Kung Fu Hustle
This anarchic homage to—and parody of—classic martial arts movies is nonstop action fueled by outrageous special effects. Featuring a cast of legendary Hong Kong action stars, Kung Fu Hustle pits the ragtag denizens of a rundown slum against the dapper and ruthless Axe Gang. With this breakthrough film, director Stephen Chow (Shaolin Soccer, The Mermaid) catapulted from clown prince of Hong Kong to worldwide sensation.
Director: Stephen Chow (Hong Kong, China). Released: 2004. Length: 98 min. Format: DCP. Language: Cantonese with English subtitles. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://anniversaries.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. After Five. Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible. Captioning.
Friday, September 5, 2025, 7:00 PM – 8:45 PM.
In the Mood for Love + In the Mood for Love 2001
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4K Restorations!
Followed by a talk by the Textile Museum’s Lee Talbot and a reception featuring free noodles from Chinese Street Market!
It’s 1962 in Hong Kong: Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk) move into neighboring apartments on the same day. Their encounters are formal and polite—until a discovery about their spouses creates an intimate bond between them. At once delicately mannered and visually extravagant, Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love is a masterful evocation of romantic longing and fleeting moments. The last 25 years of cinema owe much to the stylistic influence of this film, from its aching musical soundtrack to the exquisitely abstract cinematography by Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping-bin. (Description adapted from Janus Films.)
Director: Wong Kar-wai (Hong Kong). Released: 2000. Length: 98 min. Format: DCP. Language: Cantonese with English subtitles.
Followed by In the Mood for Love 2001
This short film precursor similarly…
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://anniversaries.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. Accessibility: Captioning. Assisted listening devices. Wheelchair accessible.
Sunday, September 7, 2025, 3:30 PM – 5:30 PM.
Sansho the Bailiff
When an idealistic governor disobeys the reigning feudal lord, he is cast into exile. His wife and children are left to fend for themselves and eventually wrenched apart by vicious slave traders. Under Kenji Mizoguchi’s dazzling direction, this classic Japanese story became one of cinema’s greatest masterpieces, a monumental, empathetic expression of human resilience in the face of evil. (Description courtesy of Janus Films)
Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Country: Japan. Released: 1954. Length 124 min. Format: DCP. Language: Japanese with English subtitles. Image Courtesy of Janus Films.
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://nmaamatinees.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. Accessibility: Assisted listening devices. Captioning. Wheelchair accessible.
Wednesday, September 10, 2025, 2:00 PM – 4:05 PM.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
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4K Restoration!
Set in Qing dynasty China, this sweeping romantic drama chronicles the chase for the stolen sword of destiny. Ang Lee’s ravishing masterpiece not only introduced the wuxia martial arts genre to American audiences but also elevated it to new heights of sophistication. You’ll never forget the graceful, gravity-defying action scenes choreographed by the legendary Yuen Woo-ping. The story expertly weaves between adventure, action, drama, and romance thanks to a star-studded cast including Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun-fat.
Writing in the New York Times in 2023, Brandon Yu credited Lee with “taking B-movie pulp and transforming it into a tragic fable, a feminist story of repression, a heartbreaking love story and a technically groundbreaking action blockbuster.”
Director: Ang Lee (China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, United States). Released: 2000. Length: 120 min. Format: DCP. Language: Mandarin with English subtitles. Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://anniversaries.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. After Five. Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible. Captioning. Assisted listening devices.
Friday, September 12, 2025, 7:00 PM – 9:15 PM.
2046
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4K Restoration!
Wong Kar-wai’s loose sequel to In the Mood for Love combines a languorous air of romantic longing with a dizzying time-hopping structure and avant-sci-fi twist. In this film, writer Chow Mo-wan pens a futuristic love story inspired by his many failed relationships with women who drift in and out of his life (and the one who goes in and out of room 2046 down the hall from his apartment).
