Coming up in a few weeks is the annual Pusan film festival, Korea’s largest and one of the most important in all of Asia. As usual, the line-up is quite impressive in both size and quality, so I thought I would offer a Top Ten of the my most anticipated PIFF movies. Before I begin, a caveat. I have seen two of the Korean films that are playing: Lee Chang-dong’s POETRY and Im Sang-soo’s THE HOUSEMAID. Both played briefly here with subtitles in May, and they are two of my favorites of the year. POETRY in particular is likely to be at the top or near the top of my Top Ten list at the end of the year. So if you missed their short run, I would highly recommend seeing them at PIFF. My review of POETRY is here, and of THE HOUSEMAID here. That said, here is my top ten for this year’s festival, with a few honorable mentions as well.

10. CRIA! (Carlos Saura, 1976)

One of three films on my list from the section, “Subversive Imagination: Spanish Masterpieces from the Franco Regime,” Carlos Saura’s CRIA! is part of a large tradition of Spanish films dealing with children and their imagination in trying historical settings, such as Victor Erice’s THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE. I am not familiar with Saura’s filmography, but he has a strong reputation. His 1960 film THE DELINQUENTS and the 1966 film THE HUNT are also playing as part of this program.

9. OUTRAGE (Takeshi Kitano, 2010)

The newest film from the Japanese auteur Kitano, who has a huge cult reputation but is not often considered among the other great Asian directors of the past two decades. It is another “yakuza” gangster tale, with huge amounts of violence, but also promises to contain Kitano’s usual parodic humor. Honorable mention here to two other films in the “Asia Extreme” category: Takashi Miike’s THIRTEEN ASSASSINS and Kim Ji-woon’s I SAW THE DEVIL. No word yet on if the controversial I SAW THE DEVIL will be an uncut screening or the version that played here in theaters.

8. PORTRAIT OF THE DAYS OF YOUTH (Kwak Ji-Hyun, 1990)

Kwak Ji-Young is given a four film retrospective at this year’s festival. Kwak worked within the genre of melodrama and is often overlooked in Korean film history, but I’ve always been interested in exploring his work. PORTRAIT OF THE DAYS OF YOUTH is part of an “angry young man” cycle prevalent in the first Korean New Wave of the late 80s/early 90s, and combines its melodrama with an examination of Korean’s recent political history. His 1986 WINTER WANDERER is another critical favorite amongst Kwak’s works that is screening here this year.

7. PLEASE DON’T DISTURB (Mohsen Abdolvahab, 2010)

A three-tiered story of a day in the life of Tehran, seen through the eyes of a battered wife, a mullah, and an elderly couple. The debut film of Iranian director Abdolvahab, so the quality of this film is certainly even more questionable than usual. But Iranian cinema of the past couple of decades has been consistently interesting, and that along with the political nature of this story is more than enough to have me intrigued.

6. DEATH OF A CYCLIST (Juan Antonio Bardem, 1955)

Another film from the Spanish cinema retrospective, this one is a crime thriller with a plot premise straight out of film noir: an adulterous couple is returning from a trip when they strike a man on a bicycle with their car. Because of the affair, they cannot report the crime. Like film noir, the story is also a metaphor for the corruption of the culture at large, in this case Franco’s Spain.

5. I WISH I KNEW (Jia Zhang-ke, 2010)

A new documentary from Jia Zhang-ke, one of the current giants of world cinema whose fictional works contain many documentary elements. This film is an historical study of the city of Shanghai, a first person account from 18 different citizens detailing the city from the 30s to the present day. However, with Jia, one should be careful not to expect a straightforward non-fiction tale, since he constantly works to blend fiction and non-fiction in all his projects.

4. VIRIDIANA (Luis Bunuel, 1961)

Luis Bunuel is one of the greats in film history, and his work has only grown in esteem for me personally as I get older. Revisiting his earlier films, I always find more enjoyment on repeated viewings, as Bunuel’s unusual sensibility becomes more clear and more accurate about the modern world we still inhabit. VIRIDIANA is one of Bunuel’s more famous, especially for its notorious recreation of “The Last Supper”, but is one I still haven’t seen. It is Bunuel’s first film in Spain after time in exile in Mexico, and predictably it caused a scandal, being denounced by the Catholic Church and causing embarrassment to Franco’s regime, which allowed it to be entered at Cannes (where it won the 1961 Palme d’Or).

3. TICKET (Im Kwon-Taek, 1986)

The old Korean master Im Kwon-taek is hardly known for gritty, contemporary dramas about the underbelly of Korean society, but that is exactly what he made, apparently, with 1986′s TICKET. Part of an 8 film retrospective on the actress Jimi Kim (who also produced this film), I first became aware of TICKET by watching Jang Sun-woo’s Korean cinema documentary, and the clips shown in that film have had me interested in seeing the whole work ever since. I should also note that the Jimi Kim retrospective includes another Im Kwon-Taek film, KILSODEUM (1985), as well as THE HOUSEMAID director Kim Ki-young’s THE PROMISE OF THE FLESH (1975).

2. CERTIFIED COPY (Abbas Kiarostami, 2010)

The latest work from Kiarostami, who is a strong contender for greatest living filmmaker, and importantly his first film made outside of Iran. It stars Juliette Binoche (who has worked with more great auteurs than any other living actor) and takes place in Tuscany, and has thus received many comparisons to the Roberto Rosselini-Ingrid Bergman collaboration VOYAGE TO ITALY (1953). The film was fairly well-received when it premiered at Cannes in May, and Kiarostami rarely makes uninteresting work.

1. HAHAHA (Hong Sang-soo, 2010)

Currently, of all the directors working in cinema today, if I could choose to see a new movie from anyone, I would choose Hong Sang-soo. HAHAHA was released domestically here in May, but I was unable to see a print with subtitles. This is Hong’s 10th feature, and the previous nine have all been either very good to excellent. If not the greatest working director, Hong can certainly claim to be the most consistent, especially given his work-rate. In fact, the only small disappointment is that his most recent film, OKI’S MOVIE, released just a few months after HAHAHA, is not playing at Pusan as well.

I’ll be providing 3-4 days of coverage from the festival next month, including daily previews and wrap-ups.

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