The Asian Film Festival of Dallas begins its weeklong run Thursday night, and the 70 films on this year’s schedule are the most it’s ever had. This week, we get a preview from the event’s programmer, David Gibson:

The festival will kick off at the Angelika Film Center in Dallas with “The Final Master,” a Chinese kung fu film.

On “The Final Master”

“It appealed to me because it shows the art of martial arts. It’s not really one of those high-wire act types of films where the martial arts is over the top. It’s the simplicity of martial arts, and it’s just done so well … It gives you that classic feel of a martial arts film because it’s the master trying to become more than what he is and he has to fight his way through all the other masters in town. Classic story, but with a twist.

On “Trivisa”

It is a gorgeous film. It was the highest grossing film last year in Hong Kong. It’s about three thieves, and they don’t know each other. But, someone starts a rumor that they’re going to team up and basically pull off the crime of the century. At first, they’re not really appealed to teaming up with a rival, but they get more and more interested in making it happen. It’s about trying to make this caper come off the right way.

On the “Apu Trilogy”

A lot of the times, when you say repertory, people think Japanese films because that’s kind of the oldest country doing film, so in this case, we wanted to focus on Indian films … The “Apu Trilogy” follows the plight of a young man from boyhood to manhood and the women in his life. Each film can be watched independently or you can watch them in a series.

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