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Molder from Filipino director Kenneth Dagatan has scooped the top Bucheon Award at the 17th Network of Asian Fantastic Films (Naff) project market, which runs alongside South Korea’s Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (Bifan).

As well as a cash prize of KRW15m, the upcoming horror thriller also won the Blood Window Award, which includes an expenses-paid invitation to the Blood Window project market at Ventana Sur in Argentina.

Scroll down for full list of winners

It marks the next feature from Dagatan, whose fantasy horror In My Mother’s Skin was the first ever Midnight section selection from Asia...

After three days of one-on-one meetings, supernatural horror film project “Molder” emerged as the biggest winner of the Naff Project Market, part of South Korea’s Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival.

The project by Kenneth Dagatan won the top Bucheon Award and an expenses-paid invitation to the Blood Window project market in Argentina.

Other notable winners included “Naga Swim Upstream,” the next project by Thailand’s Patiparn Boontarig, who recently enjoyed festival success with “Solids by the Seashore,” and “The Vampire of Sheung Shui,” to be directed by Shreyom Ghosh.

“Molder” features a Filipino immigrant living in Italy with his wife who suffers from dementia. When they meet a mysterious young Filipino man named Anthony, the woman disappears and the immigrant man’s life turns into a nightmare of physical decay, marked by necrotic skin patches and horrifying visions. He must race against time to find Anthony, whom he believes has cursed them,...

The fifth episode of the series moves towards Hollywood pulp territory once more, while also fostering a very intriguing metaphor. The timeline this time is 1997, when Indonesia was experiencing recession.

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Bandi is a movie poster painter barely making a living along with his wife Dewi and their son, Marhan. Dewi's environment does not want her to be with Bandi, as they consider their relationship a dead end, as the violent scene in the beginning eloquently highlights, but the two love each other too much for anything to break them up. This, until one fateful night, Bandi decides to enter a rundown cinema and spend a bit of time with the owners there. When he returns to his apartment, though, it seems that years have actually passed.

While the main premise might seem cliché, Randolph Zaini's unique approach and...

Everyday people get caught up in otherworldly problems in the supernatural series Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams. The anthology follows characters who take drastic measures to save money, their families, or themselves — but are instead greeted by unspeakable dangers from other realms. From writer-director Joko Anwar, the series was co-directed by Ray Farandy Pakpahan (Beyond Skyline), Tommy Dewo (Ratu Adil), and Randolph Zaini (Preman). Nightmares and Daydreams stars a massive ensemble cast featuring Ario Bayu, Marissa Anita, and Asmara Abigail.

“This seriesexplores the sci-fi supernatural genre,” Anwar told Netflix. “Inspired by my curiosity and fascination with alien stories, I dug deep into the intriguing concept of aliens that might not be far from us.”

Stream it now.

Check it out at the top of this page.

Each stand-alone but interconnected episode focuses on ordinary people who face mysterious phenomena that endanger them and their loved ones.

Joko Anwar's latest effort, “Nightmares and Daydreams” a 7-episode anthology of the horrific and the supernatural is currently streaming on Netflix. Considering that the episodes are separate entities, we decided to deal with each one in separate reviews, instead of a single one. “Old House”, co-directed by Ray Farandy Pakpahan and Randolph Zaini is the first and longest one.

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The episode begins with Banji, a poor taxi driver, leaving his senile mother into a rather luxurious elderly home, despite the pleas of a caretaker though, not to do so. Through a flashback, we learn that although neither he nor his wife wanted to abandon her there, after a life-threatening incident involving their infant, the decided to do so, also instigated by the fact that an acquaintance of Banji would allow them to let her leave in the particular establishment for free.

Joko Anwar, a driving force behind Indonesia’s modern film industry, is the creator of Netflix’s new anthology series Nightmares and Daydreams. The Satan’s Slaves filmmaker slips in and out of these seven episodes, with his fingers directly on the pulse of a select few. However, even when not personally directing or writing, Anwar’s unique touch can be felt in every inch of the journey. What initially looks to be a chain of unconnected stories turns out to be an odyssey with a specific and often unsettling destination.

Unlike other anthologies, there is no particular character who guides the audience in and out of the sub-stories and clarifies their experience. On the contrary, each tale kicks off with no kind of formal introduction — apart from a surreal opening sequence — thus allowing the series to access that certain sensation of nodding off and slipping into a dream. Everything appears...

Netflix has unveiled a raft of Chinese-language titles and upcoming projects from Indonesia and Thailand as it continues to grow original content in Southeast Asia.

The streaming giant revealed four series from Taiwan, eight titles from Thailand and five from Indonesia that would debut on the platform throughout 2024.

From Indonesia, features include Monster, a dialogue-free suspense thriller directed by Rako Prijanto. The film, starring Marsha Timothy, Alex Abbad, and Anantya Kirana, premiered at the Jogja-netpac Asian Film Festival in November.

Further titles from the country include Borderless Fog, a crime thriller set in Borneo, from award-winning filmmaker Edwin; and action...

Farell Akbar in the Indonesian action crime movie Preman: Silent Fury. Courtesy of Hi-Yah.

Preman: Silent Fury is a subtitled Indonesian action film that is a relative novelty among the mostly high-octane martial arts and shootouts that cross the Pacific from several Asian countries for our entertainment. This one features a deaf character (Farell Akbar) who is a member of the eponymous criminal organization, who tries to quit and change his ways, mainly so his young son (Muzakki Ramdhan) can grow up in a better environment than he did.

