Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 14/10/2017)

Although the Japanese connection recurs, the pace is more sedate in the debuting Jenny Suen's The White Girl, which has been photographed by Christopher Doyle in Pearl Village, Hong Kong's last remaining fishing community. At its heart is Angela Yuen, whose allergy to sunshine means that she is kept indoors by her protective fisherman father, Kin-Ping Leung. However, her life changes when she meets street kid Jeff Yiu and Japanese newcomer Joe Odagiri, who has taken up residence in an abandoned camera obscura. The coast also plays a prominent part in Xuan Liang and Chun Zhang's Studio Ghibli-inspired animation, Big Fish and Begonia, which follows Chun, a 16 year-old resident of a subterranean realm who finds herself breaking the rules not to interact with humans when she turns herself into a dolphin and comes to the rescue of a small boy.

Staying with animation, Liu Jian presents a crime thriller with a social undercurrent in Have a Nice Day, which joins a delivery driver in his bid to prevent a gangster, a hitman and an inventor from getting hold of the million yuan he has stolen so that his girlfriend can have the plastic surgery she craves. Back in the land of the living, a seaside town in Hainan provides the setting for sophomore Vivian Qu's Angels Wear White, which sees undocumented teenage drifter Qi Wen being pursued by cop Mengnan Li after she witnesses assaulted 12 year-olds Zhou Meijun and Jiang Xinyue being checked into the hotel where she works as a cleaner.

The scene shifts to a remote farming village in a landscape scarred by mining for Xin Yukun's Wrath of Silence, as tongueless Song Yang returns home to discover that that meat-obsessed mobster Jiang Wu may be behind the disappearance of his young son. The fear of losing custody of Wang Naixun prompts Jun Zhao to start pirating DVDs after their movie projection business goes up in flames in King of Peking, Australian Sam Voutas's comedy about 1990s Chinese capitalism.

Another youngster leads an unusual lifestyle in Naoko Ogigami's Close Knit, as neglected 11 year-old Rinka Kakihara goes to live with uncle Kenta Kiritani and his transsexual girlfriend, Toma Ikuta, only for the mother of her only friend at school to try and rescue her from an unnatural household. However, Masaaki Yuasa alights on an even more unusual relationship in Lu Over the Wall, which sees a teenage musician come to the aid of the merfolk whose home is endangered by the seafood company hoping to make a quick yen in their sleepy backwater.

The other anime on the Japanese slate is Shoujirou Nishimi and Guillaume Renard's Mutafukaz, which sweeps us off to the Dark Meat City ghetto of the Californian city to witness an orphaned pizza delivery boy rise to the challenge posed by the square-jawed strangers having an increasingly detrimental effect upon his customers. Interlopers with dangerous powers also drive the plot in Takashi Miike's 100th feature, Blade of the Immortal, an adaptation of a long-running Hiroaki Samura manga series that stars Takuya Kimura as a Shogunate samurai who must dispatch a thousand sinners in order to be delivered from the curse of immortality that was cast upon him by the witch who saved his life after a pitiless battle. Thus, when he sees orphan Hana Sugisaki being terrorised by swordsmen practicing the vicious Itto-ryu style of fighting, Kimura leaps into action.

Another cult hero returns to LFF 2017, as South Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo muses upon a scandal that recently engulfed his career in On the Beach At Night Alone, another Rohmeresque, Soju-soaked treatise on the purpose and pitfalls of romance that sees actress Kim Min-hee contemplate relocating to Hamburg after an affair with a married director goes belly up. However, when she returns to consider her future in the eastern city of Gangneung, she realises she has chosen the very place her ex-lover is shooting his latest film on location. Although the tone could not be more different, finding a place in the world is also the theme of Moon Chang-Yong and Jeon Jin's Becoming Who I Was, which accompanies elderly monk Rigzin Urgain and his young charge, Angdu Padma, after the latter is expelled from his monastery in Ladakh (after claiming to have been reincarnated as a Rinpoche) and decides to walk from Northern India to Kham in Tibet, which was his home in a previous life.

