The Ninth Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival

Jimmy Tsai is hilarious in Ping Pong Playa, SDAFF's opening night film (IFC Films)

The San Diego Asian Film Festival kicks off its 9th year tonight with the opening night feature Ping Pong Playa by Jessica Yu. The film boasts a hilarious performance by Jimmy Tsai as a young Asian man obsessed with being a basketball player and taking on the name of C-Dub. The film taps into a similar vibe as the Filipino comedy The Flip Side that screened back in 2001. But since opening night films are often sold out, I have two alternate recommendations: Assembly from Mainland China and Public Enemy Returns from South Korea. Although the festival is strongly committed to showcasing Asian American films, I have always been more satisfied by the international titles where the emphasis is less on exploring identity and delivering a message, and more on pushing the envelope in creativity and storytelling.

Death Note

Death Note -- the manga, anime and live action film --try them all, they're all good! (Viz Graphic/Viz Media/Viz Pictures)

This week, American audiences will have an opportunity to see a hit, live action Japanese film adaptation of a popular manga (that's a Japanese comic book). Hollywood has taken note of the increased popularity of Japanese manga by optioning a number of them for the big screen. In addition to the recent Speed Racer, there will be live action film adaptations of Dragonball, Akira, and Blood: The Last Vampire. But the film that manga fans are embracing is Death Note (playing May 20 and 21 at 7:30pm only at AMC Mission Valley, Horton Plaza Theaters and Edwards Mira Mesa Cinemas; for online tickets are available). Death Note began as a serialized manga back in 2003. Since then it has inspired a trio of movies, an anime TV series and a spin-off novel. The first live action film was a hit in Japan back in 2006. Now Viz Pictures is giving Death Note a unique 2-day run in U.S. cities. 

Death Note knows how to hook an audience. The intricately written and strikingly illustrated manga by Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata has sold more that 25 million copies in Japan. Last year the anime version of the manga found success in the U.S. on the Cartoon Network. Now the live action film will pose Death Note's intriguing premise on the big screen: what if you found a notebook belonging to one of the gods of death.

Horton Hears a Who!

Horton Hears a Who! (20th Century Fox/Dr. Seuss Enterprises)

Dr. Seuss has not had much success on the big screen recently. The two live action films based on his books How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Cat in the Hat were atrocious and gave me nightmares in ways that horror films never have. Neither film captured even the slightest inkling of Dr. Seuss' charm or humor. In fact you have to go all the way back to 1953's The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T to find a good live action feature based on something Dr. Seuss wrote. So when I heard that Jim Carrey - the Grinch in Ron Howard's big screen fiasco - was doing Horton Hears a Who! (opened March 14 throughout San Diego), I must confess that it sent a shiver down my spine. But then I heard that it would be animated and that Ice Age's Chris Wedge would serve as executive producer - two reasons to be hopeful that maybe this time Hollywood would get it right.

The Eye

Jessica Alba stars in The Eye, a remake of a Hong Kong horror film (Lionsgate)

The Eye (opened on February 2 throughout San Diego) follows films such as The Ring, The Grudge and Dark Water in turning to Asian horror film successes as inspiration for a Hollywood remake. But unlike those Japanese or J-horror inspired films, The Eye draws on a Hong Kong film directed by the Thai-born Pang Brothers as source material. The story works on a very simple premise: what if you received someone else's eyes in a transplant operation and suddenly began seeing from the organ donor's perspective. Jessica Alba plays a blind violinist who hopes that a cornea transplant will change her life. It does but not in the way she or anyone could have expected. 

10 Best of 2007

Choosing the top ten films of 2007 is like choosing which of your children you like best. I love them all but in different ways. This year the family grew larger than expected and was all over the map. You can listen to my rundown of the 10 best of 2007. I'm also including here some other noteworthy films of the year.

First, I'll mention a few films that might have made my ten best if studios had only decided to release them in San Diego. The trippy anime Tekkon Kinkreet; David Lynch's mind bending Inland Empire; the slyly ironic Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days; the abortion documentary Lake of Fire; and a pair of Johnnie To Hong Kong actioners Exiled and Triad Election (known as Election 2 in Hong Kong) all dazzled in their own unique ways. But none were deemed worthy of release here. I'm particularly irked by the fact that Johnnie To repeatedly fails to get his films released here. In these two films he served up gangster tales that were darker and more existential than what American audiences probably expect from Hong Kong actioners. He manges to mix action elements with a French New Wave freshness and Wong Kar Wai's lush stylish flourishes. To delivers consistently stunning work yet has failed to convince U.S. distributors to give his films an art house release that extends beyond a few cities. This needs to change.

Manga Mania

Manga distributor and publisher TokyoPop celebrates its 10th anniversary. (TokyoPop)

Variety Asia Online just did a series of articles about Japan-based manga distributor TokyoPop celebrating its tenth anniversary and how mangas (Japanese comic books) may be the next big thing in Hollywood. Tom McLean writes: "Comic books and graphic novels have been hot stuff at the box office the past few years. But as studios work their way through the superhero pantheon, the need for new properties to adapt has put manga -- the Japanese-style cousin of American comics -- on deck to be the next big thing."

Well, as a fan of manga and as someone who runs an anime and manga club at a middle school, the news is promising. But if it does prove to be the next big thing, Hollywood will be behind the curve. Mangas have long been the source of inspiration for popular anime (Japanese animation) series, movies and live action films. TokyoPop manga favorites like GTO and Lupin III have inspired popular anime series as well as a live action films, while their mangas Bleach, Fruits Basket and Trinty Blood are among the many highly successful anime series. There's plenty of material out there and TokyoPop is just one of many publishers. The challenge, though, is that many of these mangas have developed very loyal followings so whoever adapts them to the screen had better take care.

Azumi: Interview with Ryuhei Kitamura

Azumi kicks some ass (Asia Vision)

Last month, Comic-Con came to San Diego and once again demonstrated the appeal of comic books around the globe. It also highlighted the fact that Hollywood studios are NOT the only ones turning to comics as source material. Japanese filmmakers are looking to their homegrown comics, known as mangas for inspiration. KPBS film critic Beth Accomando spoke with the director of Japan's manga-inspired Azumi (opening August 4 at Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas).