Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Archives | Otaku No Culture

Sailing Down “The Silent River” Isn’t Easy…

L.A. Asian Pacifc Film Festival
Regal L.A. LIVE:
A Barco Innovation Center
Sept 25, 2021
5:30 pm

Spoiler Alert

Eliott (West Liang) looks like a man on the run in Chris Chan Lee’s Silent River. After a long drive into the Mojave Desert, he holes up at a motel and is simply waiting. While there, he meets Gretta (Amy Tsang) and she’s a mystery. Not only does she resemble someone he is looking for, but her agenda is straight out of time. She’s from the future and searching for Patrick. Their separate agendas collide, and their reluctance to help each other out makes for a very intriguing film.

Although this work is billed as science fiction, I’m enjoying the supernatural bits more. Eliott hears things, and he doesn’t know where they come from. He can see things others don’t, and we’re uncertain if he’s going crazy or not. Liang plays up the apocryphal Lovecraftian type of character, someone too curious for his own good; and the suggestion that others have “moved on” makes me think I’m watching a very unconventional ghost story.

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Meditating on what Makes Masao A Simple Man

The cinematography is poetic and contemplative, making this film almost a tear jerker because everyone knows the inevitable.

Masao L.A. Asian Pacifc Film Festival
Regal L.A. LIVE:
A Barco Innovation Center
Sept 25, 2021
12:00 pm

Not everyone can say, “I Was a Simple Man,” like Christopher Makoto Yogi can. This film by this writer/director offers a truly sombre look at the last days of Masao (Steve Iwamoto). The flashbacks reveal everything you want to know about this protagonist–including bits of his troubled family’s past–and why he lives his days out with his daughter, often alone instead with friends and kin.

It’s tough to watch a parent grow old, hear them complain about one thing or another, and see you’re not able to help. Kati (Chanel Akiko Hirai) is the only relative trying her best because they share the same space. Her brother Mark (Nelson Lee) is living a new life far, far away. When she phones him and asks for him to come home, the dilemma they face together in how to deal with their father is tough.

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Trying to Figure Out Life’s Little Problems in Definition Please

L.A. Asian Pacifc Film Festival
Regal L.A. LIVE:
A Barco Innovation Center
Sept 25, 2021
4:00 pm

Sujata Day’s debut movie Definition Please offers a Bollywood-style charm about Monica Chowdry (played by Day) dealing with life many years after winning the spelling bee as a child. Her friends and family are proud. They assumed big things would be in store for her later in life. None of that fame stood the test of time and it seems she’s transfixed with living in the comfort of what is familiar instead of taking on new challenges.

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Delving into What Makes LAAPFF’s Pacific Cinewaves Shorts Unique

How to Catch a Taotaomona

Playing at the
Regal L.A. LIVE: A Barco Innovation Center
1000 W Olympic Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA

Saturday | September 25, 2021
3:30 pm

The Pacific Cinewaves Program at the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival is my go to for kick starting this event. It’s free / pay what you can, because there’s no reason not to miss all the messages being delivered about how to preserve the ancient world of Polynesia.

The various pieces offer a delightful, supernatural and meditative exploration on what makes this part of the world unique. I say this with mixed feelings, because not all the countries in this vast region are represented. We have Guam, and a beautifully family oriented tale about how to reconnect with one’s faith in How to Catch a Taotaomona.

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Genre Picks of the 37th L.A. Asian Pacific Film Festival

Runs Sept 23 to Oct 2, 2021
Tickets are available to purchase starting Sept 13, 2021 at 12:00pm PT.

The 37th Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival is back as both an online and in-person event! Some films will be available across the nation to view and others geo-locked to this municipality.

One work to take note of is the Los Angeles premiere of the documentary Wuhan Wuhan. This film examines the global health issue as it unfolded from February and March of last year and instead of a dire warning, Yung Chang’s (Up the Yangtze) direction offers a humanitarian message. Anyone wanting a fresh look at the situation may well want to consider this documentary as part of their viewing schedule.

Although much of the California state is not under lockdown, attendees are asked to still observe safety protocols. The in person events are likely to be attendance capped, and no matter what happens as the world enters the Autumn season, the organizers are committed to recognizing talents who are making an impact in the community as, so the saying goes, “navigate strange times.”

On that note, the genre picks for this year include:

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LAAPFF 2020 The Chef on Tolerance in Ethnic Places

This narrative has a simple premise of showing how a master trains a synthetic apprentice in a Chinese restaurant. The line cooks are not happy, and they fear losing their jobs.

The Chef / Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2019(SSFF & ASIA 2019) By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Available to viewers in Southern California (excluding San Diego County) from Oct 1 at 12pm PT to Oct 31, 2020 at 11:59pm PT. Click here to watch the film on Eventive.

Hao Zheng‘s short film, The Chef is eerie in the sense that we are already replacing workers with robots. The documentaries I’ve looked at earlier this year show how they can be helpful in various situations. From therapy to companionship, just where is the line drawn? Writers Ithaca Deng and Leqi Vanessa Kong can easily take a page out of Star Trek: Picard (or vice versa, when considering the original release date) if they wanted to expanded on the idea.

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