After certain events, sometimes it’s hard to get all my thoughts compressed down fast, especially after watching some short films. The time even spent remotely becomes a blur. And for events that span less than a week, it can feel like a weekend. As a result, it’s hard to believe the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival is over. May the Fourth brought its own challenges for obvious reasons, so offering the last day online was a smart call. Not only can those not able to attend catch a selection from home, but also, what’s offered isn’t always geolocked.
This year, I opted to focus almost entirely on animated works, and the shorts since they rarely get their due. And what’s covered here are my thoughts on those pieces that really impressed me:
113 Words for You Today
Building an animated short around a premise this constrained is a tough challenge, and what Bo Qing Tang and Lan Zeng wrote and directed was certainly challenging. In the end, what they presented is powerful. Also, when this tale borrows slightly on other films where space exploration is treated as a solo affair, I can’t help but notice the overlap. Here, even shades of Project Hail Mary are vaguely hinted at.
When a team of workers are recruited and sent to construct a gravitational portal to another world, they won’t have a lot of contact with one another and loved ones back home. To conserve energy, each worker can only transmit a limited number of words home per day. When this tale centres on one individual who chooses his mission over his companion, what’s presented can either be a silent film with the odd word said aloud or something else. Here, the melancholy is strong. The sparse words hint at a finality that includes even the ones spoken on reflex. The audience never quite learns the daily limit either, which keeps the tension from letting up.
What’s here is effective. The time spent building this world pays off, and as the tools for photorealistic digital environments keep improving, I can’t wait to see what the next wave of filmmakers does next. The animated realm allows some talents to explore their imaginative reflexes, and this work showcases a lot without spending a ton of money on SPFX alone.
A Brighter Summer Day for the Lady Avengers
National pride might be the theme behind A Brighter Summer Day for the Lady Avengers. Or maybe it’s romance. When Ming buys a bag of watermelon juice and heads to the movies to catch The Lady Avenger, still in her white school uniform, a local enforcement officer is smitten. He follows her right into the theatre and never works up the courage to introduce himself. And what happens next is mostly speculation on my part. If that guy had bad intentions, he’s going to be running afterwards. The short draws on clips from the 1981 film The Lady Avenger, where the heroine takes revenge after a brutal attack on her way to a photoshoot.
Rather than focusing on the terror, this one leans into empowerment. The young woman takes a quiet pleasure in seeing what she’s capable of. The final moments stay vague on the specifics, but the message lands cleanly. Don’t let stalkers get you anywhere.
Heat in the Barrio
Jose Ubaya‘s Heat in the Barrio (2025) can seem deceptive at first. But after I wrote the writeup on his YouTube page for this short, I finally clued in to the messages he’s making about climate action. Los Angeles is having a heat wave, and everyone is looking for the means to cope. At the same time, the masked figure of Señor Cator, a figure that looks like a cross between The Mask and the Joker, is stalking everyone! He’s not out to destroy, but rather subdue. As Maribel and Jorge’s walk to school is paced out with these images of others dealing, just what the message makes feels like a film school project going through its paces of proof of concept before writing a full page treatment for a longer movie, maybe.
How they all connect is worth figuring out yourself. The imagery pulled me in, and the masked clown delivers the best moments because you never quite know what he’s going to do next. Out of all the short films I seen, this one can benefit from being made longer.
Insider in Kanji
The literal meaning of Insider in Kanji (中の人) gives more away than the title alone suggests. The first kanji, naka, means “middle.” The last means “person.” What that tells us about Sho the panda is that he’s not someone in hiding. He’s the only bear in class, and when he befriends the quiet kid in the corner, the adventure they share has a Studio Ghibli-style charm and a reveal I genuinely didn’t see coming.
The world around them is anthropomorphic, but the film doesn’t address why a few humans are mixed in. That reveal earns its weight because it holds a mirror up to what we keep hidden inside ourselves. The short moves fast, offers some whimsical moments, then flips expectations right when you’ve settled in. That’s the charm. And what it says about life… there’s a child in all of us. Hence the title.
Ramen Western
Meloddy Gao‘s Ramen Western isn’t really about the food and the taming of the west. Instead, it’s about the treatment of Asian-Americans who helped build it. Not every detail gets examined, but the short asks a pointed question: who actually built that railroad? Parts of the film are a fond recollection shared with her grandmother, but the more resonant moments are about what remains, and why that trip on the railroad matters.
This whimsical story raises the stakes by reminding you who laid each plank and rail, and it wasn’t the tycoons. It’s sweet, colourful, and amusing, and it’ll make you think more than it’ll make you hungry. A simple dish that helped hold a life together carries more weight than it has any right to. There’s a faint nod to the threads of fate, but what stays with me is the act of remembering lives we’ve all too easily let go. Spirits drift through the edges of the story, though the film doesn’t push it far.