At 12:30 at the Centum City CGV, there is Kore-eda Hirokazu’s AIR DOLL. Kore-eda is without question Japan’s most critically acclaimed director at the moment; in fact, one would have to go back to Imamura Shohei and Oshima Nagisa to find a Japanese filmmaker with as high a reputation. This project is much more high concept than usual for Kore-eda: a sex doll comes to life. It will be intriguing to consider how he handles this almost exploitation type material.

Also at the CGV is Johnnie To’s action thriller RUNNING OUT OF TIME (1999). To has a large following, and although I was slightly disappointed in the one film of his I have seen (2007′s MAD DETECTIVE), I’m always interested in auteur-driven genre vehicles.

And at 19:00 at CGV is FACE, the latest film from Taiwan’s Tsai Ming-Liang. This is a film within a film about the making of a new version of the legend of Salome. On the surface, this does not sound particularly intriguing, but Tsai never ceases to be compelling and usually provocative. Film critic Adrian Martin recalls a festival screening of Tsai’s 2005 THE WAYWARD CLOUD in which an audience member cursed at the screen and exited following the controversial final scene. Hopefully FACE will inspire similar passion.

If you are up early, Ha Kil-Chong’s THE ASCENSION OF HAN-NE is well worth seeing, a tale of a traditional Korean village set during the 1970s. I found its  particularly Korean take on the clash between past and present thought-provoking despite the technical limitations. It is at the Haeundae Megabox at 10:30.

All screening times and locations are posted at the PIFF website.

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