An arch-iconic prison breakout movie, Abashiri Prison is the starting point of Takakura Ken’s meteoric rise to superstardom. With this film Takakura became the epitome of Japanese manliness, strong and sensitive in equal measure. Here, he plays Tsukibana Shinichi, a lone wolf low-level yakuza who still believes in honor among thieves and lives by an upright code of conduct. After three years behind bars amidst the shadiest characters in Japan, his time within the walls of legendary Abashiri Prison is almost up. Erected in the Meiji Era, the prison stands in a desolate area of wintry Hokkaido, as inescapable as Alcatraz or Devil’s Island. Things take an unexpected turn for the model prisoner when he finds himself breaking out of jail, chained to the mercurial and malevolent Gunda (Nanbara Koji), a man whose villainy knows no bounds. Tethered to each other, they start a perilous journey on the run, much like a couple of Japanese Defiant Ones, wading through the snowstruck stretches of the north. This could very well be the end of the earth, or of their lives.

From director Namewee, the madman behind previous festival fave, Nasi Lemak 2.0, comes this wild contemporary western full of musical numbers and humor so slap-happy it’ll set your head to spinning. It begins as the story of a poor Bangladeshi worker in Malaysia who wants to go home so his girl doesn’t marry another man, but when he goes to his scumbag boss to ask for his passport back complications too complicated to recount without getting complicated occur, and it becomes a manic movie about modern-day Malaysia full of shootouts, nationalist rabble-rousers, anti-immigration fearmongers, riots, invasions, and more jokes, gags, and visual non-sequiturs than are strictly legal. Switching from game show, to action movie, to western, to romance, with dialogue in Hokkien, English, Mandarin, and gibberish, this is a take-no-prisoner comedy so sarcastic that the Malaysian government banned it outright. We’re proud to screen it as a raised middle finger to stuffy, soulless, bureaucratic prigs everywhere, from Malaysia to America.

Fukasaku Kinji's glorious man opera put an end to the romanticized, heroic (ninkyo) yakuza movies of the Sixties, and introduced the world to a snarling, sneering new yakuza flick that landed like a punch in the face. Combining real-life stories of yakuza bosses with the immediacy of the newsreels that were playing before feature films, Battles Without Honor and Humanity kicked off a four movie series that examined the rise of the yakuza from Japan's back alleys to its boardrooms.

Opening in the shadow of Hiroshima's radioactive mushroom cloud, Battles begins as Hirono (Sugawara Bunta) works the postwar black market for the Yamamori family, climbing up the ranks, his brothers chopping off their fingers for mistakes and chopping off their rival's arms for turf violations. It's a soap opera for men, full of sweaty faces seen in close-up, terse conversations, sudden votes, cigarettes ground out in anger, and last minute phone calls. But the movie inches up the tension until the final massacre explodes, making the end of The Godfather look like an understatement. It's a movie that's as angry and alive as Frankenstein's creature, electrified by Fukasaku's rage against the men who sold out Japan.

The yakuza in this movie are not noble, they're barely even human. When they chop off their pinkies as an act of atonement, it's mere seconds before a chicken steals it. They fight like rabid dogs over the scraps that drop from their master's tables, and their blood overflows the gutters because to their bosses they are human garbage. This is the secret history of Japan's economic miracle, a landmark film about how the country emerged from the ruins of WWII and rebuilt itself on greasy whorehouse handshakes, bribes, and crime. Presented in the brand new 2K digital restoration from the original 35mm negative.

A one-in-a -million wuxia movie with all the reach, and none of the extravagance, of the biggest epics, Brotherhood of Blades leaves behind the genre's flying swordsmen, weightless fantasy wirework, and dull speeches about brotherhood to deliver magnificent period action, drama, and characters that are swayed by cold cash and slain by cold steel rather than honor and the hard line of duty. Rich in historical detail, brutal in its depiction of violence, this dark blockbuster demands to be seen on the big screen.

It's 1627: the Ming Dynasty is dying. The new emperor has exiled the almighty Chief Eunuch, who controls not just the secret police but a shadow society consisting of pretty much all the court officials. Three Imperial assassins are tasked with a late-night murder party to get rid of the eunuch and his loyalists, but money corrupts… soon, one of them gets handed a bribe big enough to allow Wei to escape. Schemes within schemes follow, as gold flows like a poison and bodies fall like autumn leaves.

The swordplay in this film is all earth-bound, leg-breaking, elbow-to-the-chin, blade-to-the-guts action as 70lb steel cleavers chew through soft flesh and long, swooping Steadicam shots follow fighters through chaotic battles. The imperial assassins include Chang Chen (one of Taiwan's great actors, best known for his work with Ang Lee, Wong Kar-wai, and Edward Yang) and actor Zhou Yiwei is on hand as a honey badger of a blackmailer who just doesn't give a damn. As old-school as Gunga Din or The Four Feathers, this is the wu xia movie with the dust blasted off and the rust scraped from its edge. It cuts to the bone. It slices through brains. It delivers.

Three years after his record-breaking debut, You are the Apple of My Eye, writer/director Giddens Ko has penned an irresistibly zany romantic comedy, based on his book of the same name, this time with Chiang Chin-lin in the director's seat. Following Siying (Vivian Sung), an undergrad and part-time worker at the titular café, the film zips through unrequited crushes, dreams of travel, hot sausages, bowls of tau fu fah (sweet soya bean pudding), and even the supernatural like a gag-manga inspired bullet. Vivian Sung and Bruce shine as the young leads, sharing a charismatic and electrifying chemistry. Vivian Chow also makes a rare and glamorous appearance after years of having withdrawn from the public eye.

Boo Ji-young's follow-up to Sisters On the Road is a formidable social drama and a moral shocker. Armed with a larger budget and a stellar cast, it nonetheless maintains the same human-scale storytelling that made her debut so memorable. Based on a true story, this is a David vs Goliath tale where a group of women band together and go on strike after their big box supermarket lays off all the temporary workers to cut costs. Although there are no definitive statements about life, death or society, the fate of these few women, unregarded citizens, leave an impression of grandeur, limitless suffering, and wrath. Boo allows each character in the ensemble quiet moments that personalize the massive labor issues South Korea faces. The women are facing their own doubts, poverty and the brutality of those trying to break the strike with incredibly fervent performances from the three leads Yum Jung-ha, Moon Jung-hee and Kim Young-ae.

