New York Asian Film Festival 2022 Part Two: SHIN ULTRAMAN, THE SALES GIRL, BIG NIGHT!, THE THIEVES

It’s all too easy to suffer from FOMO as another festival draws to a close, and the New York Asian Film Festival is no exception. Despite having seen a great variety of films from this year’s lineup, I already have regrets about the ones I didn’t get a chance to see. Nonetheless, read on to learn more about four films I thoroughly enjoyed: a Japanese tokusatsu blockbuster, a Mongolian coming-of-age movie, a needle-sharp Filipino satire, and an action-packed Korean heist film from one of that country’s most successful directors.

SHIN ULTRAMAN (Shinji Higuchi)

In 2016, Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi—collaborators on the cult anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion—rebooted the world’s most famous kaiju for the twenty-first century with Shin Godzilla. Acclaimed for its sharp commentary on the ineptitude of Japanese bureaucracy and the titular creature’s menacing new design, Shin Godzilla opened the doors for Anno and Higuchi to revive further tokusatsu series for a new generation of moviegoers. The second of those films, Shin Ultraman, is a bold, bright, and almost heartachingly sincere film that reboots the Ultraman television series created by Eiji Tsuburaya (also one of the co-creators of Godzilla).

Following the events of Shin Godzilla, the Japanese government has established the S-Class Species Suppression Protocol (SSSP) to help address the newfound threat posed by the invasive “S-Class species” also known as kaiju. (At one point, a character muses, “For some reason, kaiju only appear in Japan,” and I could not help but laugh.) While attempting to save a child from a kaiju attack, SSSP member Shinji Kaminaga (Takumi Saitoh) is inadvertently killed by the giant silver extraterrestrial who has arrived to save humanity from the monsters: Ultraman.

Ultraman merges with Kaminaga, taking on his appearance and his place in the SSSP; he also begins to bond with another member of the team, Hiroko Asami (Masami Nagasawa). However, when further extraterrestrials arrive on earth with far more nefarious plans for humanity, Kaminaga-as-Ultraman must convince them that this species with its inferior intelligence and abilities is actually worth saving.

Directed by Higuchi with Anno serving in a variety of other roles including writer and producer, Shin Ultraman is a burst of sunlight where Shin Godzilla was a dark, ominous thundercloud. Even as it too seeks to expose and comment on the inaction of Japan’s government following national tragedies, this film firmly believes that, as one character puts it, “Despair can weaken the spirit. It’s better to have hope.” 

The film uses handheld, moving camerawork and tight close-ups to build tension during scenes that would otherwise be rather staid—you know, the ones in between the action set pieces, where people are just talking about kaiju and what needs to be done. In contrast, the fight scenes between Ultraman and his various foes are suitably grand in scope and allow us to bask in the glory of them waging epic destruction. After all, why else are you watching something about a giant silver man picking fights with monsters but to see buildings being knocked over and pummeled into dust?

Nonetheless, as good as the action scenes may be, the best thing about Shin Ultraman is the way it gives us reasons to care about the characters at the center of the story instead of just the spectacle. Saitoh is suitably stoic as the titular man-turned-machine, while Nagasawa’s warm, funny performance serves as the perfect reminder to him—and us—that there is still some decency to be found in humanity.

THE SALES GIRL (Janchivdorj Sengedorj)

A quirky coming-of-age movie out of Mongolia, The Sales Girl chronicles the misadventures of a college student who takes a temporary job in a sex shop and learns how to spread her wings and fly free. Sounds rife with every trope in the book, right? But in actuality, The Sales Girl ends up being something far more surprising.

Directed by Janchivdorj Sengedorj, the film focuses on Saruul (newcomer Bayartsetseg Bayangerel), a young woman who is studying to be a nuclear engineer at her family’s behest; secretly, she would much rather be an artist. When her classmate Namuuna falls and breaks her leg, she asks the quiet and responsible Saruul to temporarily take over her job while she recovers. That job? Cashier and delivery girl at a small sex shop run by the eccentric Katya (Enkhtuul Oidovjamts).

Working in the sex shop is a strangely perfect fit for the deadpan Saruul; from pitching blow-up dolls to some obnoxious young men to encountering one of her professors as a customer, she’s rarely thrown off her game despite having little to no sexual experience herself. And despite having absolutely nothing in common, Katya and Saruul gradually form a bond, as Katya’s liberated personality and belief that people should live their lives to the fullest help inspire Saruul to do the same.

Even in her quiet confusion, Bayartsetseg is a compelling screen presence; her relatable performance ensures that Saruul’s gradual awakening (and we’re not just talking sexually here) elicits a wry, knowing smile from the audience. Enkhtuul ensures that we see the pain and sadness occasionally leak through Katya’s glamorous facade; she’s not a cliche sent by the movie gods to guide our heroine on her quest, but something far more complex…something that Saruul never quite understands, but grows to respect regardless.

If there is a third main character in The Sales Girl, it is composer Bayasgalan Dulguun, also known as indie folk singer Magnolian, whose music is ever-present throughout the film, whether it be on Saruul’s headphones or performed onscreen by Bayasgalan himself. In one of the film’s more intriguing transitions, Saruul puts on her headphones and gets on a bus, only for Bayasgalan to be sitting a few rows back, singing along to his own music as the lighting changes to the colorful strobe of a concert venue. His presence in the film as a Greek chorus for a new generation is one of the many reasons that The Sales Girl is a stand-out.

