Afterhours @ NMAA: Hong Kong Style
Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/afterhours-nmaa-hong-kong-style-tickets-379998755507
Join us for an outdoor festival to celebrate summer and the Made in Hong Kong Film Festival! Enjoy art and music from across Asia with performances, food, and exclusive curator talks. Experience the museum galleries open late, purchase signature cocktails from Please Bring Chips, and taste food from local vendors, including Queen’s English, Lei Musubi, and Ruby Scoops. At 7:30 p.m. see Jackie Chan at his very best in a special outdoor screening of Drunken Master, perhaps the greatest kung fu comedy of all time, as part of our annual Made in Hong Kong Film Festival.
· 5–8 p.m.: Museum galleries are open and food and drinks from local vendors are available to purchase.
· 5:30–6:30 p.m.: Curator talks on the exhibition Underdogs and Antiheroes: Japanese Prints from the Moskowitz Collection.
· 5–7:30 p.m.: Performance by DJ 2-Tone of Shaolin Jazz and live martial arts demos.
· 7:30–9:30 p.m.: Outdoor…
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Freer plaza. Cost: Free.
Friday, August 12, 2022, 5:00 PM – 9:30 PM.
Drunken Master
Accompanied by a live DJ performance by DJ 2-Tone of Shaolin Jazz!
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQMNllz6aE0
The festival’s closing weekend gets off to a boozy start with an outdoor screening of perhaps the greatest kung fu comedy of all time! Jackie Chan is at his hilarious and athletic best as Wong Fe-hung, a mischievous young man who is sent by his father to learn some discipline from an eccentric kung fu master who teaches Wong the “drunken boxing” style, which he masters just in time to defeat a rival master hired by an evil businessman to kill Wong’s father. Chan’s woozy, sauced-up action scenes are virtuoso displays of his comedic and fighting talents, and the film has gone on to influence not only other movies, but fashion, music, manga, anime, and video games. DJ 2-Tone will provide the beats to go along with every kick and punch, and cocktails will be available for sale so you can drink along with the master. (Dir.: Yuen Woo-ping, Hong Kong, 1978, 110 min. Blu-Ray, Cantonese with…
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Freer Plaza. Cost: Free.
Friday, August 12, 2022, 7:30 PM.
The Young Master
Get your free tickets here: https://mihk2022.eventive.org/films
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiYkE_7HV2w
The first film Jackie Chan made at Golden Harvest—the studio where he would go on to make many of his greatest films—was a record-breaking box office smash that firmly established him as Hong Kong’s leading kung fu superstar. In his second outing as director, Chan plays Dragon Lung, a martial arts student who sets out to find his errant brother, who has defected to a rival school, only to get mixed up in a case of mistaken identity from which he must fight his way out. It all builds to an epic, nearly twenty-minute final battle that sees Chan balancing slapstick and thrilling action with rip-roaring virtuosity. Description by the Criterion Channel. (Dir.: Jackie Chan, Hong Kong, 1980, 106 min. 35mm, Cantonese with English subtitles)
Images courtesy of Janus Films.
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free.
Sunday, August 14, 2022, 2:00 PM.
Meet the Filmmaker: Ahsen Nadeem
Crows Are White
Friday, August 19, 7 p.m.
In person: Ahsen Nadeem, director; Aaron P. Proffitt, Professor of Japanese Studies, University at Albany
Get your free tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/crows-are-white-tickets-388083437007
“I’ll be honest with you, I’m a fantastic liar,” announces Ahsen Nadeem at the outset of his autobiographical documentary. The son of devout Muslim parents who want him to settle down with a nice Muslim girl, he has secretly married an American, non-Muslim woman and is afraid to tell them. Seeking spiritual guidance, he travels to a secretive Buddhist temple in Japan where the monks practice extreme acts of physical endurance. But the only monk who offers help is an outcast himself who prefers heavy metal music and sweet desserts to the rigors of monastery life. As their friendship evolves over the course of five years, Ahsen comes closer to telling his parents the truth. This charming film strikes a balance between weighty issues of faith and familial loyalty with…
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free.
Friday, August 19, 2022, 7:00 PM.
Samurai Rebellion
Get your free tickets here: mifune2022.eventive.org/films
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPTLUZFRq4
Toshiro Mifune stars as Isaburo Sasahara, an aging swordsman living a quiet life until his clan lord orders that his son marry the lord's mistress, who has recently displeased the ruler. Reluctantly, father and son take in the woman and, to the family’s surprise, the young couple fall in love. But the lord soon reverses his decision and demands the mistress’s return. Against all expectations, Isaburo and his son refuse, risking the destruction of their entire family. Director Masaki Kobayashi's Samurai Rebellion is the gripping story of a peaceful man who finally decides to take a stand against injustice. Description courtesy of Janus Films. (Dir.: Masaki Kobayashi, Japan, 1967, 121 min. b&w, 35mm, Japanese with English subtitles)
Images courtesy of Janus Films.