Fresh from this year’s Berlinale competition, like Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire done via Japanese pop sensibility, Chasuke’s Journey follows a celestial tea server Chasuke – portrayed by versatile Matsuyama Kenichi (Death Note, Norwegian Wood) – as he descends to Okinawa in order to save a young girl Yuri (Ono Ito) from her fate scribed by heavenly hacks who crib from Hollywood blockbusters. The writers promise to transmit signs through the rich tapestry of characters he meets along the way, but Chasuke only has until 8:50pm, at which time Yuri’s fate is sealed. A meta-narrative on cinema, creation, fate, celebrity and enjoying ramen while you can, Chasuke’s Journey is filled with loveable losers, wildly kinetic single-take running, improbable plot contrivances, and an absolute love of the moving image.

Between August, 1986 and February, 1987, two movies came out that kicked the Hong Kong film industry into high gear, turned Chow Yun-fat into a superstar, and revived their directors' careers. The first was the romantic, hyper-stylized gun opera, A Better Tomorrow, directed by John Woo, and the second was the gritty, socially outraged heist film, City on Fire, directed by Ringo Lam. Where Woo's movie was full of grand gestures and larger-than-life characters, Lam's film was masterfully underplayed with characters who ripped from the headlines. City on Fire is one of the most iconic and legendary Hong Kong movies of all time (so legendary that Quentin Tarantino stole the plot and certain shots for Reservoir Dogs) and it is almost never screened today.

Chow Yun-fat plays a cop who's gone so deep undercover that only his boss still knows he's a cop. A bunch of ruthless strong-arm bandits have been ripping off jewelry stores and Chow gets a chance: break up the job they have planned for Christmas, and he can come in from the cold. Chow reluctantly agrees, but winds up discovering that he's got more in common with the gang foreman, played by Danny Lee, than his own bosses.

Shot in 1986, what does City on Fire have to offer viewers in 2015? Two things. First, the performances. Danny Lee is the cool older brother everyone wishes they had, and bit parts are played by a rogue's gallery of some of Hong Kong's best character actors. But it's Chow Yun-fat's mercurial undercover cop that still delivers 20,000 watts of star power today. The other thing City on Fire offers is Lam's worldview. A precursor of The Wire, this flick shows us a city whose institutions feed on the blood of the poor. It's a passionate portrait of the little people trying to eke out a living on either side of the law, and dying for their trouble. City on Fire was released in 1987. 28 years later, that city still burns.

Straight outta Cannes comes this high velocity mash-up of Mommie Dearest and Goodfellas. Veteran Korean diva, Kim Hye-soo (The Thieves), has won 33 "Best Actress" awards since her career kicked off in 1986, and she brings all that high caliber thesping to her star turn as the most toxic mommy on earth. Back in 1996, a corrupt cop in her employ found Il-young (Kim Ko-eun, recipient of our Rising Star Award at NYAFF 2013) abandoned in a coin locker, and he brought her to the criminal queen bee played by Kim Hye-soo. Discovering that the foundling has a talent for mayhem, mom raises her up and trains her to go after the people who owe her money and snap their fingers like breadsticks. But, one day, her kid meets a guy she'd rather not mutilate, and so she defies her adoptive mom's orders. Hell hath no fury like a mother scorned, and soon they're tearing the city apart as they work out their mother-daughter issues with fists, guns, and knives.

While the police commissioner is away in Copenhagen, a police van on patrol goes missing along with its five officers and hi-tech surveillance gear. Soon the hostage demands are arriving and the police department goes into lockdown under two deputy commissioners who can't stand each other. One is M.B. Lee (Tony Leung Ka-fai) a battle-hardened vet who isn't above a little waterboarding to protect Hong Kong. Opposing him is Sean Lau (superstar Aaron Kwok in a startling performance), a steely technocrat who never walked a beat, and a stickler for respecting the rights of citizens.

When it's revealed that M.B. Lee's son is one of the abducted patrolmen, things start to heat up and Lee starts sending cops into harm's way, while Lau tries to figure out how to stop him using bureaucratic judo. Office politics become blood sport where a well-timed phone call is worse than a dagger in the back. Winner of nine Hong Kong Film Awards, Cold War is a cracking thriller about Hong Kong's relationship with China where the police force tears itself apart, the gunsmoke slowly settles, and "the biggest enemy is always on the inside."

Fukasaku Kinji follows his Battles Without Honor and Humanity series with a film focusing on the other-side-of-the-coin, a police department where the yen far outweighs the law. Sugawara plays a guy who came out of postwar Japan and by a twist of fate wound up a cop instead of a yakuza. Doesn’t matter because he’s so corrupt he’s basically a criminal anyways: delivering witnesses to his yakuza buddies and looking the other way while they murder rivals. But now a war is breaking out and a new boss is installed: an anti-corruption police reformer. This bad lieutenant is going to have to choose a side, or go down dirty.

King Taejo, the first ruler of the Joseon Era, chooses his youngest son Bang-seok as his heir instead of the son he had with his first wife, Bang-won (Jang Hyuk, macho, mercurial and machiavellian like never before). It is the dawn of a new dynasty but it might as well be its twilight as a deluge of desire and sudden death is about to flood the young kingdom. Queue a blood feud that erupts into superbly choreographed violence, lavish production design, flourishes of historical fantasy, and hanbok-ripping sex. Court intrigue aside, the film's main business is a love story of lunatic majesty between Supreme Commander Kim Min-jae (Save the Green Planet's Shin Ha-kyun in a stellar performance), and Ga-hee (Kang Han-na), a sword dancer who becomes his mistress. Kim's son Jin (heartthrob Kang Ha-neul playing against type), as it turns out, is a despicable serial rapist and it may not be an accident that Ga-hee has entered into upright Kim's domestic life. As family drama mixes with court drama and multiple revenge plots converge, the film enters into a sort of costume melodrama nirvana, stripped out of superfluity and softness, where the tip of a sword and a whisper from a red lip can bring the high and mighty crashing down

With his directorial debut, actor Chen Jianbin walks in the footsteps of A Touch of Sin, No Man's Land, and Black Coal, Thin Ice and offers a hard-edged mainland noir where kindness and cruelty, madness and reason, greed and humanity all struggle for dominance and the fool might not be who you think. The hook here is Chen's amazing performance as the simple, slightly crude Latioazi, a goat farmer who has a son in jail. When a young mentally handicapped man follows him home one day and enters his life, it sets off a blaze and a chain of events follows, which bares China's class divide raw. His random act of reluctant kindness invites a parade of strangers and grifters all intent on draining Latioazi of what little he has.

