By Ryan Keating-Lambert
Filmasia 2016 is currently happening in the regal Kino Lucerna and goes through to Sunday the 10th. This year the popular festival features a number of extremely diverse and outstanding titles from South Korea, China, Taiwan and Japan. Zombies, assassins and epic love stories. Check out some programme recommendations below.
Thursday
The Assassin is a poetic Chinese epic in the wuzia genre – a medievil genre with elements of fantasy. Set in the 9th century, assassin Yinnian (Shu Qi) must kill the man she was once promised to marry, who is also a military leader in North China. The Assassin is a visual feast. Check it out tonight at 18.00 in Kino Lucerna.
Friday
This is definitely the highlight of the festival for me and has a bit of a Zombie night feel to the whole thing. At 19.00 the night kicks off with The Wailing, a horror movie by South Korean thrill master Na Hong-jin about a series of unusual murders in a small town outside of Seoul, which of course originates from a strange and horrific skin disease. Yum.
Following that is Train to Busan, an action / horror fun ride with some clever plot twists and lovable characters. Seok Woo (Yoo Gong, also in The Age of Shadows which showed last night) is taking his daughter on a high-speed train to the city of Busan and gets caught up in the zombie apocalypse on the way. Zombies on trains, pretty entertaining stuff. Straight after is Seoul Station, the animated prequel to Train to Busan. A fascinating look into the social hierarchy of big cities like Seoul, and also a look at how the zombie virus begins. Director Sang-ho Yeon directed both films and is now a well known and respected name in the South Korean film industry.
Related: Train to Busan review
Saturday
On the final day of the festival, be sure to have a look at Japanese Studio Ghibli’s latest collaboration with French director Michaël Dudok de Wit, The Red Turtle at 16.00. An animation of incredible colour and feeling from the same studio that brought you Spirited Away and Princess Monoke. Closing the festival is the popular Japanese film Fly Me to Minami, a colourful journey through the struggles of intercontinental love with people living in Osaka.
All films have Czech and English subtitles, except The Handmaiden which only has Czech subtitles. For tickets and more programme information, visit the Filmasia website.
Feature photo: Double Exposure
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