Scene stealers
Critics' picks for the S.F. International Asian American Film Festival

The Adventure of Iron Pussy (Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Michael Shaowanasai, Thailand, 2003) Q: What do you get when the world's most inventively resourceful new filmmaker dons stylistic drag? A: The Adventure of Iron Pussy, a silly but also sublime feature-length video by Apichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul. The sweet spirit of Blissfully Yours's credit sequence flavors all of this confection; it's a triple-layer musical-romance-adventure cake covered with soap-opera icing that contains more IQ points than calories. Weerasethakul indulges every freeze-frame (or Pause button), split-screen, and establishing-shot impulse – the low-budget visual wonders include sparkly Kylie appliqué, 7-Eleven cash registers that broadcast spy instructions, pink and blue subtitles for masculine-feminine duets, Méliès-style moonfaced pix, and a tiger hunt worthy of a cobra woman. Decked out in high-heeled white boots, copious frilly tulle, and a That Girl 'do, codirector Michael Shaowanasai's go-go boy-gone-good girl title character is multifaceted yet always perfectly apposite – her clutched-bosom expressions of shock never fail to showcase divinely painted nails. Iron Pussy is your hero tonight. Sat/6, 7 p.m., Castro; March 10, 9 p.m., PFA. (Johnny Ray Huston)

Bright Future (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan, 2003) The master of metaphor returns, and if the bewildered response at last year's Cannes fest is any indication, unimaginative critics aren't ready for his jelly. A male melodrama with father-son and homo-romantic undercurrents, and a kill-your-boss workplace koan that grants interest to repeat viewers, Bright Future reconfigures Kurosawa's persistent philosophical interest in charisma – this time the allure has a sting that might or might not be deadly. Paternal figure Tatsuya Fuji bears an uncanny resemblance to the director, while newcomer Jo Odagiri alternates between James Dean-isms and a Sal Mineo-like crush on towelette factory coworker Tadanobu Asano. (In the latter case, who can blame him?) The Godard-pop set decoration includes a Kramer vs. Kramer soundtrack, while bizarre glam-dandy costume design turns emotion into fashion. Just as video has freed Apichatpong Weerasethakul's wacky commercial instincts, it helps Kurosawa get in touch with the youth inside – looking back at a generation striving forward, the final shot is, as they say, one for the ages. Sun/7, 7:30 p.m., PFA; Tues/9, 7 p.m., Kabuki. (Huston)

Masters of the Pillow (James Hou, USA, 2003) and Yellowcaust: A Patriot Act (Darrell Y. Hamamoto, USA, 2003) Hot for teacher? Masters of the Pillow instead shows that the prof is hot for porn. Here James Hou documents UC Davis professor Darrell Y. Hamamoto's next logical step after authoring a paper titled "The Joy Fuck Club: Prolegomenon to an Asian American Porno Practice": becoming a porno auteur himself. Casting Yellowcaust as an extension of his activism, Hamamoto goes on to describe his all-API hardcore flick as an effort to eroticize the cinematically emasculated Asian American male. Let's just say he wants to put the dong back in Sixteen Candles' Donger. In the process Hou captures all the sexy and banal details, such as Hamamoto's wry humor, which borders on outsized egotism, and a tense, almost envious interchange between Hamamoto's girlfriend-cameraperson, Funie Hsu, and porn actress Layla Lei. Hou also gets thoughtful sound bites from Asian American filmmakers, playwrights, and scholars such as Better Luck Tomorrow director Justin Lin, David Henry Hwang, and UC Berkeley professor Elaine Kim, but unfortunately the discussion of the entertainment industry's representations of Asian American men is marred by formulaic, porn score-style music, and Hou needlessly pads scenes at times. Hou and Hamamoto should've resisted the temptation to pump things up, because when you finally see the video that was trumpeted as the first Asian American porn movie, and a harbinger of change in an erotic marketplace devoid of straight API males, it's fairly anticlimactic. Hamamoto politicizes Yellowcaust by running a ticker tape of provocative factoids about racism and colonialism alongside the action, but dedicating his creation to Nagisa Oshima just diminishes his strenuous efforts. Back in the old country, there's obviously no dearth of eroticized gay and straight Asian male images – just start with Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses. Fri/5, 4:30 p.m., Kabuki; Sat/6, 9:45 p.m., Kabuki. (Kimberly Chun)

S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (Rithy Panh, Cambodia/France, 2003) In a single take, filmmaker Rithay Panh slowly pans from the nightmarish gray-blues of a painting by Vann Nath that depicts torture, to Nath, then to some of the Khmer Rouge guards who tormented him. One of less than a handful of people to emerge from a detention camp where at least 17,000 people were executed, Nath voices the questions at the heart of Panh's documentary, and his paintings, displayed in the setting that inspired them, are open doorways to horrors of the recent past. Few docs about genocide include scenes in which survivors face down perpetrators, but Path's film is built from such scenarios. Returning to scenes of Pol Pot's mass crimes, the camera work is often as precisely framed as Nath's paintings, particularly during a sequence in which one guard – who was indoctrinated at the age of 12 – re-creates his actions with an obsessiveness that verges on robotic. Panh doesn't spend much time on political and historical context, and though he's gathered Khmer Rouge personnel, apologies – let alone answers – aren't forthcoming. The regime's fanatical documentation unwittingly provides greater insight into human deception and resistance. The final moments of this chilling, remarkable film linger on mug shot-like photos of S21 prisoners. Their defiance is eloquent beyond words. Mon/8, 7:15 p.m., Kabuki; Thurs/11, 7:30 p.m., Kabuki. (Huston)

For venue and price information, see box on page 32.