Ringo Lam's last truly "important" movie before his 12-year retirement is a dark, glittering gem of a police procedural that doubles as a masterclass in understatement. Lam doesn't need to batter audiences over the head with the drama, instead finding it in setting up two gangs – a bunch of cops and a bunch of crooks – making sure we understand how intelligent and ruthless they both are, and then letting them confront each other on the streets of Hong Kong.

Arresting a failed architect (Francis Ng) for a routine murder, Lau Ching-wan's gang of cops realize that something bigger is going on here. After all, if Ng is just a bad-tempered loser, what's he doing with all this bomb-making material? It turns out that Ng is planning a massive heist with some cold-blooded Mainland criminals (and he may even have another plan concealed within that one) and it's up to Lau and Co. to keep him under surveillance. The only flaw with this plan is that Ng and his hired guns are a lot smarter, and much more ruthless, than anyone anticipated.

Deceptively simple, Full Alert was shot right before Hong Kong's handover to China, and it has an elegiac tone, even as cars hurtle down busy streets at 90mph and gunfire erupts in apartment buildings. Many of its locations have been bulldozed and replaced with Starbucks and bank branches. What you wind up with is a movie that is a high caliber tombstone to not only Hong Kong, but also to action filmmaking, and human kindness. An incredible motion picture that hits audiences hard, Full Alert is a masterpiece in any country.

Director Derek Kwok loves his losers, whether it's the geriatric martial arts masters of Gallants, or the hapless demon hunter of Stephen Chow's Journey to the West. Now, he turns his attention to badminton and transforms it into a martial art. Washed-up former 90's pop star, Ekin Cheng, plays one of three crooks fresh out of prison and desperate to start new lives. Josie Ho plays the washed-up former badminton champion who agrees to be their Yoda. Full of berserk camerawork, crazed performances, meteors shaped like shuttlecocks, and a go-for-broke, anything-for-the-joke attitude, this is a scorched earth comedy that leaves the screen in tatters and doesn't end until the last racquet explodes.

Yoshida Daihachi's first film towers above a long list of off-key Japanese comedies that gained popularity in the late '00, combining the weird, the whimsical, the wry and the most warped sense of humor you can ever conceive, even by Japanese standards. Step-siblings are thrown together in death and debt, after their parents are killed in a freak road accident trying to save a black cat sitting in the middle of a road. The eldest daughter (Sato Eriko) is a failed twenty-something actress, arriving late to her own parents' funeral, the brother (Nagase Masatoshi) has an abusive relationship with his cheery and much put-upon web-order bride (Nagasaku Hiromi), and the youngest sister (Satsukawa Aimi) is drawing a manga based on the family's misfortunse. Suicide, seduction, prostitution, persecution, outrageous bitchiness collide with nonchalant abandon. Colorful and attractive cinematography belie a dark dramatic underbelly, and Yoshida achieves a brilliant balancing act between a nasty and mean-spirited story and impeccable comic timing.

Steeped in the culture of 1980s Japan, Tsutsumi Yukihiko's adaptation of Inui Kurumi's novel is cinematically playful and emotionally sophisticated in its coming-of-age tale of a young man navigating his responsibilities as an adult and his confused emotional attachments to two women. As a young man, Takkun finds the girl of his dreams in his Shizuoka hometown in the form of Mayu, a pretty, simple and always-sunny girl-next-door type. But when he is transferred to Tokyo by his office, he finds himself in a more sophisticated world and attracted to his well-bred colleague Miyako. The title refers to a question posed by Miyako to Takkun. Is his feelings for Mayu merely "initiation love", a puppy love that does both a disservice as the years pass. As he slips into an affair with Miyako, he has to make a series of difficult choices that will define him as a man. The Japanese promotion of the film emphasises the twist in the film's final five minutes that takes a radically different course from the novel. The film's ending is not just a cinematic coup d'etat, it also reveals a painful truth about love that is a lesson for all men and women.

In this psychological thriller produced by Derek Yee (The Great Magician, One Night in Mongkok), a psychiatrist Chow Ming-kit (Huang Xiaoming) is lured to the dark side of the mind by his patient and convicted murderer Fan Kwok-sang (Lau Ching-wan). Three years before the film starts, Fan was committed to a psychiatric hospital after his paranoia and violent temper led to the accidental death of his wife Wai-ling (Michelle Ye). Now he's up for release and Chow vouches for him against the objections of his seniors and quickly finds his career on an upward swing. Fan isn't doing as well, and after a terrible incident Chow finds himself desperate to defend Fan and his career. Lau Ching-wan is wonderful here as he ravishes this role and goes from anger to contrition to plotting in rapid fire sequences causing a sort of audience whiplash in the process.

Controversial director Kim Ki-duk put Korean cinema on the map with this arthouse exploitation shocker featuring fish hooks, sex, surreal cinematography, and some of the most squirm-inducing shots ever put on film. A cop on the run for a crime he definitely did commit holes up on a lake where floating cabins provide weekend retreats for fishermen. The cabins are tended by a young woman who supplies the fishermen with food, coffee, booze, and sexual gratification. She and the ex-cop bond, and before long their relationship has moved on from hugs and kisses, to icepick stabbings and fish hook swallowing. But don't think this movie is just out to shock you. Dreamy and beautiful, it's all about how Suh Jung's character is actually the spirit of the lake, a feminine force of nature that destroys all the childish men who try to bend her to their will. Too often, movies put you to sleep. This landmark of Korean cinema wakes you up, by forcing you to swallow a fistful of fish hooks.

