Powered by Ando Sakura's tour de force performance, this shoot-from-the-hip character study stars the Shoplifters actress as 32-year-old slacker Ichiko. She still lives with her parents, without a job or any ambition in life. After a blowout fight with her sister, she leaves home and lives hand-to-mouth working at a 100-yen "dollar store". When she becomes enamored with a local boxer, she starts a life-changing journey of redemption and empowerment. Ando's transformation from lazy loser to driven heroine, for which she won rounds of Japan's Best Actress awards, is a knockout punch that will leave audiences cheering in the aisles.

Hong Kong new wave auteur Patrick Tam returned to the director’s chair after 17 years with his heart-wrenching masterpiece about never losing hope in the throes of despair. Working class Malaysian-Chinese Chow Cheong-shing (Aaron Kwok) is a shadow of his former self. Addicted to gambling, debt-ridden and ill-tempered, he’s also become an abusive husband. At wit’s end, his downtrodden wife (Charlie Young) abandons him and their son, setting the two on a downward spiral. Out of work, out of luck, and on the run from loan sharks, Chow and his son end up on the streets risking all odds to survive.

A low-life debt collector forms an unlikely friendship with a feisty high school girl as they both negotiate their own troubled pasts and uncertain futures in this hard-hitting drama. From its first screamed obscenity to its final blows, Breathless is one of the most savage, unrepentant and inspired directorial debuts that NYAFF has ever premiered. Coming out of nowhere, writer, producer, director and star Yang Ik-june delivers a brutal portrayal of family dysfunction, abuse and sheer angst. This devastatingly raw and moving tale, which also proved a breakout role for young actress Kim Kkobbi, won 29 international awards.

Ryoo Seung-wan’s early masterpiece delivers a one-two punch of rage and redemption. Former silver medalist boxer Kang Tae-shik (Oldboy star Choi Min-sik) sells himself as a human punching bag on the streets of Seoul to keep his marriage together and loan sharks at bay. Young ex-con Yoo Sang-hwan wreaks havoc around town until he discovers boxing as the perfect vent for his aggression. The two desperate men's paths cross when an amateur boxing competition offers a large cash prize. Ryoo dealt the boxing genre the ultimate uppercut, pitting underdog against underdog. Everyone’s a loser, because life is the ultimage rigged match.

This gripping heist-thriller centers on a quartet of taxi drivers running a low-level extortion racket that targets the well-off passengers they drive from the airport. There are echoes of Michael Mann's Heat, with a persistent cop closing in on the highly-disciplined gang leader, including a tense face-off. Things go south when the youngest driver teams up with one of their victims to blackmail her cheating lover. Depicting a dark underbelly of Kuala Lumpur teeming with violent triads and corrupt cops, Zahir Omar’s debut feature is a stylish and gritty neo-noir that raises the bar of Malaysian genre cinema.

This innovative pastiche of pulp, pop art and social commentary is a landmark of contemporary Chinese cinema. When a gangster’s driver absconds with one million yuan from his boss to pay for his girlfriend's plastic surgery mistakes, a wild chase ensues over one rainy night. Peppered with wry dark humor, its labyrinthine pitfalls and double-crosses is headlined by a motley cast of characters straight out of central casting. Three years in the making and almost single-handedly animated by Liu Jian, it is a spartan yet strikingly animated neo-noir that takes to task modern fissures of Chinese society and materialism.

This rollicking riches-to-rags tale is loosely based on the life of legendary 19th century martial artist So Chan, one of the Ten Tigers of Canton. Comedic master Stephen Chow portrays So as a spoilt rich kid who excels at fighting whilst he shirks his scholarly ambitions. When the illiterate So is caught cheating on his imperial exams, his family is stripped of its wealth. Joining the Beggars' Sect, he sets forth on the path of righteousness, defending the weak and foiling political intrigue. This "new school" kung fu film first played New York Chinatown’s Music Palace, where NYAFF was born.