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free.
Friday, August 26, 2022, 7:00 PM.
The Hidden Fortress
Get your free tickets here: https://nmaamatinees.eventive.org/films
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-UCPiWJizg
A grand-scale adventure as only Akira Kurosawa could make one, The Hidden Fortress stars the inimitable Toshiro Mifune as a general charged with guarding his defeated clan’s princess (a fierce Misa Uehara) as the two smuggle royal treasure across hostile territory. Accompanying them are a pair of bumbling, conniving peasants who may or may not be their friends. This rip-roaring ride is among the director’s most beloved films and was a primary influence on George Lucas’s Star Wars. The Hidden Fortress delivers Kurosawa’s trademark deft blend of wry humor, breathtaking action, and compassionate humanity. Description courtesy of Janus Films. (Dir.: Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1958, 139 min. b&w, 35mm, Japanese with English subtitles)
Film still courtesy of Janus Films.
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free.
Wednesday, September 7, 2022, 2:00 PM.
The Last Gunfight
Get your free tickets here: mifune2022.eventive.org/films
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qBj_uIeVhk
In this colorful, violent yakuza yarn, Toshiro Mifune plays a cop suspected of corruption who is demoted and sent to the gang-infested city of Kojin to investigate the murder of a gangster’s wife. As his sympathy for the widowed cook grows, a gang war looms on the horizon. Mike Hale of The New York Times praised Mifune’s performance, calling him “the cool center of the psychedelic action, underplaying the stereotypical tough guy and giving a wry spin to his punch lines.” This rarely screened gem is presented in a 35mm print courtesy of the Japan Foundation. (Dir.: Kihachi Okamoto, Japan, 1960, 95 min. 35mm, Japanese with English subtitles)
Film still courtesy of the Japan Foundation.
Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free.
Friday, September 9, 2022, 7:00 PM.
Satook: A Screening and Conversation
Register here.
Join us in the Meyer Auditorium for a special screening of the film Satook, directed by praCh Ly. Created for the exhibition Revealing Krishna: Journey to Cambodia’s Sacred Mountain, this short documentary examines the transformation of religious traditions through the ruptures of the Khmer Rouge genocide and immigration. Titled Satook, a word of blessing spoken at the end of Cambodian Buddhist prayers, the film centers on four intimate conversations with Loung Ung, Bonieta Lach, Mea Lath, and Pon Carvi Ly, who share their personal experiences, memories of their parents, and reflections on their communities, journeys, and beliefs. The screening will be followed by a conversation between praCh Ly and writer Loung Ung. Afterward, join us for a reception featuring Cambodian-inspired refreshments at 3pm and a Cambodian dance performance at 4pm.
praCh Ly is a critically acclaimed and award-winning artist. He was first known as a musician, and his debut album was the first number one rap album in…
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free.
Saturday, September 10, 2022, 2:00 PM.
Samurai Assassin
Get your free tickets here: mifune2022.eventive.org/films
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBRWVg4AVyg
Set in 1860, soon after the Treaty of Amity and Commerce opened trade between Japan and the US, Samurai Assassin is about a plot to assassinate Ii Naosuke, the official who signed the agreement, by a band of disgruntled samurai. Toshiro Mifune’s character is a poor ronin who is also the illegitimate son of a noble family, and who hopes being involved in the plot will win him some respect. But the film makes clear that the samurai code and feudal structure he was raised to believe in is riddled with hypocrisy. Director Kihachi Okamoto’s mastery of the widescreen format and flair for staging and shooting wild swordplay battles are on full display in this rare 35mm print provided by the Japan Foundation. (Dir.: Kihachi Okamoto, Japan, 1965, 121 min. 35mm, Japanese with English subtitles)
Film still courtesy of the Japan Foundation.
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free.
Sunday, September 11, 2022, 4:00 PM.