Set among Hong Kong's expat community, where foreigners can live for 10, 20, or even 30 years without ever putting down roots, It's Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong is a look at a world that isn't the West, but it isn't the East either. Starring Bryan Greenberg (One Tree Hill) and Jamie Chung (Sucker Punch, Eden, The Man with the Iron Fists) as two kids in their early 30s who cross paths in Hong Kong one night and walk and talk, it's that rare movie about the spaces in between: they're in Hong Kong, but not of Hong Kong; they're flirting, but not dating; they're in relationships, but not bound to them; they're adults, but they act like kids. Like Hong Kong, they exist in a constant state of uncertainty where it feels like at any minute, everything will suddenly change forever, but not yet. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe in Hong Kong.

A Korean escort, a porn-star college student, a musician and a policewoman walk into a love hotel and the result is heartbreaking, hilarious and sexy in Hiroki Ryuichi's (Vibrator) multi-strand drama Kabukicho Love Hotel. Taking place over 24 hours in a Tokyo love hotel, the film focuses on pairings of various patrons and workers in the famous red light district. Given Hiroki's start in indie-pink films you might think a film set in the red light district was a return to form, but the film is more in line with his recent mainstream melodramas: interested in emotional connections than physical ones. Not that there aren't several racy scenes performed with gusto by the young and attractive cast filled with both pop stars, Maeda Atsuko (AKB48) and Roy (5tion), and up and coming young thespians, Sometani Shota (this year's Screen International Rising Star Award winner) and Lee Eun-woo (Moebius). Connections both inane and important are threaded under Hiroki's deft hands and mistakes and melancholy haunt the characters as they work through their day. An exciting combination of the director's soft-core start and melodramatic transformation, Kabukicho is a rewarding, steamy and poignant character-driven ensemble drama that looks at the lives of ordinary people as they experience life-changing events.

Following Linda Linda Linda, and Tamako in Moratorium, director Yamashita Nobuhiro helms a uniquely emotional "how-did-I-get-here?" movie about memory, identity, and the healing power of rock & pop music. Shibutani Subaru plays Shigeo who is beaten up to the point of memory loss following his release from prison. Discovering his singing skills (Shibutani is the lead singer of the popular Kanjani Eight), Kasumi (Nikaido Fumi) takes him in and puts him to work cleaning the recording studios where they live and fronting the band she represents. As his memory begins to return, he is caught between his dark past as a small-time gangster, and the new life he has found. Tackling redemption, second chances and the power of music, this film is a romantic comedy that steers clear of stereotypes and allows the extremely human characters at the center of the film to reveal themselves slowly.

Part of the recent trend of films (Golden Slumbers, The Missing Picture, Don't Think I've Forgotten) using Cambodia's pop cultural/filmmaking past to comment on both the devastation wrought by the Khmer Rouge, and the power of storytelling, The Last Reel is a powerful meditation on the preservation of memory and the catharsis of the archive. Anchored by Ma Rynet's superb performance as Sophoun – a young girl rebelling against her conservative army father Bora's (Hun Sophy) marriage plans, hanging out with a local gang leader, and dealing with her mother Srey Mom's (the powerful Dy Saveth) failing health. Ma holds the multiple emotional threads of each character together through the film. Ducking into an old theater to avoid a rival motorcycle gang, she is enthralled by an old film from before the civil war that stars her mother. The theater owner, Sokha (Sok Sothun) an actor from the film, pines for Srey and has lovingly preserved the film, even with the missing final reel. Sophoun becomes determined to finish the film but the ghosts of the past are hard to bury, and the secrets of Srey, Sokha, and Bora are pulled into the present.

In a world of mayhem-loving blockbusters, it is deeply inspiring that Hong Kong's runaway box office hit of 2015 is the true story of one woman and five little girls. Miriam Yeung (Love in a Puff) plays a principal who takes a $580/month job running a failing rural kindergarten. With only five students, it's slated for shutdown the next time one of them drops out, and since the kids have poor parents and tough lives, she figures her job will be to ease their transition. But after meeting the kids she vows to keep the doors open by any means necessary. Like New York City, Hong Kong is split into the haves and have nots, and you're born into your class. This is the real-life story of one woman who rose up and refused to accept that.

Kido Makato (played by Sawada Kenji, a Japanese rock star) is a hip, long-haired, high school science teacher who loves chewing gum. Yamashita (Sugawara Bunta) is the buzz-cut sporting detective who loves chewing scenery. Makoto is caught up in a school-bus hijacking and rescued by Yamashita, but their haircuts predestine the two to be rivals. Makoto soon decides he wants to hold the world hostage by building an atomic bomb, going by the terrorist name Nine. He teams up with pretty but idiotic radio show host who calls herself Zero (Ikegami Kimiko) and the pair make increasingly odd demands, including trying to get the Rolling Stones to play in Tokyo. Yamashita won't stand for these sort of shenanigans in his city and he forms a one-man army to stop them. Co-written by director Hasegawa Kazuhiko and Leonard Schrader, Paul Schrader's brother, the film rocks back and forth from political commentary to full blown action movie with jaw-dropping stunts, manly men who can't be hurt by explosions (or falls from insane heights), and blacker than black humor. A ballsy satire that descends into the unexpected, The Man Who Stole The Sun is a hard to see cult classic best experienced on the big screen.

One of the best heist movies you’ll ever see, only this time it’s not about cool professionals pulling off one last job. Instead it’s a deadpan send-up of the genre about two rival gangs of high school students, desperate to pay their school fees, who simultaneously decide to steal their school’s statue of national hero, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, to sell for scrap metal. So stone-faced you almost don’t see the comedy coming until it’s too late, this movie specializes in the absurdity of kids driven to extremes, but what starts as schoolyard slapstick becomes an urgent call for Taiwan’s youth to stand up and fight.

Jo is 98. Kang is 89. An elderly couple of modest means living in a mountain village, they have been married for 76 years. Even now, they are playful. They are devoted. They have never been more in love. But age is inexorable, and as the days tick away at least one of them is going to cross the river. My Love Don't Cross That River wasn't supposed to be a blockbuster, but it was a smash hit, knocking Interstellar out of the top spot week after week, and becoming the highest grossing Korean documentary of all time, the highest-grossing Korean independent movie of all time, and the best love story of the 2010's (Sorry, A Fault in Our Stars.)

