This film stars HK film vet Lau Ching Wan as Fai, a longtime runner up in the film world who takes his craft very seriously, to the point where he tutors every person on each of his sets, whether they need it or not. Lau’s attention to the art of acting is evident not only in the advice he gives others onscreen, but also the performance he gives as Fai, which won him a Hong Kong Film Award as Best Actor. He takes Fei, played by newcomer Huo Si Yan, under his wing and becomes her defacto manager when she attaches herself to him after he gives her a bit of advice on set. Their relationship goes from teacher-student to boyfriend-girlfriend even as Fai’s friends tell him to keep his distance. Fei accepts a role which includes a nude scene and films in Japan, all of which are against Fai’s advice, and, rather than marginalizing herself as Fai had warned, she becomes a phenomenon and decides to make Japan her home. In the meantime, Fai has been honing his work even more and makes a new name for himself after many years of toiling in obscurity and gains the recognition he so dearly wanted. The film features cameos and bit parts from HK vets like Gordon Chan and Tony Leung Ka Fai, and is a neat look into a world of which I normally only see the end result.

Wednesday was a little lighter for me and I only saw a documentary on Asian female self-image called Never Perfect which was followed by an interesting panel discussion, and Pang Ho Cheung's film Isabella. My only disappointment about Isabella was that the AFFD program had listed on their cover “Anthony Wong is the boss in Isabella,” which is technically true, but Wong only had about two minutes of actual screen time. Petty, but I found it funny. The film is a coming of age story regarding a man and the daughter he didn’t know he had, the twist is that the father is the one coming of age. Chapman To gives a wonderfully subtle performance as the philandering father, Shing, and his daughter Yan is played by Isabella Leong. The story begins with a case of mistaken identity when Shing believes that Yan is the one night stand he has just kicked out, and Yan wedges her way into his life through guilt. The film moves along at a deliberate pace with director Pang revealing little bits of history to the audience every so often that significantly change the dynamic of these two characters. Slowly but surely, Shing grows up and becomes the father that he at least thinks he is. There is a subplot about some smuggling and this is where Wong comes in, really, this part of the story is put in place only to give Shing a way to display his growth as a person, and it is done wonderfully. A slow film, but very good. I especially liked the somewhat unusual bonding that took place between father and daughter: it felt real.

Closing night was a sad, but exhilarating time, I had a great week and I couldn’t wait to see Tazza, which was preceded by saccharine sweet anime 5 Centimeters Per Second. I’m not real big on anime, but this one was nice, no gut ripping demons or anything like that, just a love story. Like I said, it was almost too sappy for me, but I liked it. Tazza has been discussed in Twitch already, so I’ll just say that I really liked the film. It moved along at a very decent pace but I never felt left behind, which is always a danger. Very glossy to be sure, and emotionally, not the deepest film I’ve ever seen, but it packed a punch. I’ll be looking for other films starring Cho Seung-Wu, his performance was fun to watch.

AFFD this year was great. I only missed one feature, Philippine horror film Blackout, and got to see a lot of films I’d never even heard of and liked most of them a lot. The crew worked really hard, but made it look easy, with not a technical goof to be seen until closing night when there was a little trouble with the aspect ratio of the screen. I’d like to thank Chiho Mori, Julie Hwang, and the rest of the AFFD team for doing such a great job and I really look forward to next year’s festival and whatever bones you throw us during the year. Time to get some sleep.

Report by Josh Hurtado