this movie for what it really is — a brain-dead but ridiculously bruising thrillride about an unkillable dude named Ian who hopscotches into a different body every 12 hours — the more you’ll be able to marvel at all the clever ways that director Yoon Jae-keun is able to play with that premise. 

Sure, there are some compelling characters here, and Yoon Kye-sang aces the difficult task of anchoring a movie where almost everyone becomes (or is at least possessed by) the protagonist at some point. But the ins and outs of who Ian is and why he can’t look into a mirror without going full Gollum are really just the cross-stitching Yoon uses to connect the film’s inspired setpieces, all of which are grittier and more creative than anything you’ll find in a Hollywood CGI-fest this summer. The beat-em-ups and foot-chases in “Spiritwalker” are action movie bliss even before they’re complicated by the story’s central conceit, but the disposability of Ian’s body — and the often-looming threat that he’ll be zapped into another one the moment the clock strikes noon or midnight — layer every flying leap and head-on collision with an added thrill of possibility. 

Screening August 22 at SVA.

“Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It” (dir. Ernar Nurgaliev)

Imagine if “The Hangover” had been an ultra-violent, NC-17 comic romp directed by the Coen brothers (circa “Raising Arizona”) and you might have a vague idea of what to expect from Ernar Nurgaliev’s wonderfully titled “Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It,” the only Kazakhstani film at NYAFF 2021. But that tantalizing elevator pitch doesn’t even begin to capture the madness of modern cinema’s worst fishing trip. It all begins when a schlub named Dastan abandons his very pregnant wife to spend a weekend with the boys, who pick him up in a van full of blow-up sex dolls. Within minutes of hitting the road, our fumbling trio has managed to find the most ominous gas station this side of “Deliverance” and witness — and potentially even cause — a group of trigger-happy gangsters blow someone’s head off. But that’s the least of their worries, because a one-eyed Terminator is roaming the countryside, and he won’t rest until he’s decapitated at least half the population. Also, Dastan’s wife is in labor, and she’s going to be all kinds of pissed if he doesn’t get to the hospital in time for the birth.

The warped genius of “Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It” lies in its deadpan tone and immaculate staging, which owes more to the wry stylings of Elia Suleiman than it does the broad screwball comedy suggested by its premise. Plot-wise, this three-way bromance about a man who learns to love his dumbass friends and appreciate his shrewish wife is familiar at best, and retrograde at worst. But Nurgaliev’s galaxy brain compositions unmoor this story from its foundations and stretch it across some of the most hilariously inspired setpieces in recent memory, all of which culminate in a hat-in-hand final scene that makes good on the film’s strange title. Shot for shot, this might just be the most exciting find of this year’s NYAFF.

Available to rent on Film at Lincoln Center’s virtual cinema.