By Luis Monteagudo Jr.
The San Diego Asian Film Festival kicks off this week, reaching a milestone by celebrating its 15th anniversary.
Growing bigger with each year’s passing, this year’s festival runs from Thursday, Nov. 6, through Saturday, Nov. 15, with a staggering 140 films from 21 countries.
The year has come a long way from when it’s humble one-theater beginning and now hits a record number of venues — nine scattered throughout the region. They include its traditional homebase, the Ultrastar in Mission Valley, along with Reading Cinemas Gaslamp 15, UCSD and historic La Paloma Theatre in Encinitas.
As usual, the Festival’s strength lies in mining the rich diversity of Asian cinema, from mainstream action films like this year’s gangster drama, “Revenge of the Green Dragons,” to documentaries, animation and oddball comedies.
“Revenge of the Green Dragons” is the opening night film, a crime drama set in New York in the 1980s and executive produced by famed director Martin Scorsese and co-starring Ray Liotta, who he helped launch to fame in “Goodfellas.” The movie is directed by Andrew Lau, who directed the excellent Hong Kong crime drama “Infernal Affairs” that was later remade by Scorcese himself into an American version called “The Departed.”
The closing night film is “Meet the Patels,” a documentary about an Indian-American man who meets the woman of his dreams.
In between there a number of intriguing films, from West Coast premieres “King of Dreams and Madness” and “Jasmine” to U.S. premieres like “From What is Before.”
And if you want to go to the festival but can’t afford it, there are even free screenings of short films for kids as well as short documentary films.
For schedules and information, visit the festival’s web site, www.festival.sdaff.org.
Luis Monteagudo Jr. is a freelance writer and pop culture enthusiast who has attended Comic-Con for more than 20 years. He was written for the San Diego Union-Tribune, USA Today and numerous other publications.