The recollections are no more distinct, but altogether darker in Won Shin-yeon's Memoir of a Murderer, an adaptation of a Kim Young-ha bestseller that centres on the efforts of vigilante serial killer Sol Kyung-Gu to cope with the Alzheimer's that is slowly eroding his memory. Daughter Seol Hyun suggests that he starts keeping a diary, but he is more concerned with the fact that she has attracted the attention of Kim Nam-Gil, who he is certain is responsible for a spate of murders after they encounter each other after a minor car crash. The dark humour might unsettle some, but Italian director Jimmy Hendersons tongue is firmly in his cheek in unleashing bloody mayhem in Jailbreak, which sees French-Cambodian cop Jean-Paul Ly choose to ride along with a prisoner escort detail trained in the martial art of Bokatar on the very day that Celine Tran (the leader of the notorious Butterflies gang) decides to spark a riot at the Prei Klaa jail in order to wreak revenge on playboy mobster Sawn Phillip.

Singaporean debutant Kirsten Tan charts the progress of an unlikelier travelling twosome in Pop Aye, as Bangkok architect Thaneth Warakulnukroh elects to take a break from his faltering career and unhappy marriage to Penpak Sirikul to liberate an elephant from its humiliating tourist duties and return it to the family estate where they had once been playmates. En route, the pair encounter drifter Chaiwat Khumdee, trans prostitute Yukontorn Sukkijja and Narong Pongpab, the uncle who resisted the lure of the big city. But Warakulnukroh (who was a huge pop star in Thailand in the 1980s) takes a very different role in Nattawut Poonpiriya's Bad Genius, as the recently divorced teacher father of teenage whizzkid Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying who is encouraged by the dim duo of Eisaya Hosuwan and Teeradon Supapunpinyo to devise a surefire way of helping them cheat in their university entrance exams. However, she faces opposition from her impoverished, but more morally upright classmate, Chanon Santinatornkul.

Pure motives also drive the teenager who strives to save his sister in Majid Majidi's Beyond the Clouds, which sees the acclaimed Iranian director return to the theme of imperilled youth by charting the relationship between Mumbai drug peddler Ishaan Khattar and his estranged sister, Malavika Mohanan, who is jailed for murdering the rapacious Goutam Ghose in self-defence. Scored by AR Rahman, this slumdog saga finds echo in Anurag Kashyaps The Brawler, a condemnation of the Indian caste system that sees aspiring Uttar Pradesh boxer Vineet Kumar Singh fall foul of former trainer and corrupt kingpin Jimmy Shergil by both refusing to do things his way and romancing his pugnacious niece, Zoya Hussain.

The seething atmosphere resurfaces in sophomore Bornila Chatterjee's The Hungry, which translates the action of William Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus to New Delhi so that grieving mother Tisca Chopra can wreak revenge on businessman Naseeruddin Shah for the murder of her son by plotting to marry his own doltish heir, Arjun Gupta. Along with romance and redemption, revenge is also on the menu in Anup Singh's The Song of Scorpions, as Rajastani camel herder Irrfan Khan attempts to win the heart of fiercely independent Muslim faith healer Golshifteh Farahani, who uses the singing skills taught to her by grandmother Waheeda Rehman to counter the sting of the Thar Desert scorpion.

Farahani may not be able to work in her homeland at the moment, so there's more than a touch of irony in the fact that Shirin Neshat and Shoja Azari use an exiled Iranian film-maker to explore the life of the often controversial `voice of Egypt' in Looking For Oum Kulthum, which stars Neda Rahmanian as the artist whose dream project is made more complicated by Yasmin Raeis, the non-professional actress she has selected to play Oum Kulthum, who challenged the rules relating to politics, religion and gender in the Arab world during a 50 year-career. And exile also impinges on Ida Panahandeh's second feature, Israfil, which accompanies Pejman Bazeghi on a trip from Canada to sell some land and meet fiancée Hoda Zeinolabedin that is deflected when he reunites with old flame Hediyeh Tehrani at the funeral of her wrestler son, who has been killed in a car crash.