They may be pushing a century, but Jo and Kang still know how to have fun, picking sunflowers for each other's hair in spring, clowning around amidst the falling leaves in autumn, having snowball fights in winter. "I look old and gray but you haven't aged a day," Kang marvels, but the weight of encroaching of time is clear. Their lives are encapsulated in a series of simple, beautiful moments: a weathered hand caressing a face, buying baby clothes for the children they never got to raise. You'll never see another love story like it; you can only hope to be lucky enough to live it.

The first of the long-running Tales of Japanese Chivalry (a.k.a. Legends of the Yakuza) franchise, Nihon Kyokaku-den chronicles a bitter feud over local lumber rights that brews and breaks out between two rival yakuza clans in the late Meiji era. Makino Masahiro's direction is a draught of clear straightforward style: bare of any visual gimmicks or fancy flourishes, it puts the spotlight on the actors and here you really get the goods. Takakura Ken gives a performance that would stick with him for the next decade as the paragon of Japanese manhood, beckoning us to the beating heart of his appeal as the ultimate old-school leading man: the very picture of deadpan, rock-steady and disdainful of outward display. Nakamura Kinnosuke also turns in a great performance as an emotionally tortured gambler who Takakura's character looks up to for guidance. Chivalry and honor are stained, tattooed chests are bared, swords and guns are drawn, and blood is shed.

Ghost in the Shell director Oshii Mamoru's latest live-action film Nowhere Girl centers on Ai (Seino Nana, the all-around kicker and piece of smoking hotness from Tokyo Tribe), a student at an all-girls' art high school. Her natural talent for art provokes the fury and envy of both the adults around her and her classmates. Bullying, mockery, and intolerable cruelty ensue: Ai stoically suffers but has nowhere to hide or run to. Her daily life becomes a war, which she slowly loses. But there's more to the beautiful high school girl than meets the eye: she has a very specific set of skills, skills that make her a nightmare for bullies.

Yoshida Daihachi continues to probe at questions of conformity and rebellion with this devilishly delightful tale of young housewife Umezawa Rika (the stunning Miyazawa Rie) who becomes an embezzler to support an affair with a young lover (Ikematsu Sosuke). As her cons get more and more involved and her actions lead her further and further away from "propriety," the fun is in seeing how far Umezawa will go while the noose slowly tightens around her. Ikematsu is also excellent as the lover who can't take his eyes off of the mousy but still pretty Umezawa. With a muted color palate, great soundtrack, and an almost sensual emphasis on the physicality of money, Pale Moon cements Yoshida's importance in contemporary Japan's cinematic landscape.

When a schoolgirl takes a swan dive off her balcony, she hits the street at the feet of three classmates who are total strangers. Convinced that there's more to her suicide than meets the eye, these kids team up Veronica Mars-style to investigate her suicide. But instead of being a whodunit, the bottom falls out, one death leads to another, and life becomes a nightmare. Shot through with sudden flashes of light, set in a high school inexplicably located in the middle of a steaming jungle, Partners in Crime is what would happen if David Lynch directed River's Edge. Much more than the sum of its parts, the mystery at the heart of this story isn't why did a kid kill herself, but why do we all feel so alone even when we're in a crowd.

Naoko, played by the dreamy Kanno Miho (best known for her role in Kitano's Dolls) returns to her hometown, a fishing village on Shikoku Island, with her preschool daughter Momo. She's leaving behind a messy divorce and an abusive husband. Her tough mother Masako (Natsuki Mari) runs the only hair salon in the vicinity, "Permanent Nobara", an extraordinary place that provides one signature haircut (the perm, a bit like in Ogigami Naoko's brilliantly funny Yoshino's Barber Shop) and a shame-free collective confessional where the local women, young and old, come to discuss their most personal love and sex issues. Topics range from the woeful brevity of the average relationship to penis lengths.

Meanwhile, the men, who are mostly sorry losers, chase after the Filipina hostesses at the only snakku in town. Will Naoko find a new beginning and true love among this happy-go-wacky group of oddballs? The odds don't look so good at first blush, but discreetly, a bit of a romance is rekindled with her high school science teacher Kashima (Eguchi Yosuke, in a fine performance). Perhaps the answer is there.

One of the funniest and strangest comedies to come out of Japan in the past few years, the film shows Yoshida's trademark directorial craft for the comical intermezzo, fast-paced flashbacks, and bizarre situations perfectly poised between comedy and serious drama. With more sting than a swarm of killer bees, Permanent Nobara gives you 99 minutes of biting humor and uniquely Japanese film bliss.

Director Philip Yung's Port of Call's central incident is the brutal murder of a young 16-year-old Hunan girl who moved to Hong Kong with her family and fell into prostitution. Winding through time and grounded by Christopher Doyle's gauzy cinematography, the film follows both the story of the young girl's descent into sex work and Aaron Kwok's grizzled detective as he obsessively seeks an answer to the brutality of the murder. Kwok is astonishing here in his career's best role, with all the tics and haggard body language of a man beaten down by the violence that threatens to drown him at every turn. Stage actor Michael Ning is also chilling as the killer.

In 1971, South Korea's president Park Chun-hee rescinded the Korean constitution. In 1979, Kim Jae-gyu, his Chief of Intelligence, assassinated him during a dinner party at a Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) safehouse. The President's Last Bang is a blow-by-blow account of the president's final night and what happens as the pieces of the power puzzle are reassembled into a new government. It is, not surprisingly, the most controversial Korean movie ever made.

But this no boring history lesson—it's a kinky thrill ride in which the president and his cabinet are more concerned with what's in their pants than what's happening in their country, and have all the prejudices, stubbornness, and blindness to reality that you'd expect from a group of filthy rich, isolated, powerful men. But life is complicated, and by the time Kim blows away President Park you don't know if he's pulling the trigger because he believes in democracy, or because he's been driven crazy by stress-related constipation. That's the sick genius of this movie: it makes the political personal. This isn't a sanctimonious, animatronic Hall of Presidents but an orgasmatronic political whorehouse, aroused by everything it knows or suspects to be corrupt. Im's camera glides all over the shadowy set, insinuating itself into conversations and then slipping back into the darkness. Baek Yoon-sik turns in a phenomenal performance as Kim, the tormented, dying Chief of Intelligence and Han Suk-kyu (The Royal Tailor) plays a foul-mouthed, inherently decent, bubble-blowing bully of a bodyguard who doles out punishment in the basement and struggles to grab glory wherever he can upstairs. And fun fact: President Park's daughter, Park Geun-hye, is currently the president of Korea.

