NYC's Subway Cinema, Presenting the Annual New York Asian Film Festival

"Subway Cinema" is considered one of the foremost movie theaters in the New York City area that is dedicated to the genre of Asian Cinema. As a result, it would be the venue for the annual Asian film festival known as the "New York Asian Film Festival" which is one of the predominant Asian American film festivals of North America let alone in the Tri-state area that consists of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. It would host the first annual New York Asian Film Festival around 2002 as the festival has been existent for about six years and is still going strong.

Recently, it seemed to have been gaining popularity attracting attention from TIME Magazine, Giant Robot, BBC News, ImaginAsian TV, the Economist, the Village Voice, along with many other mainstream and Asian specific media outlets.

The 2002 New York Asian Film Festival was launched under the platform saying that Hollywood has failed. Instead of good movies, Hollywood has given nothing but marketing campaigns and hype as the festival claimed. They felt that Hollywood were doing all sorts of genres such as comedy, romance, action, and everything else to death where it wasn't appealing anymore.

At the same time, there were hardly any films that appealed to Asians let alone revolve around issues concerning Asians and Asian Americans. The festival seemed to be a way to sock it to Hollywood. This festival was launched in the summertime to showcase films that would serve as an alternative to summer "blockbusters" as most of the biggest mainstream films are launched in the summer competing against teach other.

Eleven films were showcased at the 2002 New York Asian Film Festival with most of the movies hailing from Japan such as "Visitor Q", "Pistol Opera", "Gamera 2: The Advent of Legion", "Gamera 3: The Revenge of Iris", and "Freeze Me". Visitor Q is banned in New Zealand as the movie was deemed very offensive according to the Toronto International Film Festival.

Two films hailed form South Korea: "Kick the Moon" and "My Sassy Girl".

Indian film called "Dil Se" was showcased at the film festival. Thai film called "Bang Rajan" was also showcased.