BIG NIGHT! (Jun Robles Lana)

What would you do if your name ended up on a list that could get you killed? That is the premise of Jun Robles Lana’s pitch-black satire Big Night!, which chronicles the overnight odyssey of one young man determined to clear his name and save his life. In the Philippines, where the war on drugs has reached such intense proportions that extrajudicial killings are frighteningly common, such a conundrum is far more realistic (and frightening) than one might initially think.

Dharna (Christian Bables) is an openly gay beautician beloved by his community. So, when a neighbor gets advance access to a list of drug addicts being submitted to the local authorities, she tells Dharna to watch himself; his name is on it, despite him being entirely clean. The list is being submitted the following day, so Dharna has one night to try and figure out who put his name on the list and to get it removed. Otherwise, he could end up just like the young man who, in Big Night!’s disturbing opening sequence, is abruptly executed at point-blank range by a killer on a motorcycle. (That said sequence is immediately followed by the locals both screaming in shock and making jokes in bad taste perfectly sums up the tone of this delightfully frenetic film.)

What follows is a series of encounters with deranged and corrupt local government officials, including one district leader who wants to employ Dharna as a makeup artist for all of the increasingly unpleasant-looking corpses that keep arriving in the morgue each day, and another who forces Dharna to march in circles for hours to prove he isn’t an addict, only to also insist on a clean drug test that won’t be ready until too late. In the meantime, Dharna’s father (Ricky Davao) is giving him grief for not visiting his dead mother on All Saints’ Day, his dead mother (Gina Alajar) is haunting him with her disappointment in him, and his boyfriend, Zeus (Nico Antonio), is demanding his services for an all-male beauty pageant (and hiding a big secret of his own).

In the vein of other infamous all-night adventures such as Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, Big Night! highlights the absurdity of Dharna’s situation via the various larger-than-life characters that he encounters throughout the night. His reactions to their ridiculous antics echo those of the audience, ranging from sheer disbelief to intense desperation to downright hysteria. It’s hard to be the seemingly ordinary man surrounded by such a colorful cast of weirdos, but Bables takes on the challenge with great success and elicits more than a few laughs himself.

Other standouts among the wonderful ensemble cast include Antonio as the flamboyant, seemingly frivolous Zeus and John Arcillo as a former actor turned local bureaucrat who may hold the key to Dharna getting off that list—but it comes at a high cost that Dharna may not be willing to pay. It all winds to a shocking conclusion that serves as an unpleasant but necessary reminder to the audience that despite the unreality of Dharna’s situation, the consequences of the Philippines’ brutal war on drugs are all too real.

THE THIEVES (Choi Dong-hoon)

The latest film from South Korean director Choi Dong-hoon, Alienoid, screens on the closing night of the NYAFF before being released in U.S. theaters on August 26. However, that’s not the only one of Choi’s films playing at this year’s festival, and while the other is a decade old, it’s still worth seeing.

The Thieves was a massive box office hit upon its release in South Korea in 2012, and it’s easy to see why. Starring Lee Jung-jae—currently Emmy nominated for his lead role in Squid Game—and an all-star cast that includes Kim Yoon-seok (The Chaser), Kim Hye-soo (Signal), Jun Ji-hyun (Kingdom), and Kim Soo-hyun (It’s Okay to Not Be Okay), the film is a glitzy, funny, action-packed heist film in the vein of Ocean’s Eleven and The Italian Job while also possessing an appeal that is entirely its own.

Lee Jung-jae plays Popeye, a thief who decides to join up with his old boss, Macau Park (Kim Yoon-seok), for one last big heist: stealing the Tear of the Sun, an extremely valuable diamond currently in the possession of a powerful crime lord’s mistress. While the mistress is visiting a casino in Macau to scratch her gambling itch, Macau Park, Popeye, and a motley crew of cat burglars, safe crackers, and cons will attempt to steal the diamond from her suite. It’s an exceedingly complex job, made all the more complicated by various romantic entanglements and suspicions of previous betrayals.

Running approximately two hours and fifteen minutes, The Thieves is not a short film, but thanks to Choi’s stylish direction and the cast’s phenomenal performances, it still manages to not overstay its welcome. The standout member of the ensemble is Jun Ji-hyun as Yenicall, a gorgeous and hilarious cat burglar who, when she isn’t scaling buildings via wire, is fending off the attentions of nearly every man around her (some more bothersome than others). But from Lee Jung-jae’s jittery, livewire performance as Popeye to Kim Hye-soo bringing her natural glamour and charisma to the role of safe-cracker Pepsee, you’re guaranteed to fall in love with someone among The Thieves.

Conclusion:

These are of course only a fraction of the films comprising this year’s New York Asian Film Festival slate; I wish I had time to have seen more. If there are any I missed that you saw and loved, please let me know so I can seek them out!

What do you think? Which films in this year’s NYAFF lineup did you most enjoy? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

The 2022 New York Asian Film Festival runs July 15-31, 2022. You can find a complete schedule of screenings here.