On its busy surface, Beijing Bicycle director Wang Xiaoshuai's latest film chronicles the hurtful sidelining of an elderly widow, the recently widowed Mrs. Deng (Lu Zhong). Bossy and lonely, she spends her retirement days taking care of her house and pestering her grown-up children, who don't seem to want her around anymore. The elder son Jun (Feng Yuanzheng) is a successful family man, and in many ways the perfect billboard for the "Chinese Dream": comfortably living with his wife (Qin Hailu) and their little boy in a nice apartment, driving around in a nice car, and generally enjoying the luxuries and consumerist lifestyle of the global bourgeoisie. The younger son Bing (Qin Hao), gay and rebellious, has a salon and a boyfriend (Han Yibo); his sexuality, unacknowledged by his mother, is cause for tension and resentment. The old lady and her two sons stand as two generations staring at each from across the years, no longer capable of mutual understanding. Thankfully she still finds solace with the ghost of her late husband, who keeps her company.

Beneath the small, everyday hostilities of the family and the hustle and bustle of Beijing life, tragedy is lurking: one day, the humdrum comes to an end with sudden and soon incessant, anonymous phone calls; every time she picks up, no one answers. Relentless, unnerving, the plague of the unidentified phone calls is followed by more physical menace as bricks are thrown at her window and garbage is dumped on her doorstep. Rumors of mysterious murders run wild in the neighborhood. Behind the stalking lie a mysterious tattooed boy, a long-buried secret, and the blood-red shadows of the Cultural Revolution.

With his 102nd feature, legendary 78-year-old Korean filmmaker Im Kwon-taek (Sopyonje, Chihwaseon: Painted Fire) delivers a powerful and vital film about the indignities of old age and the inferno of suppressed desire stirred by the proximity of death. Based on a prize-winning short story by former journalist Kim Hun, the film also serves as a silent critique of the vanity of contemporary urban life. Veteran actor Ahn Sung-ki (Nowhere to Hide) delivers a masterfully subdued performance as Oh Sang-moo, an ordinary businessman at the top of the corporate food chain who works at a major cosmetics company. Fully consumed by the simple act getting on with his life, he stoically fulfills his corporate duties while his wife, Jin-kyung (Kim Ho-jung), is suffering the agonies of brain cancer at the hospital. During this rather difficult moment, in comes the stunning Choo Eun-joo (Kim Qyu-ri), the company's new hire. Young, elegant, sophisticated, she's a like a sexual fantasy conjured from deep within the man's grief. Going between the office and the hospital, he tries to balance the demands of the job with the moral obligation to his wife, while also dealing with his own aging body and grief and the pangs of forbidden desire.

Indie filmmaker Li Ruijun (Fly with the Crane) is back with his fourth feature, a masterfully lensed nomadic road movie set in his dusty native province of Gansu, in Northwestern China. In River Road, Bartel and Adikeer, two Yugur ethnic minority brothers, venture out with their two-humped camels to join their herdsman father, after their grandfather dies, by following a dried-up river bed. The children’s conflicts play out during their long journey while the heart-breaking desertification of the Yugur grazing lands – signifying also the end of a traditional way of life – serves as the backdrop to the drama. More than just a tale of stubborn figures pitted against the unforgiving landscape, the film earns its emotional payoff from the incredible performances of the young leads. Featuring the sand-blown splendor of infinitely sprawling vistas, ghost towns, and touches of the fantastic, River Road is an absolute masterpiece of Chinese filmmaking.

An anarcho-absurdist blood-soaked grand guignol indie flick with attitude to burn, this is the pitch perfect youth movie from Hong Kong. A twenty-something punk fancies himself a total player, but the best job he can find is overnight clerk at a convenience store. The other clerk is a cute chick and you're thinking "rom com," but then there's a robbery, a gangster, a shoot-out, and by the time a neighbor is pulling out a homemade bomb, you realize that this violent farce is all about the current situation in Hong Kong where nothing makes sense, the heartless wipe their feet on the hopeless, and you might as well burn it all down because there are no more better tomorrows.

Two years after his anarchic comedy How to Use Guys With Secret Tips, Lee Won-suk returns to New York and the silver screen with his ambitious, big-budget period drama The Royal Tailor. His second feature is set during a clash between tradition and modernity in the royal court of 18th century Korea.

Han Suk-kyu plays the king's tailor Jo Dol-seok. After serving the court for three decades, he is on the brink of rising to the rank of nobleman. But his life's dream is threatened with the sudden appearance of young, handsome and carefree "designer" Lee Gong-jin whose radical fashion ideas quickly earn the Queen's favor.

Unlike most films about the power of art (and music), Lee lets the striking costume designs of Jo Sang-gyeong speak for themselves, without resorting to reaction shots or exposition. The film's traditional costumes took as much as six months to create, at a cost just shy of $1 million.

A playful, fresh and daring reinvention of one of Korea's most conservative film genres.

A nearly dialogue-free gangland visual tone poem, shot in just four days in the slums of Manila by master cinematographer Christopher Doyle, and directed by the king of Filipino digital filmmaking, Khavn de la Cruz (Mondomanila along with 47 other features, and over 100 shorts!). Starring Japan's indie icon Asano Tadanobu (Ichi the Killer) and one of Mexico's best new actresses Nathalia Acevedo (Post Tenebras Lux), Ruined Heart defies easy explanation. The basic plot is simple: Asano's gangster rescues Acevedo's whore and they go on the run. Along the way there is a Godfather (poet-playwright Vim Nadera) who is “the world's poem”, dance parties, dream parades and carnivals, orgies, and murder. All of this is accompanied by wild visuals and an even wilder soundtrack. Acevedo's exuberant acting and eye popping costumes along with Asano's raw physicality (sequences where Asano runs through the back alleys holding the camera are some of the most striking in recent cinematic memory) create an emotional center to the film that gives the chaos a joyful tenderness that stays with the viewer long after the film is over.

