This weekend and next weekend, the Smithsonian's Museums of Asian Art, the Freer|Sackler, here in DC is presenting a number of fun Asian films. Tomorrow at 7pm, they'll be showing Linda Linda Linda which is an absolutely adorable film about four classmates at a Japanese high school who form an all-girl cover band to perform at the annual high school rock festival. Slight spoilers, here's them performing the title track of the movie.



I totally love this film. The music is great, the characters are all highschooly and awkward, and it's terribly fun. Even if you don't catch it at the Freer, you should Netflix this one. Oh, the drummer is the chick from Battle Royale, the guitarist was in the live action Death Note, and the lead singer was in The Host.

This Sunday, is The Harimaya Bridge which I haven't seen but from the description sounds like something right up my alley:

After an African-American painter dies suddenly in Japan, his estranged father travels from San Francisco to retrieve his belongings. When he discovers that his son had secretly married a Japanese woman, he is forced to confront his own prejudices and those of the tradition-bound community where his son lived. As more secrets from the painter's life emerge, his father learns to appreciate the unexpected legacy he left behind, and the strong ties he formed with his hosts. This moving drama about familial bonds and intercultural understanding features cameo appearances by Danny Glover and Peter Coyote. (Dir.: Aaron Woolfolk, United States, 2009, 120 min., English and Japanese with English subtitles)

I'm going to have to Netflix this one since I've got plans for Sunday. But if you're in the DC area, this looks like a good one to check out.

Finally, next weekend the Freer|Sackler pays homage to Bruce Lee presenting Enter the Dragon on Friday, December 10, and something called Power Moves: From Bruce Lee's Interrupting Fist to Hip Hop and Beyond on Sunday which is kind of a dance thing:

Choreographer/dancer Peggy Choy re-envisions the legacy of martial artist and film star Bruce Lee with a presentation of her recent work, which fuses Asian martial arts with diverse forms of dance—from Korean court dance to hip-hop. After an introductory talk, she and her dancers generate a vivid playing field of dynamic movement while exploring Lee's intentions behind creating Jeet Kune Do, or "the way of the intercepting fist."

This will be the world premiere of Choy's newest work, Jeet Kune Do, set to music composed by award-winning Asian-American jazz composer Fred Ho. Choy performs Yelllowwww Matriarch, Toni Renee Johnson performs Boxher, and Ze Motion and Rudy Reynon will perform Jeet Kune Do. Original costumes are by Jillian Maslow.

Choy's alchemy of focused mind and moving body is fueled by Korean, Javanese, and urban dance forms, as well as martial arts. Choy has performed at venues including the Kennedy Center and Dance Place in Washington, D.C.; Dance Theater Workshop and Danspace Project in New York; Honolulu's Kennedy Theater; the Seoul Art Center; and Jakarta's Utan Kayu. Her awards include Danspace Project's Commissioning Initiative, an NEA/Atlantic Center for the Arts fellowship, and Princeton and Cornell university commissions

Sounds like it could be cool.

I think all the events are free of charge so if you've got time to spare, head on down to DC this and next weekend and check out some fun Asian cinema. I think we may need to organize a big outing for Enter the Dragon next week. I've never seen it on a big screen.