Louis Vuitton Hawai’i International Film Festival / The big kahuna of local flick fests is the Louis Vuitton Hawai’i International Film Festival and once again, this year is a perfect opportunity to sample a diverse group of various cinematic offerings from Asia and the Pacific Islands. Some are more entertaining than others, but all are culturally and informatively illuminating.

One of the grimmest of this year’s crop is The Little Heart (Trai Tim Be Bong) from Vietnam. Seventeen-year-old Mai lives a hard-knock life in a poor central Vietnam village with her two sisters, her younger brother, her much abused mother and her demonic, spouse-beating father. To help earn more income for her family, she travels to Saigon for sewing lessons to become a tailor. Or so she thought. She is promptly enslaved in a brothel and the story spirals downward into harrowing tragedy from there.

The film has a very disjointed narrative, making it hard to latch onto the film’s tone and exposition. This may be due in part to the country’s cinematic style, but the scene changes can be a bit abrupt. The intentional or unintentional pidgin subtitles and lack of aesthetics doesn’t help either. It’s definitely for hardcore Vietnamese film fans only.

Patsy Mink: Ahead of the Majority

Much more inspirational is Patsy Mink: Ahead of the Majority. Locals will probably remember this beloved politician; hers is the story of the rise of the first woman of color in Congress–from Hawai’i no less–and in an era of Hillary and Palin, this documentary may be timelier than ever. (As we are reminded, Mink herself ran for President in 1972.) The staunch liberal worked tirelessly to introduce bills to reduce poverty in America and was at the forefront of progressive race and gender issues in a time when they were decidedly unpopular sentiments. Her most lasting achievement may have been Title IX–the Equal Opportunity in Education Act.

Those in the know will smile knowingly at footage of Mink’s trademark shouting and the adjectives “insistent,” “demanding,” and even “cantankerous” when colleagues relate anecdotes about her. Especially winning is one staffer’s recounting of the use of black construction paper tags to mark projects that Mink deemed urgent. Suffice to say, there were reportedly a lot of black tags in that office. It would have been interesting to further explore these sides of Mink for a more well-rounded representation of the groundbreaking political figure, but as it is, Ahead of the Majority is a pleasing tribute to the congresswoman.

Surprisingly, the films that really stand out are the entries in the amusing, less dramatically ambitious genres.

Sparrow (Man Jeuk)

Sparrow (Man Jeuk) from Hong Kong is a light-hearted caper involving a quartet of pickpockets who become embroiled in a wife’s plot to escape the clutches of their husband. She cases each of the four affable criminals and hits them up with a scheme to steal her passport from her husband’s safe. But wouldn’t you know it, the husband is a master pickpocket himself, and the film ends with an epic rainy nighttime showdown of pickpocketing.

The action of petty theft is far more dynamic than it seems, with finely choreographed scenes of bumping, distraction and the use of razor blades to slice away a jacket’s pocket material or a purse’s underside. Even more alluring is director Johnny To’s decision to use very little dialogue in the entire film. The dramatic comedy moves along with just the facial expressions and deft movements of the film’s characters over a bright, jazzy, space-age, lounge music score. At times, it’s like watching a modern-day silent film.

Cyborg She (Boku No Kanojo Wa Saibogu)

The festival’s hidden, crowd-pleasing sleeper may be Japan’s Cyborg She (Boku No Kanojo Wa Saibogu). Depending on who does the translating, the film is also known as My Girlfriend is a Cyborg, and that sums up everything.

Jiro is a goofy student who celebrates his birthday alone, even resorting to buying a present for himself. As he opens his self-purchased gift in a restaurant at a table for one, a beautiful girl seats herself next to him and they proceed to spend a night in the city together before she abruptly leaves on a street corner. Exactly one year later, she re-appears and seems much more…robotic. Soon it is revealed that she is in fact a cyborg from the future, sent by his future-self, for reasons to be revealed. And there are more twists and turns in the script after that.

Cyborg contains scenes of spontaneous and unexpectedly original fun. Somehow this daffy little love story manages to shoe-horn into its storyline a steaming pot of nabe with iguana as the main ingredient, a far-off tribe that dines on the feces of capybaras, a terrifying earthquake sequence to rival the FX of Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich combined and the sight of an android doing the robot on a nightclub dance floor.

As wacky as the Terminator-mashed-with-J-Pop-romance sensibility is, the movie has a genuinely sweet streak and the ending is heartbreaking, touching and ultimately, feel-good. Hollywood producers are probably scrambling to remake it at this very moment.

For a complete schedule, including showtimes and synopses of HIFF films, visit [hiff.org] or [honoluluweekly.com]

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