Acclaimed auteur Eric Khoo put Singapore back on the cinematic map with this bold debut that offers a gritty street-level view of the claustrophobic city-state. Johnny, a painfully awkward and troubled young man, runs a noodle shop in a seamy part of town. He is secretly in love with one of his customers, beautiful young prostitute Bunny who dreams of escaping her pimp and Singapore itself. Tragic happenstance brings the two lost souls together, which leads to a shocking turn of events. This screening marks the U.S. premiere of the Asian Film Archive's 20th anniversary restoration of Singapore’s first and groundbreaking indie.

Martial arts prodigy Yuda embarks on his merantau, a traditional rite of passage, in which he must leave his village to experience the big bad city. Living on the streets of Jakarta, he rescues a struggling brother and sister from the clutches of ruthless criminals, an intervention that escalates to a final deadly showdown. Director Gareth Evans discovered action star Iko Uwais (The Raid: Redemption) while shooting a documentary on silat, Indonesia's indigenous martial art. Combining a literal "hero's journey" with old school exploitation movie trappings, ground-breaking action, and a little profundity for good measure, Merantau rekindled Indonesian action cinema.

In a riveting against-type performance, popular Korean actress Han Ji-min embodies the titular antihero, scruffy and reckless ex-con Miss Baek. From car washer to masseuse, she struggles to rise above her social outcast status until she meets an imperiled child who mirrors her own traumatic past. She sets out to save the little girl from her abusive parents, only for the child's conniving mother to scheme against her. This impressive debut by director Lee Ji-won is a personal story, in which she comes to terms with her own inability to help a neighborhood child.

Li Yi-min, star of The 7 Grandmasters, returns as a kung fu novice out to avenge his father’s murder. He’s the kung fu school’s perennially picked-on outcast, until the red-nosed old chef (Yuen Siu-tien from Drunken Master) surreptitiously teaches him how to fight. Meanwhile the mysterious Ghost-Faced Killer (hello, Wu Tang Clan!) is on a wild killing spree. Eventually our unlikely hero finds a master who has invented chess kung fu, and together they set out to vanquish the villain. The Mysteries of Chess Boxing delivers gleefully low-rent antics and dynamic excitement that proved it a watershed movie of the genre.

Gareth Evans and Iko Uwais followed their breakthrough Merantau with this turbocharged action opus. A monolithic slum building run by deadly criminals becomes a gauntlet of survival for a S.W.A.T. team on a mission to apprehend its drug lord overseer. After a series of daunting setbacks, the team find themselves trapped with no option other than to fight their way out. The Raid: Redemption raised Asian cinema's action bar with its frenetic pace, non-stop bone-crunching battles, and innovative silat-based choreography all set against the gritty backdrop of a Jakarta ghetto and its formidable and colorful underworld denizens.

A rare, must-see batsh*t crazy trip of a movie about good and evil.

Veteran kung fu master Sang Kuan-chun (Jack Lung) is about to retire when his legacy is questioned. He challenges all seven grandmasters to prove he is leaving the martial arts world at the top of his game. A clumsy young oaf (Li Yi-min) follows him, begging to be taken as his final student, so he can learn enough to avenge his father’s murder. Fights ensue every ten minutes, peppering a paper-thin plot made from comic book logic, until the dramatic, satisfying finale. Everyone chews the scenery (and the spaghetti western tropes) in this tasty and seminal chopsocky that proved a grindhouse sensation.

Swordsman supreme Tsai Ying-jie rolls into town with a mission: to track down the bandits that killed his father and stole a legendary sword some 18 years ago. Soon he's trouncing hooligans and saving damsels in distress. Through a chance encounter, Cai becomes entangled with mysterious swordsman Black Dragon and the woman warrior Flying Swallow. Will they help him exact revenge or stand in his way? After directing several melodramas, Joseph Kuo jumped on the wuxia bandwagon with this exciting tale of chivalry and subterfuge. A box office hit, it kicked off Kuo’s lengthy string of triumphant martial arts hits.