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Busan Names Asian Contents & Film Market Director

Busan’s Asian Contents and Film Market (Acfm) has named experienced programmer and indie arthouse producer Ellen Y.D. Kim has its new Director. She has been officially approved at the Busan International Film Festival (Biff)’s general assembly and will commence a four-year term this Friday (March 8). She was previously Program Director of the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival. Kim is well known to Acfm, having played a key role in establishing the event in the 2006s, and co-produced arthouse films such as Cry Woman in 2002 and Sewing Sisters 18 years later. She also held several key roles at Acfm’s parent, the Biff, which has now passed this year’s business plan and budget at the general assembly, as it bids to return to normalcy after a string of resignations last year. Biff has also approved of 18 board members and an auditor,...

Stars: Ryohei Suzuki, Fumika Shimizu, Ken Yasuda, Shôta Chiyo, Shunsuke Daitô, Narushi Ikeda, Nana Katase, Tsuyoshi Muro, Shun Oguri, Yoshinori Okada, Jirô Satô, Takashi Tsukamoto | Written by Yûichi Fukuda, Shun Oguri | Directed by Yûichi Fukuda

I love, nay Adore, completely-bonkers Far East flicks be they live-action or animation – hell, some of the first films I ever reviewed professionally (if anything I do can be called a profession) were titles like Big Man Japan and 13: Game of Death. So it’s safe to say that I’m part of the target [Western] audience for a film like Hk: Forbidden Superhero – even moreso given the ridiculous over-the-top ending that sees one of the films villains emerge in a giant mech that looks like a combination of two of my favourite kids TV shows: a Power Rangers Zord and the combiner Devastator from the original 80s Transformers cartoon.

Which is why I absolutely Loved this movie!

Stars: Ryohei Suzuki, Fumika Shimizu, Ken Yasuda, Shôta Chiyo, Shunsuke Daitô, Narushi Ikeda, Nana Katase, Tsuyoshi Muro, Shun Oguri, Yoshinori Okada, Jirô Satô, Takashi Tsukamoto | Written by Yûichi Fukuda, Shun Oguri | Directed by Yûichi Fukuda

I love, nay Adore, completely-bonkers Far East flicks be they live-action or animation – hell, some of the first films I ever reviewed professionally (if anything I do can be called a profession) were titles like Big Man Japan and 13: Game of Death. So it’s safe to say that I’m part of the target [Western] audience for a film like Hk: Forbidden Superhero – even moreso given the ridiculous over-the-top ending that sees one of the films villains emerge in a giant mech that looks like a combination of two of my favourite kids TV shows: a Power Rangers Zord and the combiner Devastator from the original 80s Transformers cartoon.

Which is why I absolutely Loved this movie!

The English title “Forbidden Superhero” really doesn’t do justice to the amount of madness offered by the Japanese film “Hk: Hentai Kamen”, its literal translation “Pervert Mask” giving a far more accurate indication of its content. A live-action adaptation of Ando Keishu’s 1992 manga, the film was written and directed by Fukuda Yuichi (“Kodomo Keisatsu”), with help on the script by “Crows: Episode 0” actor Oguri Shun, and follows a high school student with a superhero power that is, to say the least, rather unusual. Very popular in both Japan and Taiwan, the film is certainly a wild affair, and whatever else can be said about its subject matter, it’s undeniably a fresh and frequently jaw-dropping take on the genre. The hero at the heart of the film is high school student Kyosuke (Suzuki Ryohei, “Gatchaman”), the unfortunate son of a crazed S&M madam mother and a masochistic,...