2046’s dazzling fantasy sequences give Wong and his collaborators license to let their imaginations run wild. Cinematographer Christopher Doyle and editor/costume designer/production designer William Chang Suk-ping provide sumptuous visuals. Together, these masters of cinema propel operatic emotions skyward toward the sublime. (Description adapted from Janus Films.)
Director: Wong Kar-wai (Hong Kong). Released: 2004. Length: 128 min. Format: DCP. Language: Cantonese with English subtitles. Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://anniversaries.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible. Captioning. Assisted listening devices.
Sunday, September 14, 2025, 2:00 PM – 4:15 PM.
Setan Jawa
Live musical accompaniment by singer Peni Candra Rini and her ensemble
Kick off our celebration of Indonesian cinema with a multimedia work by its most celebrated director, Garin Nugroho. Setan Jawa is inspired as much by Javanese mythology and shadow puppetry as it is by the German Expressionist silent film masterpieces Nosferatu and Metropolis.
The film follows a poor man from the countryside who falls in love with an aristocratic young woman and makes a deal with the devil so he can marry her. But when she learns of the pact, she sets out to negotiate for her husband’s soul.
Director: Garin Nugroho (Indonesia). Released: 2017. Length: 73 min. Format: DCP. Silent.
Peni Candra Rini is a renowned Javanese singer, composer, and faculty member at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts. The Kronos Quartet has described her as “one of the world’s greatest singers.” She is a master of several traditional forms and is regarded as one of Indonesia’s most daring young composers, one of only a handful of female…
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://indonesia2025.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. After Five. Accessibility: Assisted listening devices. Captioning. Wheelchair accessible.
Friday, September 26, 2025, 7:00 PM – 8:15 PM.
Opera Jawa
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In Person: Garin Nugroho, director
Followed by a reception courtesy of the Embassy of Indonesia!
This grand musical film boasts dazzling sets designed by contemporary visual artists, choreography by famed Indonesian dancer Eko Supriyanto, hypnotic gamelan music, and a story based on the abduction of Sita from the Hindu epic The Ramayana. Opera Jawa earned praise from no less a luminary than opera and theater director Peter Sellars, who commended its director, Garin Nugroho, for “creating a new language for film.”
Set in lush forests and pristine beaches, this film tells the story of a potter’s wife who, in a moment of weakness, is seduced by a flirtatious butcher, which sets off an epic battle for her affections. Nathan Lee of The Village Voice calls it “a radiant folk fantasia, at once sophisticated and elemental, freewheeling and composed.”
Director: Garin Nugroho (Indonesia, Austria). Released: 2010. Length: 120 min. Format: 35mm. Language: Bahasa Indonesia. Image courtesy of…
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://indonesia2025.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. Accessibility: ASL-interpreted program. Captioning. Wheelchair accessible.
Sunday, September 28, 2025, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM.
Screening and Discussion: May All the Little Girls Win
Enjoy a screening of artist Charmaine Poh’s short films and a post-screening discussion in this special event organized with the Goethe-Institut Washington.
Working across film, photography, media, and performance, Charmaine Poh examines ideas of agency, repair, and the body across worlds. Her work is also influenced by Eastern philosophy, media criticism, and cyberfeminism.
Order of Screenings Kin (2021, digital film, 2:54 min.) , What’s softest in the world rushes and runs over what’s hardest in the world (2024, 4K digital film, 14:30 min.) , public solitude (2022, 2-channel digital video, synthetic media, 4:00 min.) , GOOD MORNING YOUNG BODY (2023, performance-lecture digital video, synthetic media, 6:23 min.) , in the shadow of the cosmic (2023, performance-lecture, 30:00 min.), Register in advance to get the best experience.
About Charmaine Poh
Charmaine Poh (b. 1990) is an artist from Singapore working across media, moving image, and performance to peel apart, interrogate, and hold ideas of agency,…
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1596572233529?aff=oddtdtcreator. Categories: Films. Lectures & Discussions. After Five. Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible.
Tuesday, September 30, 2025, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM.