Ari Laurel
A new release is the perfect excuse to revisit Stanley Kwan’s elegant classic film...
The Criterion Collection has re-released the Stanley Kwan classic, Rouge, with a 4k remaster. Set in Hong Kong in 1987, this new-wave Hong Kong film is aesthetic nostalgia for today’s viewer, in 2022—but it’s...
Park Chan-wook’s new film ‘Decision to Leave’ is an alluring love story
People who are familiar with Park Chan-wook’s prior work (Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, Lady Vengeance, and The Handmaiden) should not expect a similarly twisted plot that he has come to be known for. While the...
Visually stunning, ‘A New Old Play’ guides the audience through a changing China
A New Old Play is a visually stunning collection of set pieces, miniatures, blocking, and stage effects, which guides the audience through a changing China, from the Republic period to the Cultural Revolution. In...
100 Yen Love makes us yearn for victory
100 Yen Love directed by Masaharu Take shows a side of Japan that most audiences aren’t privy to. In the opening of the film, 32-year-old Ichiko sits at home, smoking in front of her...
The ethereal “I Was a Simple Man” follows a man and his ghost wife...
What does surrendering to death look like? For Masao Matsuyoshi, acceptance comes in the form of a ghost. When I first heard of Christopher Makoto Yogi's I Was a Simple Man, I was instantly...
The documentary KALINGA follows the lives and challenges of three Filipina nannies and caregivers...
It is the twisted reality of care work that many domestic workers raise the children of other families in order to care for their own children from afar. Such is the reality of Maria,...
“Death to Nintendo” is a coming-of-age story whose characters’ ongoing buildup and release of...
You don’t have to have been brought up on Filipino ghost stories to find Death of Nintendo a nostalgic ride. Children’s rooms are littered with retro game consoles, Nike Air Maxes, and other toys...
A 1960s Japanese women’s Olympic volleyball team rules the court in “The Witches of...
Company sports teams aren’t uncommon. (Microsoft has not one, but two cricket teams.) But in 1960s Japan, being a woman textile worker on a company volleyball team meant more than simply building camaraderie and...
API writers “complicate and expand” the notion of home in Go Home!
Go Home! is a compilation of a thousand different experiences in response to two very familiar words. The anthology is a partnership between the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and the Feminist Press – organizations...
Island Soldier documentary demands outrage as it shows Micronesia as a “recruiter paradise” for...
Nathan Fitch’s documentary Island Soldier opens with the homecoming of Sgt. Sapuro Nena, affectionately nicknamed “Sapp” by family and friends. However, the faces and the sober silence of the reunion are unmistakable. This homecoming...