:: spring showcase one line reviews ::

Don't know where to start planning for the HIFF Spring Showcase? Check out the one-line summaries for the films of the Spring Showcase below!

CRITICS' CHOICES

Friends With Money (USA, 2006) - direct from the 2006 Sundance Film Festival

Tsotsi (South Africa, 2005) - winner of the 2006 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film

PREMIERES

The Gift (Japan, 2006) - a tale of tragic love, based on the best selling Japanese novel

Always Sunset on Third Street (Japan, 2005) - winner of 13 Japanese Academy Awards

Minsan Pa (Philippines, 2005) - a gorgeous and smart melodrama, filmed in the Visayas

KOREA

Rules of Dating (South Korea, 2005) - a smart, sexy and adult comedy on relationships

Love Is a Crazy Thing (South Korea, 2005) - gritty tale of the Busan underground

The Bow (South Korea, 2005) - the 12th film from Kim Ki-duk, director of 3-IRON

WORLD CINEMA

20 Centimeters (Spain, 2005) - hit musical comedy about a narcoleptic transsexual

Iron Island (Iran, 2005) - black comedy set on a beached oil tanker

Parineeta (India, 2005) - song, dance and romance in 1960s Calcutta

Spring Snow (Japan, 2005) - based on the famous novel by Mishima Yukio

Zozo (Sweden, 2005) - a young boy goes on the road from Beirut to Sweden

COMEDIES

Citizen Dog (Thailand, 2004) - romance and magical realism in Bangkok, a la AMELIE

Linda Linda Linda (Japan, 2005) - Japanese schoolgirls, a talent contest and punk rock

Moonlight in Tokyo (Hong Kong, 2005) - Leon Lai and Chapman To are Rainman gigolos

Shopaholics (Hong Kong, 2006) - a psychiatrist and a millionaire chase Cecilia Cheung

AUSTRALIA

Little Fish (Australia, 2005) - a junkie's struggle, with Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving

Look Both Ways (Australia, 2005) - Australia's most award winning film of 2005

ACTION AND THRILLERS

Lady Vengeance (South Korea, 2005) - the sequel to OLDBOY

District 13 (France, 2005) - hip French action pic, with stunts that rival ONG BAK

Hard Candy (USA, 2005) - psychological thriller, wherein the hunter becomes the hunted

The Proposition (Australia, 2005) - outback western with Guy Pearce and David Wenham

LESSONS OF WAR - sponsored by the USS Missouri

Soong Sisters (Hong Kong, 1997) - Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung in the HIFF favorite

Spy Sorge (Japan, 2003) - an espionage thriller set in 1930s Tokyo

Letter from an Unknown Woman (HK, 2004) - lush romance set against war and invasion