Iraq's most pre-eminent film-maker, Mohamed Al-Daradji, also gives his protagonist pause for thought in The Journey, as potential suicide bomber Zahraa Gandour enters Bagdad Central Station in 2006 and surveys the mini-dramas playing out before her involving flower seller Huda And Al Ameer and her shoe-shining sibling Hayder And Al Ameer, teenage bride Zahraa Emad Abdul Hussen and her shrewish mother Kazemih Hindi Imran, and busking ex-POW Ali Al Khassaf and his jilted betrothed Iamen Laeibi Mahdi. However, Gandour's purpose is also deflected by wolfish hustler Ameer Ali Jabarah and the distraught Haneen Raad Qasim, who is keen to give away the illegitimate baby that has caused her to be disowned by her family. More encounters help Diego Marcon come to terms with his pain in artist Basma Alsharif's first feature, Ouroboros, an experimental homage to the Gaza Strip that takes in some Native American homelands, a Breton castle and the ancient Italian city of Matera in examining the concept of `death as birth, history as the present, the end as the beginning'.

A more conventional picture of life in the Palestinian Territory emerges in Annemarie Jacir's third feature, Wajib, which teams father and son Mohammad and Saleh Bakri for the first time as an architect returning to Nazareth after a prolonged absence to help the resentful father he has barely seen since he divorced his mother hand deliver invitations to his sister's wedding. Another prodigal heads home in Ofir Raul Graizer's The Cakemaker, as gay baker Tim Kalkhof abandons his Berlin eaterie to work in Sarah Adler's Jerusalem coffee shop after he discovers that her husband (and his secret lover) Roy Miller has perished in a car crash.

Adler returns as another death in the family proves central to Samuel Moaz's Foxtrot, as she and husband Lior Ashkenazi are forced to deal with the futility of their conscripted teenage son Yonathan Shiray's demise on a checkpoint on the northern border. As we get an insight into Shiray's tour of duty and the impact of militarisation on daily life in Israel, we also see how Adler and Ashkenazi reconcile themselves to their loss with his domineering older brother, Yehuda Almagor, and their Auschwitz survivor mother, Karin Ugowski. But there are even fewer easy answers in Lebanon Factory, a portmanteau of four snapshots of life in the troubled country that sees a Lebanesse film-maker teamed with an overseas counterpart. Ahmad Ghossein and Lucie La Chimia unite on `White Noise', which chronicles a rookie security guard's first night on duty under a Beirut bridge, while Shirin Abu Shaqra and Manuel Maria Almeyreda Perrone come together for `Hotel Al Naim', in which an octopus is confused by the presence of an intrepid swimmer. Completing the quartet, Una Gunjak and Rami Kodeih follow an economic migrant posing as a Syrian war refugee in `Salamat From Germany', while a sibling reunion after 12 years takes an unexpected turn in Mounia Akl and Neto Villalobos's `El Gran Libano'.

Two moments in Egyptian time is captured by Saudi-born Amr Salama's Sheikh Jackson and Tarik Saleh's The Nile Hilton Incident. The former is set in Alexandria in 2009 and centres on Salafist Islamist preacher Ahmad El-Fishawi, who is so moved by the death of Michael Jackson that he thinks back to his rebellious youth and comes to question a belief system that regards music as unholy. Taking place in the weeks before the 2011 revolution, the latter picture turns around another Damascene moment involving Fares Fares, a venal cop from Cairo's infamous Kasr el-Nil station, who just happens to be the nephew of police chief Yasser Ali Maher. However, his conscience is pricked when the murder of a pop star with links to powerful politician Ahmed Selim is recorded as a suicide, even though a maid at the Tahrir Square hotel, Mari Malek, has damning evidence to share.

Casablanca doubles up for Cairo on this Nile noir. But the Moroccan city comes into its own in Nabil Ayouch's Razzia, a provocative snapshot of modern life that artfully interweaves stories involving Amine Ennaji, a country teacher resisting the dictates of an Islamist bureaucrat; Arieh Worthalter, a Jewish restaurateur whose faith alienates a young prostitute; Maryam Touzani, a woman unable to escape an abusive relationship; Dounia Binebine, a sexually precocious teenager; and Abdelilah Rachid, an aspiring rock star who is denigrated for his obsession with Freddie Mercury. By contrast with this intricate mosaic, debuting Tunisian Kaouther Ben Hania constructs her true-life recreation, Beauty and the Dogs, from nine long takes that follow Mariam Al Ferjani as she leaves a university fund-raising event with the dashing Ghanem Znelli, only to be raped by a group of policemen who feel safe in the knowledge that the prosecution system is stacked in their favour.

