Asian Drama

A fatigued man wakes up at a bar with a bartender who will forever change his life as he gets to know more about her. Three criminals have somewhat accomplished their task of kidnapping their target, but their overall mission seems to go nowhere in the end. In the late 1970s, a mysterious woman runs a bar where a deadly situation will affect the lives of everyone. Two killers are looking for their faceless victim, who shows up at a diner every day at 6 o'clock sharp. Four incredibly talented Korean filmmakers, four intriguing cinematic visions, four astounding stories revolving around murderers for hire. (Source: fantasiafestival.com) ~~ Adapted from the short story "The Killers" by Ernest Hemingway. ~~ Release dates: Jul 24, 2024 (Festival) || Oct 23, 2024 (Cinema)

Duration: 1 hr. 59 min.

Content Rating: 18+ Restricted (violence & profanity)

The story follows a young man who has been single for a year after his boyfriend suddenly disappeared without a formal breakup. One night, while scrolling through a dating app, he encounters someone who looks strikingly similar to his ex. After a spontaneous hookup, he discovers that this new acquaintance is actually his ex’s twin brother. As he navigates this unexpected twist, he finds himself drawn into a complicated web of emotions. Will he end up choosing between the two brothers, or will he find himself entangled with both?

Duration: 11 min.

Content Rating: Not Yet Rated

The film depicts a coming-of-age story centered on the two sugar babies, Kotone, who is unemployed, and Sakura, a college student, in the coronavirus pandemic, as they try their best to live at the mercy of frivolous men.

Adapted from the novel "Tsuyu no Ato Saki" (つゆのあとさき) by Nagai Kafu (永井荷風).

Duration: 1 hr. 45 min.

Content Rating: 15+ - Teens 15 or older

After two years in the US, Na Na returns to Beijing and looks up old friend Song Qi An, now taking a postgraduate course in psychology. Na Na asks her about others from their group at university: ambitious You Feng now works in a technology company and is due to marry the daughter of the chairman, Yu Fei is now an up-and-coming actress, and Yang Zheng is now a journalist after wanting to become a film director. Na Na especially wants to know about Hong Rui, whom she always fancied, and learns his father went bankrupt and he himself is now lame from an accident and works on a building site.

Na Na, who was rumoured to have had mental treatment in the US, tells Song Qi An that another member of the group, Xiao Ai, who committed suicide at college, is haunting her. (Her belief in ghosts goes back to her childhood in the countryside, when a school friend, Yu Han, gave her a weird doll.) When Nana visits her old friends, they all react angrily to her mentioning Xiao Ai. Na Na remembers how, back in 2010, it was she who befriended Xiao Ai, a Chinese literature student, and brought her into the group. To her annoyance, Hong Rui had fallen for Xiao Ai, and when misfortunes started to happen, Na Na had blamed Xiao Ai as an evil influence. To settle the problem, the friends had played the ouija board-like game of Bixian, which revealed the name of Yu Han. After Na Na had exposed Xiao Ai as the grown-up Yu Han, Song Qi An had walked out, appalled; that evening, Xiao Ai had thrown herself off a college building. Back in the present day, members of the group now start getting killed by a ghostly presence.

In the last months of the Second World War, the Empire of Japan receives a final gift from the collapsing Nazi Germany: the I-507, a highly-advanced submarine equipped with experimental technology.

The mission, as revealed by the grim Chief of Staff Asakura (Shinichi Tsutsumi) following the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is to intercept U.S. ships transporting a third nuclear weapon to Tinian Island, the principal base from which American B-29s Bombers are striking the Japanese home Islands. The man charged with the mission is Commander Masami (Yakusho Koji) - a brilliant destroyer of enemy ships relieved of his command when he opposed the navy's increasing reliance on suicide tactics. Given a last chance to redeem himself, he is burning with zeal, but is ignorant of the various secrets the I-507 carries on board.

Once at sea, Lt. Takasu (Ken Ishiguro), the owlish technician in charge of the imaging system, refuses to tell Masami what it is or how it works. Masami also discovers that two crew members belong to the "kaiten" suicide corps. He has no idea why they are there -- and neither, for the moment, do they.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy is tracking the I-507 with more than usual interest. What, Masami wonders, is going on here? Enough to say that a sweet-voiced teenage girl (Yu Kashi) is part of the master plan and that one of the minisub pilots (Satoshi Tsumabuki) becomes her protector -- and something more.