BEST ASIAN SHORT FILMS - 1

Kurosawa is perhaps the greatest director there ever was. Here are some of the best recent shorts from his countrymen and from the rest of Asia.


House On Little Cubes by Kunio Katô (2008) (Japan) (12m) *

House On Little Cubes (Tsumiki No Ie) by Japenese animator Kunio Kato won the Best Short Animation Oscar in 2009. As his town floods, an old man is forced to add levels onto his home in order to stay dry. But when he drops his favorite pipe into the watery levels below, his scuba-diving search for the pipe prompts him to keep on descending and relive scenes from his life. It's a bit of a weepy and could be considered the animated version of The Last 3 Minutes...

House on Little Cubes

Bus 44 by Dayyan Eng (2001) (China) (11m)15 Certificate

Written and directed by Dayyan Eng, Bus 44 (Che si shi si, 车四十四 ) is one of my all time favourites. A nation of one billion souls should also appear in these pages. Bus 44 is one of those dramas that questions the human race. A bus travelling through rural China is boarded by robbers, who then turn their attention on the female driver. But who on the bus will put themselves at risk to help her? Bus 44 won an honourable mention at the Sundance Film Festival.

Bus 44

Birthday Boy

Birthday Boy by Sejong Park (2004) (S Korea) (8m)

Birthday Boy, by Korean-born Sejong Park, is a computer animated short film set in 1951 - during the destructive Korean War. Little Manuk is playing around his war ravaged village and dreaming of life at the front, where his father is a soldier. It is his birthday and when he returns home to find a parcel on the doorstep he innocently assumes it to be a present and opens it. It won the Best Short Animation BAFTA and was nominated for an Oscar in 2005.


15 CertificateOffside by Eraz Tadmor & Guy Nattiv (2006) (Israel) (7m) *

A great short film from Israeli filmmakers Eraz Tadmor and Guy Nattiv. Set on the border between Israel and the Palestinian territory, two Israeli soldiers are patrolling the fence while listening to the World Cup Final on a portable radio. They then come across two Palestians armed with machine guns and a tense stand-off is turned into black comedy as the both sides pause listen to the football...

Offside

Kisa Filmler Link to Spanish page Link to Russian page Link to Romanian page Link to Polish page Link to Polish page Link to Japanese page Link to Italian page Link to Hungarian page Link to German page Link to French page Link to Chinese page