According to the filmmakers, “Preman,” which is Dutch for “free man,” is a real type of Indonesian gangsters “who claim to be motivated by a deep sense of justice but are despised by society of their bullying and violent behavior.”

When they witness their gang’s leader (Kiki Narendra) killing a respected elder, that’s the last straw for the duo,...

Streaming giant staged its first-ever Indonesian slate event.

Netflix has announced its most ambitious slate of upcoming Indonesian films and series from local directors including Timo Tjahjanto, Kamila Andini and Joko Anwar.

The line-up of three features and four series were unveiled at Netflix’s first-ever Indonesian slate event, held in Jakarta, with the local-language original set for release in 2022 and 2023.

First up is feature The Big 4, marking the first action comedy from Timo, who is one half of the Mo Brothers known for their action thrillers Killers and Headshot. In the upcoming film, set for release toward the end of this year,...

Preman: Silent Fury Trailer — Randolph Zaini‘s Preman: Silent Fury (2021) movie trailer has been released by Well Go USA Entertainment. The Preman: Silent Fury trailer stars Khiva Iskak, Muzakki Ramdhan, Kiki Narendra, Salvita De Corte Putri Ayudya, Egi Fedly, Gilbert Pattiruhu, Paul Agusta, and Emil Kusumo. Crew Randolph Zaini wrote the screenplay for Preman: [...]

Continue reading: Preman: Silent Fury (2021) Movie Trailer: A Deaf Gangster Fights to Protect His Son From His Former Allies...

As we have mentioned many times before, the epicenter of martial arts cinema has moved to the Asean countries, with Indonesia being one of the most dominant ones. US-educated Randolph Zaini tries to continue in the footsteps of “The Raid” and “The Night Comes For Us”, by introducing a new element, that of a protagonist who is deaf.

Preman is screening on New York Asian Film Festival

The aforementioned man is named Sandi, and works as a preman, which the movie defines as thugs who considered themselves to be men of honor and justice, but were despised by the public for their violent ways. The connections of his organization with the police is established from the beginning, since Guru, a cop, is soon revealed to be the leader of the criminal syndicate, whose purpose is to oust a number of people from their homes, in order for construction to take cover.

The 20th edition of the festival will return as a full in-person event in July.

The New York Asian Film Festival (Nyaff) has unveiled the full line-up for its 20th edition, which will include honorary awards for Japanese horror director Takashi Shimizu, acclaimed Japanese actor Hiroshi Abe and South Korean rising star Kim Hye-yoon.

This year will mark Nyaff’s fully-fledged return to the big screen, following a virtual 2020 edition and a hybrid event in 2021. More than 60 new and classic titles from Asia, including six world premieres, will be presented as in-person screenings at Film at Lincoln Center (Flc) and the Asia Society,...

Probably one of the best years for action/martial arts cinema lately, 2021 saw a number of truly impressive titles coming out, as China’s blockbusters seem to be getting better, followed by the Korean ones, Japanese manga adaptations continue to be on a very high-level, at least production level-wise and Asean countries keep on producing some of the most interesting in the category through the combination of social commentary and exploitation elements. Furthermore, a number of movies that do not fall in any of the aforementioned groups but are of equal quality, rounded up a truly great year for Asian genre.

Without further ado, here are the best Asian martial arts/action films of 2021, in reverse order. Some films may have premiered in 2019, but since they mostly circulated in 2021, we decided to include them.

15. Rurouni Kenshin: The Final (Keishi Ohtomo)

On the other hand, the action element is top notch,...

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) is a regional intergovernmental organization comprising of ten countries in Southeast Asia, namely Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam. Evidently, the movie industry of these countries does not yet reach the size of Japan, India and S. Korea for example, but through the support of foreign companies (S. Korea has invested heavily in Indonesia that last few years for example), streaming services and a number of European festivals, along with the continuous support of Busan, a number of local filmmakers have managed to produce movies of great quality. 25 of the best, we present in this list.

Without further ado, here are the best Asean films of 2021, in reverse order. Some films may have premiered in 2020, but since they mostly circulated in 2021, we decided to include them.

25. Death Knot

In the end, “Death Knot” is a horror movie which relies...

At one point in writer-director Randolph Zaini’s feature-length debut, Preman, Pak Guru (Kiki Narendra), a depth-free, mustache-twirling villain, marvels that the best laid plans of gangsters, gang bosses (like him), and a Buddha-like real-estate developer have gone sideways due to the combination of a deaf man, Sandi Kecil, his angelic preteen son, Pandu (Muzakki Ramdhan), and a gang filled with near-useless “imbeciles” who keep failing to take Sandi down. Understandable, of course, given that the series of blood-soaked events leading to that particular scene have left Guru short on disposable imbeciles and/or henchmen, Sandi, bruised, bloodied, and unsurprisingly unbowed, and a not immodest trail of civilian casualties in their wake. Drawing obvious inspiration from Gareth Evans (The...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

As we have mentioned many times before, the epicenter of martial arts cinema has moved to the Asean countries, with Indonesia being one of the most dominant ones. US-educated Randolph Zaini tries to continue in the footsteps of “The Raid” and “The Night Comes For Us”, by introducing a new element, that of a protagonist who is deaf.

The aforementioned man is named Sandi, and works as a preman, which the movie defines as thugs who considered themselves to be men of honor and justice, but were despised by the public for their violent ways. The connections of his organization with the police is established from the beginning, since Guru, a cop, is soon revealed to be the leader of the criminal syndicate, whose purpose is to oust a number of people from their homes, in order for construction to take cover. Sandi, however, is reluctant to do his work...