LA Weekly from Los Angeles, California • 26

FILM FULL SERVICE SALON FOR MEN AND WOMEN I 20 fj rJf 1 kv -t CUTS PERMS HAIR STYUNG COLOR EXPERTS HIGHUGHTS MANICURE PEDICURE WAXING EUROPEAN FACIAL 1 JLL. 8707 SANTA MONICA BLVD 310.657.4512 310.657.4517 VALET PARKING walls with toothbrushes, graduating into song-and-dance when they become sophomores. By then, the girls have decided whether to perform as women or men. The kicker is that, at Takarazuka, students play their roles on stage and off. Directors Kim Longinotto andjano Williams are maddeningly restrained when it comes to all this gender twisting, but the doc remains completely enthralling.

In Sonatine, Takeshi Kitano empties out the mise en scene as if he were clearing a field. Considering that this is yet another yakuza (gangster) movie, the strategy not only makes sense but is strangely poetic as well. The director himself stars as the midlevel boss who goes into hiding at an isolated shorefront. The festival notes say Sonatine is cooler than Bresson. Thats idiotic, but Kitano, whos directed a fistful of previous films, is an auteur to watch regardless.

Korea One of the most beautiful films to look at in the festival is also one of the most beautiful films to listen to. Im Kwon-Taeks exquisite Sopyonje traces the legacy of the divided Korea through the sorry story of a family of wandering Pansori performers. The father is a Pansori reciter whose devotion to his dying art all but destroys his daughter and son. During the colonization, Japanese Enka; now with liberation, Yankees pop song. Here, allegory is inscribed on the body politic, but not at the expense of the individual.

Peoples Republic of China Zhang Yuans Beijing Bastards and Wang Xiaoshuais The Days have both been touted as Sixth Generation comers. Some of the more obvious distinctions between their films and those of the Fifth Generation are self-consciously looser camera work, a moody timbre, Western-inflected soundtracks and an emphasis on anguished youth. Both films are raw, evocative and fitfully edgy. Bastards is best when it muffles star rocker Cui Jian; The Days has the cool feel of a 60s European art movie and just as lousy sexual politics. Thailand Theres nothing mondo about Green Menace: The Untold Story of Golf, despite its title.

Ing Kanjanavanits documentary about golf courses in Thailand is an enraging expose of eco-terrorism and greed on both sides of the Pacific. No longer restricted to Japan, a rage for golf is oozing all over Southeast Asia. The upshot is spoiled reserves, exploited workers, toxic chemicals and peasants whose crops die because the golf courses are stealing public water. Look for Jack Nicklaus turning an easy, ugly American buck. Et Cetera More films to watch out for are Lana Lins Mizu Shobai and John Manal Castros Diary of a Gangsta Sucka.

Through lush images and narrative shards, Lin builds a lyrical critique of the ways in which the figure of the Japanese woman exists in the imaginary. Entirely different fictions are probed in Gangsta Sucka. This faux-documentary about Filipino gangbangers riffs on Boyz the Hood, Menace II Society and Jean-Pierre Gorins doc about Samoan gangbangers, My Crasy Life. Its very fast and very funny, even if Castros teeth are more than a little blunt. For complete program information, call the UCLA Film and, Television Archive at (310) 206-FILM.

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