Like Rocky except for billiards instead of boxing, and also if Rocky Balboa was a Type-A, overachieving schoolgirl. This flick offers up a stylish twist on the sports movie, getting you to pump your fist for break shots, high runs, and head strings. Like Full Strike, it's another movie about a washed-up champ who teams up with a younger player for a second chance, this time a young girl who might lose her house after the death of her parents. With charm to burn, a giddy 80s movie love for the underdog, a who's who of billiards stars making cameos, and super-stylishly shot matches, it's the summer billiards blockbuster you didn't know you needed.

Let's face it: Sooner or later, the Internet is going to kill us all. Whether it's an innocuous "like" on Facebook or an indiscreet photo on Instagram, social media tags us and our poor choices wherever we go, a blazing electronic footprint which puts us in the crosshairs of an easily-incited digital hate machine. In this curdling petri dish of online outrage, a gaggle of Internet Tough Guys can lead a cross-platform witch hunt to doxx a girl who just tweeted all the wrong things. And it's all fun and games, until they walk in on a dead body.

The latest from the Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA), Socialphobia is an ice-cold indie thriller that traces the guilty steps of a group of desperate dweebs who find themselves caught up in an all-too-real mystery beyond the scope of their webcams. Using real kids, real locations, and shorn of big-budget artifice, it's daylight noir by way of FaceTime. When an unknown tormentor turns the tables on these misogynistic keyboard warriors, all their everyday hypocrisies come spilling out of the closet, and no amount of mealy-mouthed excuses will bring back the dead. Other ‘message' movies show us who we'd like to be, but Socialphobia tells us exactly who we are.

Published as a three-volume novel in 2013, Solomon's Perjury is Miyabe Miyuki's most ambitious work to date. The author, who writes books in the detective, fantasy and science-fiction genres, is known for her portrayals of powerless women, including housewives, prostitutes and bankruptcy victims. For Solomon's Perjury, she turned to another underclass: children.

A 14-year-old boy is found dead, buried under the snow of his high school. The police and teachers are quick to dismiss the case as suicide, despite an anonymous letter claiming that the boy was pushed. A group of the boy's classmates, led by the fearless Fujino Ryoko, push against their teachers, parents and the police to stage their own mock trial to discover the truth.

The Japanese film industry can sometimes dumb down its most ambitious projects. The choice of Narushima Izuru as director is not surprising; what is surprising is that he was allowed to tell his tale of guilt, shame and redemption with intelligence and a lack of sensationalism. The movies' exhilarating first part leads up to the eve of the trial, in which the students will play the roles of judge, jury and both the prosecution and defence councils. The second film focuses on the trial where both shocking and subtle revelations send irrevocable tremors through the high school and the adults surrounding the case.

Published as a three-volume novel in 2013, Solomon's Perjury is Miyabe Miyuki's most ambitious work to date. The author, who writes books in the detective, fantasy and science-fiction genres, is known for her portrayals of powerless women, including housewives, prostitutes and bankruptcy victims. For Solomon's Perjury, she turned to another underclass: children.

A 14-year-old boy is found dead, buried under the snow of his high school. The police and teachers are quick to dismiss the case as suicide, despite an anonymous letter claiming that the boy was pushed. A group of the boy's classmates, led by the fearless Fujino Ryoko, push against their teachers, parents and the police to stage their own mock trial to discover the truth.

The Japanese film industry can sometimes dumb down its most ambitious projects. The choice of Narushima Izuru as director is not surprising; what is surprising is that he was allowed to tell his tale of guilt, shame and redemption with intelligence and a lack of sensationalism. The movies' exhilarating first part leads up to the eve of the trial, in which the students will play the roles of judge, jury and both the prosecution and defence councils. The second film focuses on the trial where both shocking and subtle revelations send irrevocable tremors through the high school and the adults surrounding the case.

Tsui Hark’s gonzo war movie is China’s 11th highest-grossing movie of all time, and this is the only chance you’ll ever get to see it projected in 3-D, the way Tsui Hark intended. Tiger Mountain is a Chinese national epic, but Tsui has reinvigorated this tale of 30 PLA soldiers taking down a 1000-strong bandit army by stripping out the ideology and returning it to its action roots. That means he serves up heaping helpings of tiger attacks, human dogs, a Lord of the Rings-sized mountain fortress, bandits wearing black lipstick, ski attacks, lots of grenades, a tank, a fight on top of a crashing biplane, and a New York City traffic jam.

A spectacular mid-movie set-piece of bandits laying siege to a snowbound village reminds us that Tsui’s sheer cinematic craftsmanship is unequalled today, and that’s only one of the spectacular set-pieces sprinkled over this movie like chocolate chips on a magical motion picture sundae made of fire! Tsui Hark is a 3-D true believer and he makes sure that not a second goes by when something isn’t poking, shooting, stabbing, exploding, or leaping off the screen right into your lap, whether it’s tigers, bandits, biplanes, or Tony Leung Ka-fai sporting an outrageous fake nose.

Along with his wife Yuri (Mitsuya Yoko), the dying Chihiro (Saitoh Takumi) arrives in Bali to visit his pregnant sister Kumi (Sugino Kiki) and her Dutch husband Luke (film critic Tom Mes) who live there. With long takes and a measured pace, the film allows the cast to really dive into their roles. Focusing on each couple's inability to communicate, their own needs and desires driving them further and further apart, the film is content to let sadness and melancholy permeate through the beautiful scenic backgrounds. Erotic, existential, and rich in atmosphere, Sugino continues to prove that she is an independent director to watch even with only three films under her belt.

Just when you thought that Sono Sion's work can't get any crazier and more imaginative after 2013's Why Don't You Play in Hell?, here comes Tokyo Tribe – a berserk rap musical action drama about warring gangs in the near-future Tokyo, almost entirely told in rhyme, populated by a gallery of off-beat, super-fueled, and extreme characters, all competing for the control of the dystopian megalopolis, eventually having to unite to fight a bigger evil. Based on the popular manga series Tokyo Tribe 2 by Inoue Santa, the film's large cast includes Sometani Shota as the film's MC, Takeuchi Riki (Miike Takashi's Dead or Alive) as the sleazy Lord Bubba, Suzuki Ryohei (Hentai Kamen: Forbidden Superhero) as a blond-haired testosterone-charged gang leader, Seino Nana (Danger Dolls, Nowhere Girl) as the main heroine, and rapper-actor Dais Young. So let Master Sono transport you to a world full of killer rhymes, B-boy battles, high-kicking girls, pervy silliness, wild action (choreographed by Sakaguchi Tak, working under a pseudonym), and filled with so many baroque visual flourishes that the entire movie feels like Versailles stabbing you in both eyes, as you keep asking for more.

Three friends enter their twenties with sex on the mind, easy access to soju, and absolutely no clue how to navigate college, money or women… or really anything else in the world. The leader of the group is a slacker from a comfy background (model-turned-actor Kim Woo-bin) who just wants to date as many women as he can; then there's a wannabe cartoonist from a poor background (Lee Jun-ho from Korean boy band 2PM); and a shy dreamer (actor-singer Kang Ha-neul) who falls for a wealthy older student at the university where he's a freshman.

The friends try to find a goal at what they think is a crucial period in their lives between being a minor and an adult, while engaging in a series of amorous pursuits, and ending up blind-sided at every turn. Thanks to the fresh and breezy screenplay by Lee Byeong-heon (who also contributed scripts for Sunny and Scandal Makers) and great chemistry between the leads, Twenty is not only revolutionary in its transformative effect on the Korean youth drama, which has traditionally been known for a darker subject matter, but is also a painfully hilarious and universally relatable reminder about how awkward transition into adulthood can be.

Following a 16 year stretch in a Malaysian prison Big F (Francis Ng) gathers his old crew together for one last big heist. Their brilliant (if a bit deranged) plan? Steal parts off of junker police vans, turn their minibus into a heist vehicle above the law, and rob mainland corpses stuffed with cash that are being transported over the border. Only two problems: they weren't the first to have this idea, and they are beginning to like being cops. Shoot outs, bicycle chases, kidnappings, bowling and cockroach infestations ensue. The cast is a who's who of Hong Kong genre actors, and prolific screenwriter Lau's directorial debut is stylish and fun. This is the type of film that made audiences fall in love with Hong Kong films in the first place.

There will never be another Panna Rittikrai. Vengeance of an Assassin is the final, brutal battlesong from the kinetic master of mayhem who discovered Tony Jaa and put Thai action cinema on the map. It's a no-holds-barred all-you-can-eat action fiesta, delivering everything from badass games of soccer to high impact gun-fu. It's also the heartwarming story of two buff orphans who believe in filial piety and tearing thugs apart like warm bread. When the eldest brother (Thai stunt king Dan Chupong) leaves home in search of the truth behind their parents' deaths, a web of secrets, carnage, and more carnage follows him wherever he goes. When he's forced to team up with his little brother (21-year-old Nantawooti Boonrapsup, all grown up since 2010's Power Kids), it becomes an ass-kicking family affair. The master of single-take destruction, Rittikrai delivers Buster Keaton-style train brawls, flying sledgehammers, copious gun fights and one glorious, Freudian double impalement. In the scorching, sweat-drenched dreamlife of Panna Rittikrai, family and honor are everything, and justice can only be forged from superior skill and righteous physical destruction.

Horror movies are all the same these days. But finally, here's something new. Like early-career Kurosawa Kiyoshi, Violator is a deliberately-paced puzzle that keeps your skin creeping as it stays one step ahead of its audience, delivering unforgettably macabre images that hint at one of the darkest world views we've ever seen. The first half of his movie is a series of surreal vignettes as a hurricane approaches Manila: we meet an old cop haunted by a ghost and lung cancer, a young cop and his lover, two hipsters who set themselves on fire, a girl who jumps off a building, a church service that turns into a mass suicide. It's the end of the world and soon the cops have arrested a kid who claims to be possessed by the devil and locked him in the holding cells. But as the hurricane rips into Manila, their station is cut off from the outside world and they realize that what's inside with them is pure evil. Dark, despairing, and beautiful in its ugliness, Violator is one of the few horror movies in recent years to be as interested in emotions as jump scares.

The Waikiki Brothers are a traveling cover band going nowhere. Depressing gig after depressing gig causes their saxophonist to quit, prompting a return to the hometown of guitarist Sung-woo (Lee Eol) to work as the house band in a hotel. This need for a fresh start is complicated by the Sung-woo’s bandmates and their propensity for drink, drugs and women. Sung-woo also runs into his high school friends and crush and has to face the bitterness that comes with growing up. Director Yim’s keen sense of character and dialogue keep this Korean cinema classic restrained and compassionate even during the tough emotional scenes.

Yim Soon-rye (one of Korea's few female directors) turns in the All The President's Men of biotechnology with The Whistleblower, a powerhouse thriller based on the true story of one of the biggest scientific frauds of the 21st century. Dr. Lee is a thoughtful scientist whose pioneering work with cloned stem cells is spurring talk of the Nobel prize. He is also a monster who has faked his research and when a TV producer gets involved, The Whistleblower becomes a white-knuckle thriller where secret phone calls, boardroom confrontations, DNA analysis, and conversations that contain double, and sometimes triple, meanings are assembled into a high-performance engine designed to flood your brain with outrage. Not since Michael Mann directed The Insider has the world of corporate medical research seemed so out of control, so bleak, and so deadly.

Fukasaku Kinji’s early career yakuza masterpiece is just as gritty and angry as his later work. The film follows lone wolf Takakura Ken plotting with his girlfriend (Nakahara Sanae) to trick his younger brother’s (Kitaoji Kinya) delinquent gang to help them rip off a money courier at the airport. Kitaoji’s crew returns to the hideout with the bag of yakuza cash and discovers just how much money is really involved. Reeling from the double-cross and trying to hide the loot, the kids get caught by Takakura and Ebara, imprisoned in a warehouse, and tortured. Meanwhile, Takakura and Kitaoji’s big brother (Mikuni Rentaro), a member of the rival gang that has been ripped off, has to find his brothers and recover the cash and his honor. Weighing cold hard yen against filial bonds, no holds are barred as the three brothers rip up the streets to Tomita Isao’s amazing jazz/surf rock hybrid soundtrack. Shot on the real life mean streets of Japanese slums, Fukasaku’s blood soaked yakuza debut mixes social criticism, American noir, French New Wave sensibilities and hard men with a penchant for violence.