AFFD

Once again, AFFD is partnering with Natsumi Gelato for a very special fundraiser. Just like last year, a significant portion of the proceeds from the day’s sales will be donated to AFFD. Geisha House will be providing some special treats.

This year, we will also be joined by Across the Universe, a locally owned import company. Across the Universe will be on hand with uniquely chic, boutique-quality, handmade accessories created by women in different parts of the world, including Asia, from local, indigenous materials. All priced at only $3-$35. 20% of Across the Universe sales go to AFFD!

AFFD will be showing SITA SINGS THE BLUES on the tv screen at Natsumi, hosting a membership drive, giving away goodies, and enjoying gelato, snacks, and shopping all day long with the rest of you. See you there!

Where: Natsumi Gelato – Map
When: Noon to 10pm.

by Steve Norwood

When I was very young, one of the coolest films was a meeting of creatures from two separate worlds: FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN.  At the time, this was a crazy idea: take two of the best classic creatures and have them face off; who wouldn’t want to watch that?  As it turned out, they actually didn’t meet up until very late in the film.  But at that age, it was a thrill to see it happen.

Team Nishimura has specialized in Things You Never Thought You’d See.  They have practically created a cottage industry of spewing blood, shredded flesh and body modification, all immersed in a silly, almost childish sense of humor.  But don’t mistake their films for family events.  The makers of such memorable titles as TOKYO GORE POLICE and the upcoming ROBOGEISHA do not truck in safe entertainments, and  VAMPIRE GIRL VS. FRANKENSTEIN GIRL arrives with little that anyone but a diehard fan could appreciate…or stomach.   And this is not necessarily a bad thing.

Essentially a love story at its core, VGVFG takes on the guise of a high school musical that removes song and dance and adds power drills, gory Valentine’s Day treats, and various sharp implements.  The kids and the mayhem they get involved in are nothing like you would expect, even if you are versed in horror films.  The first thing you realize is that the school is divided into many cliques: the Ganguro club, for example, is made up of a group of girls in varying states of blackface; not out of any mean-spirited racism, but thanks to a nearly devout sense of black pride they can never realize in their own skin.  There is also the local division of wrist cutters who practice their slicing skills with great fervor, as if a chess team gone anemic.  These social groups are shocking at first, but you actually find them rather sweet after a while.  They know what they want, they are committed to attaining it, and they take their causes seriously but have no ill-will towards others.

A quiet moment in VGVFG

Amidst the many factions are Mizushima, a good looking and much sought-after young man, and Monami, a transfer student with a little secret: she’s a vampire, and she wants Mizushima to be one, too.  But Keiko, who leads the Frilly Girls Club (I don’t know…they all had lacy clothes so I’m just guessing), has already laid claim to Mizushima, and with a deranged Vice Principal for a father and a very bad temper she sets out to reclaim her man and get rid of the new girl.  But nothing’s very easy in high school, especially when your new hunchbacked janitor is a servant of the local vampire.

VGVFG gets off to a wild start, with a battle that has Monami tearing apart three creatures, leaving only a stack of skulls.  In these first moments VGVFG gives you most of what you need to know about the techniques to follow: enough prolonged rending of limbs and excessive blood spray (camera lenses frequently are awash in blood), but it only hints at the film’s ultimate flaws.  For as sharp as its humor can be, and as outrageous as the violence becomes, VGVFG does get bogged down in its own excesses.  If you can stomach what you’re seeing, you may still find the overlong sequences at any given moment a bit boring, despite the action.  The filmmakers’ editing style does not help either, with several scenes coming across as amateurishly repetitive .  Flaws are far more obvious on the big screen, so perhaps the film will benefit from DVD viewing. 

Still, the very spirit of the film is so agreeable that you if you can handle the exceeding gruesomeness, you have a hard time not getting caught up in the sheer giddiness of it all.  Team Nishimura has indeed created their own film genre: Japanese Splatter Slapstick.

by Steve Norwood

The Mo Brothers grabbed the attention of horror aficionados and the Indonesian ratings board with their short film DARA, an excellent, grisly and very sly film about a woman who runs a restaurant and has men over to dinner at her home, only to mete out sinister plans upon the would-be suitors.  The film garnered so much notice that the directing team (they aren’t really brothers) decided to expand the experience into a feature-length horror film that maintains the high scare quotient of the short, even if its overall theme seems rather familiar to American horror audiences.  Thus MACABRE was born.

A quiet moment in MACABRE

With a fresh-faced, likeable group of actors and a casually believable opening scene, the film quickly gets under way as a group of friends help a young woman on a stormy night and end up at a house in the country.  The woman’s mother, the wide-eyed and dubiously prim Dara, welcomes the group to rest and eat a special feast she has prepared.  When the friends find themselves drugged and bound in a room that more closely resembles an abattoir, any audience member with a shred of familiarity for the genre knows terror and mayhem will quickly follow. 

