Last night, I attended the opening reception of the NY Asian Film Festival 2015 (NYAFF) which was held at the Walter Greene Theater at Lincoln Center. Famed Hong Kong Director Ringo Lam was present at the reception. He was recently hailed by the New York Times (June 25) as “Hong Kong`s Crime Master” for his gangster noir movies.
The multiple-award winning Hong Kong Director will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award on June 27 at a special ceremony. It will be followed by the screening of his critically acclaimed work “City on Fire”, the award-winning film which inspired Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino to make ‘Reservoir Dogs’.
Also at the ceremony was super-star Aaron Kwok who made history by winning the Golden Horse Best Actor award back-to-back in 2005 and 2006. His latest work “Port of Call”was the opening night film at NYAFF.
Aaron Kwok was presented a special gift, a high end Token bag by Su Hwei Lin, the owner of NY brand Manhattan Portage, one of the partners of NYAFF.
Aaron was presented the Star Asia Award the same evening, in recognition of his constant commitment to excellence. His acting abilities have become so versatile over the years that he’s been called “the man of a thousand faces”.
Aaron talked about the difficulty of portraying a police detective in his 50’s in “Port of Call”. It was challenging because in reality he is extremely energetic but he needed to hide that energy to play the character of an older person. Aaron also talked about his upcoming roles in Monkey King and another film where he plays an MBA professor.
The Festival will include one world premiere (“Robbery”), three North American premieres (“Insanity”, “Port of Call”, and “Two Thumbs Up”), one US Premiere (“Full Strike”), and one New York premiere (“It’s Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong”).
The festival is sponsored by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in New York (HKETONY) and will showcase Hong Kong’s new releases and classics under the banner “Hong Kong Panorama” at the Lincoln Centre and SVA Theatre till July 11.
The HKETONY partners with different arts and cultural organisations to bring Hong Kong films and talent to America. One upcoming festival is the Asian American International Film Festival, which will feature Hong Kong feature-length documentary “My Voice, My Life” as the opening night film on July 23. The director, Oscar-winning Chinese-American Ruby Yang, will attend the festival.