Red Lion
Get your free tickets here: mifune2022.eventive.org/films
In this “rambunctious, satirical, eventually tragic period piece” (Mike Hale, The New York Times), Toshiro Mifune plays the aptly named Gonzo, a peasant who returns to his hometown after a ten-year absence, disguised as a high-ranking army officer. His goal is to rid the town of its corrupt officials by assembling a ragtag band of sex workers, students, and assorted ruffians. In his book The Emperor and the Wolf, Stuart Galbraith IV writes that Mifune “is excellent as a larger-than-life, lusty character.” 35mm print provided by the Japan Foundation. (Dir.: Kihachi Okamoto, Japan, 1969, 115 min. 35mm, Japanese with English subtitles)
Film still courtesy of the Japan Foundation.
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free.
Sunday, September 18, 2022, 4:00 PM.
Yojimbo
Get your free tickets here: mifune2022.eventive.org/films
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_1iT_GmHTE
The incomparable Toshiro Mifune stars in Akira Kurosawa's visually stunning and darkly comic Yojimbo. To rid a terror-stricken village of corruption, wily masterless samurai Sanjuro turns a range war between two evil clans to his own advantage. Remade twice, by Sergio Leone and Walter Hill, this exhilarating genre-twister remains one of the most influential and entertaining films of all time. Description courtesy of Janus Films. (Dir.: Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1961, 110 min. b&w, 35mm, Japanese with English subtitles)
Film still courtesy of Janus Films.
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free.
Friday, September 23, 2022, 7:00 PM.
Sanjuro
Get your free tickets here: mifune2022.eventive.org/films
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq_rSsbhQnE
Toshiro Mifune swaggers and snarls to brilliant comic effect in Akira Kurosawa's tightly paced, beautifully composed Sanjuro. In this sly companion piece to Yojimbo, jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan's evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a "proper" samurai on its ear. Less brazen in tone than its predecessor but equally entertaining, this classic character's return is a masterpiece in its own right. Description courtesy of Janus Films. (Dir.: Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1962, b&w, 96 min. 35mm, Japanese with English subtitles)
Film still courtesy of Janus Films.
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free.
Sunday, September 25, 2022, 3:30 PM.
House
Get your free tickets here: https://nmaamatinees.eventive.org/films
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ_Yo06kIIA
How to describe Nobuhiko Obayashi’s indescribable 1977 movie House (Hausu)? As a psychedelic ghost tale? A stream-of-consciousness bedtime story? An episode of Scooby-Doo as directed by Mario Bava? Any of the above will do for this hallucinatory head trip about a schoolgirl who travels with six classmates to her ailing aunt’s creaky country home and comes face-to-face with evil spirits, a demonic house cat, a bloodthirsty piano, and other ghoulish visions, all realized by Obayashi via mattes, animation, and collage effects. Equally absurd and nightmarish, House might have been beamed to Earth from some other planet. Description courtesy of Janus Films. (Dir.: Nobuhiko Obayashi, Japan, 1977, 88 min. 35mm, Japanese with English subtitles)
Film still courtesy of Janus Films.
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free.
Wednesday, October 5, 2022, 2:00 PM.
Days
In person: Tsai Ming-liang, Lee Kang-sheng, Anong Houngheuangsy
Get your free tickets here: https://tsaimingliang.eventive.org/films
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgG25_7BCIQ
“In Days, I focused on the physical body of Lee Kang-sheng—his exterior. I suddenly realized that because of the aging process, the body is ever-evolving. I can see that inevitable evolution in Lee’s exterior, and that also prompted me to see myself as part of this aging process, since we’re 10 years apart. He almost served as a mirror.” —Tsai Ming-liang
Tsai Ming-liang has been directing exquisite examinations of alienation, isolation, and the fleeting beauty of human connection featuring his muse Lee Kang-sheng for decades. Days will undoubtedly stand as one of his best, sparest, and most intimate works. Lee once again stars as a variation on himself, wandering through a lonely urban landscape and seeking treatment in Hong Kong for a chronic illness; at the same time, a young Laotian immigrant working in Bangkok, played by…
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free.
Thursday, October 6, 2022, 7:00 PM.
Goodbye, Dragon Inn
In person: Tsai Ming-liang, Lee Kang-sheng
New 4K Restoration!
Get your free tickets here: https://tsaimingliang.eventive.org/films
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHMxMJ6qkOU
“For me, making a film is a form of writing, writing about the things that concern me deeply.”
—Tsai Ming-liang
Haunting, ravishingly beautiful, and at times utterly hilarious, Goodbye, Dragon Inn distills the minimalist style Tsai developed over his previous films to its very essence. In a cavernous movie house on its final night in business, a collection of ghostly denizens alternately watch the movie and wander the hallways and restrooms while King Hu’s martial arts classic Dragon Inn plays on the screen. This wistful elegy to cinema history (two of the actors, Miao Tien and Shih Chun, also starred in Hu’s film) is also a formalist comedy full of sight gags worthy of Jacques Tati. Goodbye, Dragon Inn is at once a daring departure and a further refinement of Tsai’s distinctive aesthetic. (Dir.: Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan,…
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free.
