Old Father Geek here with the latest HIFF (Hawaiian International Film Festival)report from our man in Honolulu Albert Lanier. Lots of coolness by way of Far Eastern Film... sooooo if that's your cup of tea, pull yourself up to the table and get ready to drink it all in...

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22

Second day of HIFF. First full day of screenings. I was sequestered at the Signature Dole Cannery 18 theatres here in Honolulu.

Last night's opening night film-CLEAN-was actually quite good despite some reviews I've read in film mags. Star Maggie Cheung was at the Hawaii Theatre downtown to help introduce the film (she's on the jury this year).

I watched 30 minutes of the Chinese film SOUTH OF THE CLOUDS directed by Zhu Wen. Drama centers on an older man Xu Da Qin (played by actor Li Xue Jian) who wants to make a trip to Yunnan province. A short preceeded SOUTH, Director Marv Newland's BEIJING FLIPBOOK which essentially is 3 minute unspooking of images drawn in watercolor on an almost peach colored background which at the end turns out to be a decent short. Anyway, SOUTH OF THE CLOUDS looks so-so from what I saw.

Ditched the rest of SOUTH to see Korean Director Kim Ho-Jun's comedy MY LITTLE BRIDE.

MY LITTLE BRIDE has a wacky plotlne: a 15 year old virgin high school girl named Boeun who winds up marrying twentysomething college student Sangmin at the crafty insistence of Boeun's grandfather who made a act years ago to Sangmin's grandather (whom he served with in the armed forces) that their grandkids would marry. Desite its offbeat premise, MY LITTLE BRIDE works effectively well due to some obvious but effective twists and turns such as art major Sangmin winding up as a student teacher intern in Boeun's class at her high school.

Credit helmer Kim Ho-Jun and screenwriter Yoo Soo-Nil for this hilarious screwball/romantic comedy. Kudos also to leads Moon Geun-Young and Kim Rae-Won (who also stars in ...ING also playing at this years fest) for their fine work as Boeun and Sangmin.

Caught the U.S. premiere of HANA AND ALICE centering on two friends who wind up fooling and manipulating an impressionable young lad (who calls himself Miyamoto Musashi) into thinking that he has amnesia and fell in love with the devious Hana (who concocted the "You said you loved me" story) and once dated and broke up with Alice (whom Hana talks into going along with her plan).

HANA AND ALICE also peers into the two schoolgirls' lives and personalities-Hana joins a storytelling club to get close to her would-be boyfriend, Alice is scouted by a talent agent and auditions for modeling and acting gigs. Generally, an evocative rendering of girlhood adolescence. Done with humor and sensitivity by Shunji Iwai (I loved the Tezuka refence in this film and the giant Astro Boy balloon that pops up during a school festival) who also wrote the script alongside good performances by Anne Suzuki and Yu Aoi.

MOHAVE was the last film of the evening at 10 p.m. An American idie ostensibly influenced by THE HILLS HAVE EYES and DELIVERANCE focused on 4 friends who drive from L.A. out into the desert and attend an open-air rave. The buddies end up taking Mescaline and sleeping off the night in the desert along with a young college girl. Unfortunately, the battery of their SUV is stolen and one of the 4 friends is confronted by two "degenerate" biker types. The rest of the film erodes into a terrifying fight for survival as Josh-one of the 4 guys who drove from L.A.-shoots one of the bike-ridding scum which sets out a chain reaction which attracts more bikers including their leader Dom.

A tightly edited though predictable thriller. Fine performances from a cast that includes Eric Christian Olsen as Josh and tv veterans Rider Strong and Bumper Robinson as two of his pals as well as first-rate acting job by Dash Mihok as Dom (somebody give this guy a leading role please!) Essentially MOHAVE is the perfect late night film for midnight slots at film festivals.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23

The third day of HIFF. Started it off in the morning by going to "meet the press" event-basically a meet and mingle shindig- on the second floor of the Outrigger Waikiki on the Beach hotel. Not bad.

Saw Ryuhei Kitamura's AZUMI with Aya Ueto in the title role. Ueto plays the only female member of a band of assassins raised from childhood by a former samurai warrior during the reign of Tokugawa Ieyasu. After years of training, these young assassins are finally given a mission: to kill a feudal lord who is an ally of defeated warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi and who wants to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate.

AZUMI is a fairly entertaining Jidai Geki feature with watchable swordfight sequences and an offbeat, effeminate killer in a white kimono who always holds a red rose. A solid effort here by director Kitamura. The grand climax of the film where Azumi takes on dozens of samurai and assorted swordwielding rifraff in a small village as well worth seeing.

Then I saw the doc OVERNIGHT. The doc's subject is Troy Duffy, the egotistical writer and director of BOONDOCK SAINTS. Duffy was a bartender who managed to strike up a deal with Miramax's Harvey Weinstein to produce his first feature film. The Miramax deal included a payment of $300,000 for Duffy's script, a production budget of $15 million, a soundtrack album featuring music from Duffy's rock band "The Brood" and as a cherry on the cake, Weinstein bought the watering hole that Duffy tended bar at. And he pissed it all away...Duffy seemed ill prepared for his big break (how do you sign a film deal and not get any ancillary tv, video/DVD and Foreign rights or a cut thereof?) verbally striking out at Weinstein and Miramax executive Meryl Poster ( modesty prevents me from writing the epithets he called them) and continuing to bluster about how great he is and how he will eventually triumph.

Director Mark Brian Smith and Producer Tony Montana (who were involved with Duffy at one point) do a fine job with this train-wreck-of-an-ego doc. OVERNIGHT has to be one of the most entertaining films I've seen at HIFF thus far.

I next saw the U.S. Premiere of JASMINE WOMEN with Zhang Ziyi and Joan Chen. JASMINE WOMEN is a melodrama that takes place in Shanghai over the course of several succeeding generations centering on mothers and daughters played by Chen and Ziyi respectively. Man these ladies are gorgeous! Especially Zhang Ziyi who is shot in close ups with such loving care by DP Yao Xiao Feng.

JASMINE WOMEN is a nice directorial debut for Cinematographer Hou Yong. Ziyi and Chen support this film admirably with respective performances and actor/director Jiang Wen does a fine turn here as Movie Mogul Mr Meng. Certainly, a good-looking feature with fine production values.

U.S. Premiere of PEEP TV SHOW was the last film of the night. Not worth writing about in depth. The feature essentially focuses on a peeping tom named Hasegawa who rigs hidden camera in the apartments and homes of varied women and couples, record their activities and then post the videos on his website (named after the title of the film).

Director Yutaka Tsuchiya seems to want to show the societal disconnect inherent in the age of digital media mixed in with historical and political context and subtext ( images of the 9/11 attack are projected in a apartment room and on the exterior of a building). Actually, it just seems rather tame and boring with the seeming semblance of substance.

END

Albert Lanier out for now...