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Lots of Japanese and Korean productions as I was exploring the website of Third Window Films, one of the UK’s main distributors of Asian films, this week.

  • 転々 (Tenten/Adrift in Tokyo, Japan, 2007) – I rather like the feel of the film poster. Stars Odigiri Joe.
  • 오아시스 (Oasis, Korea, 2002) - An award-winning Korean film about a social misfit who falls in love. Note that several of the commenters on YouTube remarked that the trailer is terrible and does not do the film justice.
  • 全然大丈夫 (Zenzen daijōbu /Fine, Totally Fine, Japan, 2008) – The trailer doesn’t quite grab me, but I like the film synopsis, so I might give this one a try if I come across it somewhere.
  • カケラ (Kakera/Kakera: A Piece of Our Life, Japan, 2009) – Based on Sakurazawa Erika’s best-selling manga Love Vibes. The director of the Raindance Film Festival called it the “biggest discovery of the year”. Since I have thoroughly enjoyed every film I watched at Raindance, I will take Elliot Grove’s word for it.
  • 파란만장 (Paranmanjang/Night Fishing, Korea, 2011) – A short (33 min total) that was shot entirely on an iPhone. If that sounds like a gimmick in the age of the internet, take note that Paranmanjang won the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival.

I already showcased three of the Academy Awards nominees for the Best Foreign Language Film in previous posts (see Trailer Weekly #8 for הערת שוליים‎‎/Hearat Shulayim/Footnote; Trailer Weekly #13 for W ciemności/In Darkness and my review of جدایی نادر از سیمین/Jodái-e Náder az Simin/A Separation), but two are still missing: