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Hong Kong film icon Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia, who is rarely seen in public these days, will be on hand to open the 20th edition of the Far East Film Festival in Udine. She will also receive the festival’s lifetime award, the Golden Mulberry.

The opening film is set to be Korean thriller “Steel Rain, an actioner backed by streaming video platform Netflix. There are currently no plans to show it on the big screen again. Also on the opening night agenda is Malaysian drama “Crossroads: One Two Jaga.”

The festival program runs 20-28 April and includes films from 11 East Asian territories, 5 world premieres and a trio of restored titles. Among the classics is Johnnie To’s “Throw Down,” brought back to life by the Italo-Hong Kong company L’Immagine Ritrovata.

New for the 20th edition is the launch of the White Mulberry competitive section. It will include 21 films by first or second time directors.

Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: What better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? This week […]

The post This Week In Trailers: Pet Names, Alloys, First Match, Jersey Shore: Family Vacation, Happy Anniversary, Ramen Heads appeared first on /Film.

A good-looking debut that's as obsessive as it sounds, Koki Shigeno's Ramen Heads celebrates those for whom Japan's famous dish is anything but a simple bowl of noodles and broth. Devoting most of its attention to the fanatic Osamu Tomita, whose shop has been named the nation's best four years running, the documentary finds a chef whose extreme recipe doesn't fit in any existing category. More narrowly targeted than most foodie docs, and not the ramen encyclopedia it may sound like, this one will fare best on streaming services.

Tomita's namesake 10-seat restaurant is in Matsudo, about an hour's train...

As March brings a close to 2017 in cinema with the Academy Awards, there are also a great number of noteworthy 2018 films making their way to theaters, ranging from animated adventures to dark comedies to ambitious blockbusters. Looking further back, in terms of restorations that are touring the country, don’t miss Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, Mind Game, Police Story, and Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day.

Matinees to See: They Remain (3/2), Red Sparrow (3/2), Souvenir (3/2), The Leisure Seeker (3/9), Gringo (3/9), Ramen Heads (3/16), 12 Days (3/16), Keep the Change (3/16), 7 Days in Entebbe (3/16), Roxanne Roxanne (3/23), I Kill Giants (3/23), Game Over, Man! (3/23), Final Portrait (3/23), Salomé & Wilde Salomé (3/30), Outside In (3/30)

15. Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg; March 29)

Synopsis: When the creator of a virtual reality world called the Oasis dies, he releases a video in which he challenges all Oasis users to find his Easter Egg, which will give the finder his fortune. Wade Watts finds...

"It's worth waiting a whole day just to eat this ramen." FilmBuff has released the trailer for a delectable documentary titled Ramen Heads from Japan, profiling five of the finest Japanese ramen chefs and their techniques. If you love ramen, you have to see this. If you don't know what ramen really is, you have to see this. If you love good food, you have to see this. Koki Shigeno's Ramen Heads is a fascinating culinary film about what makes ramen so great, and how dedicated to their craft these various chefs are. "As a chef maybe you need to be more of a ramen head than your customers. You need to make the soup so good that people never get tired of it, even if they eat it every day." I caught this at Idfa and it's an okay doc, felt more like a film best for train/bus trips than the cinema,...

Exclusive: Gunpowder & Sky has just picked up Koki Shigeno’s feature documentary Ramen Heads which explores the popular Japanese noodle dish and the reigning king of ramen. The doc, which will be distributed under the company’s FilmBuff label, will be released March 16 in New York and Los Angeles before expanding into select theaters after that. Ramen Heads profiles Japan’s reigning king of ramen, Osamu Tomita, taking a look at every step of his obsessive approach to…...