Asian Cinema has outdone itself in 2018. The films that were produced in the subcontinent didn’t just end up being increasingly relatable. Still, they also pushed the boundaries of the usual narrative structure to really stand out from the crowd. From heartbreaking dramas to films that paid homage to filmmaking itself, the Best Asian Films Of 2018 were those that didn’t even make it to a cinema near you. The independent film scene has really enveloped the entirety of mainstream cinema in one go. Here are 15 films that were the best out of a whole lot of cinema that the subcontinent produced:
15. Andhadhun | Director: Sriram Raghavan
While most Indian films base themselves on a narrative that introduces a central conflict to move the protagonist into battling it in the third act, Shriram Raghavan’s “Andhadhun” introduces conflicts every 10 minutes. In doing so, he dished out a deliciously pacy black comedic thriller that keeps you on your toes from start to finish. Filled with hilarious, colorful, and deranged characters, the film rides like a hopping rabbit on an enlarged piano that suddenly gets its leg stuck on the key that plays the highest note.
Also Featured in The 10 Best Hindi Films of 2018
14. One Cut of the Dead | Director: Shinichirou Ueda
I won’t blame you if you give up on the film seeing the first 20-odd minutes. The first single-take is meant to showcase a forced, B-movie thrill that is so absorbingly self-conscious that you might believe it is a terrible film. However, if you plan to stay through its over-welcoming opening, you are in for a delightful homage to the art of independent filmmaking. I would go ahead and say that Shin’ichirô Ueda’s “One Cut of the Dead” is an original comedy inside an unoriginal zombie film.
13. The Cakemaker | Director: Ophir Raul Graizer
Graizer’s debut feature is a beautiful and restrained representation of the universality of love. It is a tender, warm, and ultimately empathetic look at loss. Without a common link between words, the director showcases how grief requires an outlet that doesn’t succumb to standing masculine. In spite of a depressing heart at its center, “The Cakemaker” manages to be kinder to the process it instills.
Must-Read: 20 Criminally Underrated Films of 2018
12. Long Day’s Journey Into Night | Director: Bi Gan
After lapsing us in a time warp in his poetic masterwork, Kaili Blues, Bi Gan is back with another mind-scrambling, dream-like film noir intentionally fragmented to keep its selected audience at bay. It’s only nearly one hour into it that you see the film taking a three-dimensional turn into answers about life and love that you never knew could be answered in the first place.
Recommended: The 15 Best Asian Films Of 2017
11. October | Director: Shoojit Sircar
In Shoojit Sircar’s “October,” none of the characters express their love for one another. And yet, like the changing season that comes and goes – you feel its presence. Love blooms like a fallen flower that retains some of its fragrance on the shimmering, tired, yet always hopeful face of the selfless protagonist. Even when it is no longer a part of the place that gave it light, it flickers with sadness that grows tenderly into something that the four-letter word is too small to encapsulate.
10. Manta Ray | Director: Phuttiphong Aroonpheng
Phuttiphong Aroonpheng’s debut feature is a hypnotic, layered, and symbolically angry take on the refugee crises in Thailand. It represents a loss of identity wrapped in a tale of true friendship. Subtly filmed and mostly silent in its metaphorical look at societal displacement, “Manta Ray” is a film of truly artistic beauty.
9. Ee. Ma. Yau | Director: Lijo Jose Pellissery
It surpasses Lijo Jose Pellissery’s previous film in its introspect of the human condition and a specific event triggering complex emotional reasonings in people connected and not connected to it. “Ee.Ma.Yau“ balances brilliant writing with a gloomy atmosphere that can never pre-warn you about the impending doom that the final act packed up.
Highly Recommended: The 15 Best Indian Films of 2018
8. Jonaki | Director: Aditya Vikram Sengupta
A true cinematic equivalent to dreamscape memories formulating an articulative mosaic of artful images, Aditya Vikram Sengupta’s “Jonaki“ is an interpersonal account of decaying life and fumigating sadness. It is a love story set to the moving sensibilities of time and the destructive immunity of memorabilia. In only his second feature, Sengupta proves to have a vision that, despite its clear influences, manages to be surrealistically magical.
7. The Great Buddha + | Director: Hsin-yao Huang
It is an intelligent, uproaring black comedy that decidedly breaks the narrative strand into a superbly crafted narrative device where the director spells out everything for you. Yet, “The Great Buddha+“ manages to keep the social critique so concretely bleak and rigid that hearsay would skim it, for it serves a delicious voyeuristic gaze at the never-in-concern higher class literally snatching color out of the black-and-white days of the lower class.
Also Featured in: Ranked: Every Foreign Language Film Submitted For 91st Academy Awards
6. A Family Tour | Director: Ying Liang
In Ying Liang’s latest feature, there is an overabundance of uneasily quiet frames. This does not take away from the fact that the metastasized “A Family Tour” comes from a very personal space and is probably his most angry film to date. Taking his own life in exile after releasing his controversial film, Liang brings forth heartbreaking truths with a reunion in the in-betweens.
Also Read: A Family Tour (2018) – ‘NYFF’ Review
5. An Elephant Sitting Still | Director: Hu Bo
Hu Bo’s first and tragically last feature film – “An Elephant Sitting Still,” is a bleak, melancholic, soul-searching drama that traces the lives of four individuals succumbing to life’s nature of crushing them under the pressure of existence. It’s terrible to know that Hu Bo died after completing the film that takes us through a day that starts and ends with the four people dealing with their interpersonal battles – Where they occasionally learn to cope with the fact that lives simply don’t work the way one wants to.
Recommended Read: 15 Must-See Coming Of Age Films Of 2018
4. Hotel by the River | Director: Hong Sangsoo
With “Hotel by the River,” Hong Sangsoo, the master minimalistic filmmaker—drives in a poetic poignancy that helps you revel in its sturdy moments. Beautifully shot in melancholic black and white, the film poses most existential questions without focusing too much on the passage of time. The emotional impact is stilted but clear, which makes me wonder how Hong Sang-Soo manages to make the same film over and over again.
3. The Wild Pear Tree | Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Turkish master filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “The Wild Pear Tree” philosophizes and investigates the life of a young Turk coming of age while he meanders and accepts that his wisdom can’t withdraw him from his own fate. Lensed around the countryside that triggers an expansive look into the lives of contemporary middle-class Turkish people, The Wild Pear Tree mostly motions along a young writer trying to mold the conventions in his favor as he tries to understand the environment he is living in.
2. Burning | Director: Lee Chang-dong
Based on Haruki Murakami’s short story ‘Barn Burning,’ Lee Chang-dong’s “Burning” is a stupendous drama about succumbing to the invisible peer pressures of existence. It is an intense drama about the factors that hold specific individuals from growing out of their self-made bubbles and how evil can be a mysterious answer to questions that constantly change their toxicity. Features some of the bleakest metaphors known to mankind; burning solidifies that growing up doesn’t always promise a pleasurable future.
1. Shoplifters | Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
After slightly diverting from his comfort zone by delivering a slow-burning thriller in 2017, the Japanese master of familial dramas is back with “Shoplifters.” Soothing, understated, and so emotionally moving that you wouldn’t even notice when tears stream down your face, the newest film by Hirokazu Kore-eda is a humanist masterpiece.
