All annual film festivals have their tics, slants, and degrees of squirreliness, but for five years now the New York Asian Film Festival has been consistent to an ethos better expressed by its original moniker: Asian Films Are Go!!! More—or less—than just a regional roundup, the series has always erred on the side of popness, psychotronica, and pulpitude. No Jia or Hou films are sought out; even the elusive structuralism of Hong Sang-soo has proven too rarefied. Routinely leavened only by whip-smart Korean romances, the dockets have been devoted to the sometimes psychotic indigenous sweetmeats ordinarily left to the home crowd. The sugar highs and crashes can be exhausting, but the ethnographic gains can overshadow the most rigorous... More >>>