Friday, October 7, 2022, 7:00 PM.
Improvisations on the Memory of Cinema
Performance by Tsai Ming-liang
After the screening of Goodbye, Dragon Inn, join Tsai Ming-liang for a performance incorporating storytelling, drawing, and reminiscences about his life and work. First presented at the Venice Film Festival in 2019, this partially improvised event is an intimate self-portrait of an artist at work.
Photo by Chang Jhong Yuan.
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free.
Friday, October 7, 2022, 8:30 PM.
I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone
Get your free tickets here: https://tsaimingliang.eventive.org/films
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTAzZYXREi4
“In all of my work I deal with people who are on the fringes of society. . . . So whenever I shoot something, whenever I get close to people like those in the film, I feel very good. At the same time, I have a very strong belief that every individual is very hard to understand.” —Tsai Ming-liang
Director Tsai Ming-liang returned to his native Malaysia to craft this hypnotic consideration of what it means to care for another human being. Bangladeshi migrant worker Rawang (Norman Atung) discovers Hsiao-kang (Lee Kang-sheng), who has been beaten and left for dead on a street in Kuala Lumpur. Rawang takes the homeless man back to his modest home—a bare mattress in a half-finished apartment building—to nurse him back to health. As their relationship evolves into what A.O. Scott of The New York Times drolly but accurately calls “the world of a Walt Whitman poem,” waitress Chyi (Tsai regular…
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free.
Friday, October 14, 2022, 7:00 PM.
What Time Is It There?/The Skywalk is Gone
What Time Is It There?
Get your free tickets here: https://tsaimingliang.eventive.org/films
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoQCaJf5W-c
“I’m using this movie to raise the question, ‘When someone you love very dearly passes away, is it only fear that you’re feeling, or is it more than that?’ Basically, this character is in shock after his father dies. . . . He has lost a certain sense of direction, which compels him to change every clock in the city.” —Tsai Ming-liang
This metaphysical comedy blends the themes and obsessions of Tsai’s earlier films into one of his most elegant and accomplished creations. An assertive young woman (Chen Shiang-chyi), who is about to leave for Paris, convinces a watch seller (Lee Kang-sheng) to sell her the watch on his own wrist. Immediately smitten, he acts out his obsession with her by attempting to change every clock he sees to Paris time. Meanwhile, his grieving mother (Lu Yi-ching) is troubled by the idea that her dead husband might be reincarnated in another…
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free.
Sunday, October 16, 2022, 4:00 PM.
Stray Dogs
Get your free tickets here: https://tsaimingliang.eventive.org/films
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xsQfTkvBwg
“Our cities are changing all the time. It is as if we are living in a giant building site. I never avoid these places in my films. They remind us of what we are losing. They have an emotional appeal, as if they are characters themselves with their own stories to tell.” —Tsai Ming-liang
Coming after a four-year hiatus from filmmaking, Stray Dogs can be seen as further refinement of the observational, long-take style of Tsai Ming-liang’s previous films. It also serves as a bridge between his early work in experimental theater and his recent multimedia gallery installations. (In fact, at one point Stray Dogs was expanded into an immersive installation in a museum in Taipei.) The winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 70th Venice International Film Festival, it features Lee Kang-sheng as a “sandwich man” who spends his days standing at busy intersections wearing advertising boards for luxury…
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free.
Friday, October 21, 2022, 7:00 PM.
Journey to the West
Get your free tickets here: https://tsaimingliang.eventive.org/films
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3h0WiMMOUE
“I think I experienced the highest degree of artistic freedom when I was doing the Walker series, because it’s not about a story, not even about meanings. It’s painting.” —Tsai Ming-liang
In 2012, Tsai Ming-liang began a series of short video works in which his longtime collaborator Lee Kang-sheng dresses in the robes of a Buddhist monk and wanders slowly, almost imperceptibly so, through the exterior and interior spaces of cities around the world. The videos were born out of Tsai’s “obsession” with Xuanzang, a seventh-century Chinese Buddhist monk whose seventeen-year pilgrimage from China to India formed the basis for the sixteenth-century literary classic Journey to the West. Named after that work (and a sly reference to its setting in Marseille), this is the most ambitious of these videos so far. With his bright red robe contrasting with the subdued tones of the city, Lee moves with…
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free.
Sunday, October 23, 2022, 4:00 PM.