MACABRE specializes in a time-honored cycle of scare routines: quiet and creepy moments, frantic chases and blunt, gory attacks.  But it feels very fresh here, perhaps because it does not have the cruel glaze of most current American horror attempts, despite the horrific goings-on in Dara’s home.   With their polished style and ability to dish out effective mood and thrills, the Mo Brothers are definitely a team to watch.

Celebrate Halloween early with AFFD and Texas Frightmare Weekend at the Studio Movie Grill-Addison. Enjoy a double feature of two excellent, spectacular, gory, fun Asian horror flicks, and participate in our Costume Contest. Come dressed as your favorite Asian horror character. Prize for Best Costume plus lots of other door prizes.

The Films:

9:30PM – MACABRE aka Rumah Dara

A high-spirited road trip is interrupted when a group of friends pick up a girl who has just been robbed, taking her home to a mysterious house in the deep woods. No good deed goes unpunished, to the tune of severed limbs, decapitations, and several flavors of graphic mayhem. Full length expansion of The Mo Brothers short DARA.

Trailer – WARNING! Graphic Content

11:30PM – VAMPIRE GIRL VS. FRANKENSTEIN GIRL

Two girls, one boy, a mad scientist lab, and blood-laced sweet treats – high school love triangles go berzerk in this body-modified,
gore-spouting, self-mutilating, seriously un-PC romp from the director of TOKYO GORE POLICE.

Trailer – WARNING! Graphic Content

Tickets: $20 for the night, or $12.50 per film

PURCHASE TICKETS ONLINE or pay cash at the door.

FREE for AFFD Members. Become an AFFD member today!

Last week, we let our newsletter subscribers and members know our Opening and Closing Night Films, as well as extra film titles pop-music crowdpleaser CAPE NO. 7, the highest grossing Taiwanese film ever, and OLD PARTNER, the amazing and heart wrenching Korean documentary about an elderly farmer and the ox that has worked by his side for 40 years .

This week we are very excited to announce the following films in our line up:

ALL ABOUT DAD – *Director Mark Tran in attendance. Based on his own experiences growing up, first time director Mark Tran presents a fine portrait of a Vietnamese American family just trying to keep up with the times.

Newcomer Chi Pham steals the show as Dad, the patriarch of the Do family, who sees hard work, Catholicism, higher education, and loyalty to family as the only way to happiness and success in life. But Mr. Do is about to find out the inner passions and dreams of his four children, and his world is about to unravel. Often intense, this family drama is also hilarious and touching as Mr. Do realizes he must learn to accept his children as they truly are or risk losing them.

WRITTEN BY (再生號) – The latest, and we do mean latest film from writer/director Wai Ka-Fai, longtime Johnnie To collaborator, and starring the incomparable Lau Ching-Wan.

When a car crash leaves a family without a father, the blinded daughter begins a novel in which the father lives, and the remaining mother and siblings are ghosts, inhabiting his home. In turn, the grieving dad (now blind as well) writes his own story, where they live and he passes on.

Imagine a world where life’s tragedies can be literally rewritten, where ghosts cook your favorite meals, where love drives you to play the same song every night, and a dog isn’t a dog, but a lost child. Where a home, lost to sadness, can be transported – chairs, bed and all – to a new, bright location, flying on the power of dreams.

WRITTEN BY is more than a little bit magical, and deliberately blurs the lines of which “story” is real and which is imagined. In the end, it doesn’t matter. In a place where words are used to reinvent lives, to deny loss, and to reconnect with those who bring you joy – the only thing that matters is love.

4BIA preceded by DARA - Finally, for the Asian horror fans, we will be bringing you the short DARA, a completely intense, completely gruesome tale of a dinner party hosted by a very unusual woman, from rising Indonesian directors The Mo Brothers. DARA will be paired with Thai horror anthology 4BIA for a late night feast of short form terror.

Look for more titles next week, plus full schedule and online ticket sales shortly afterward.

Do as the man to right says and Get Your VIP Pass Now! to the 8th Annual Asian Film Festival of Dallas, Presented by Chang Beer and Mekhong Thai Spirits.

Discount Early Bird Passes, available until June 19, are $85.
Regular VIP passes are $125.

VIP passes grant access to all AFFD screenings and parties including…

July 16 Kickoff Party at Lotus
July 17 Opening Night film THE BEAST STALKER
July 23 Closing Night film IP MAN and party at Sushi Axiom

Join our email list for the scoop on more film titles.
Join our membership for $20 Discount off VIP passes.

And look for more big announcements in the coming weeks.

Come to Sushi Axiom next Tuesday in support of AFFD. Sushi Axiom will be donating a portion of the proceeds from their dinner service on May 19 to AFFD. Call 214-828-2288 for reservations, and be sure to mention AFFD.

Sushi Axiom is located at 2323 N. Henderson, Dallas, TX, 75206.