Moving south, Alain Gomis takes us to the Congolese capital Kinshasa for Félicité, which starts off with singer Vero Tshanda Beya belting out a number with the Kasai Allstars. But a motorcycle accident leaves teenage son Gaetan Claudia requiring an emergency operation and Beya quickly comes to regret turning to mechanic Papi Mpaka, as he turns into a monster after a few drinks. A 13 year-old also has a life-changing experience in Berni Goldblat's Wallay, as Matkan Nathan Diarra is given little time to mourn his mother's passing in Lyon before he is sent to stay in his fathers village in Burkina Faso, where he comes to rely on cousin Ibrhaim Koma and grandmother Josephine Kaboré to help him cope with stern uncle Hamadoun Kassogué.

The secretive Xhosa initiation ritual known as `ukwaluka' is exposed in John Trengove's The Wound, which follows Johannesburg teenager Niza Jay Ncoyini to the Eastern Cape, where he is circumcised and subjected to tasks intended to toughen him up by caregiving factory worker Nakhane Touré, who is more concerned with resuming his illicit gay relationship with married friend, Bongile Mantsai. The same landscape provides the setting for Michael Matthews's Five Fingers For Marseilles, a veldt Western that flashes forwards two decades from the murder of two white cops by five frightened friends to reveal the fate that awaits leader Vuyo Dabula returns from prison with cellmates Anthony Oseyemi and Brendon Daniels to find that old flame Zethu Dlomo and buddies Aubrey Poolo and Kenneth Nkosi now live in fear of the Night Runners gang led by the vicious Hamilton Dhlamini.

Halfway across the world, another teenager finds themselves in a quandary in Mexican auteur Michel Franco's psychological thriller, April's Daughter, as pregnant 17 year-old Ana Valeria Becerril despairs of sister Joanna Larequi when she informs their shameless mother, Emma Suárez, of her condition and she promptly arrives from Mexico City to adopt the child for herself and steal Becerril's boyfriend, Enrique Arrizon. An imminent birth also shapes events in Argentinain director Diego Lerman's A Sort of Family, as thirtysomething Buenos Aires doctor Bárbara Lennie and husband Claudio Tolcachir feel they are being fleeced when Yanina Avila - the woman carrying the baby that colleague Daniel Araoz has arranged for the couple to adopt - demand an extortionate sum to help her cope with her husband's car crash injuries.

Domestic pressures also weigh heavily on new Argentine president Ricardo Darín in Santiago Mitres The Summit, as he attempts to negotiate an oil deal at a conference hosted by Chilean premier Paulina García and attended by American diplomat Christian Slater, while his former son-in-law threatens to expose electoral malpractice and troubled daughter Dolores Fonzi undergoes hypnotherapy and becomes convinced she has suppressed memories of her father being involved in a mysterious death. The acclaimed Lucrecia Martel takes us further back in time in adapting Antonio di Benedetto's 1956 existential novel, Zama, which records the efforts of 18th-century army officer Daniel Giménez Cacho to secure an overdue transfer from an outpost at Ascuncion to the town of Lerma. However, with successive colonial governors toying with him like treasury minister's wife Lola Dueñas and ambitious underling Juan Minujin, Giménez Cacho decides to embark on a reckless mission to track down bandit Matheus Nachtergaele.

Moving into Brazil, Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra take us from the historical to the hysterical in Good Manners, as pregnant plantation scion Marjorie Estiano hires barely qualified São Paulo nanny Isabél Zuaa to look after her imminent baby. However, following a torrid night of full moon lesbian passion, Zuaa finds herself alone in a lycanthropic nightmare when the child is born. Another unlikely liaison is forged in João Dumans and Affonso Uchôa's Araby, as teenager Murilo Caliari stumbles across a notebook filled with nomadic tales that fortysomething Aristides de Sousa was encouraged to keep after he joined the theatre group at the factory where he ended his cross-country search for work.

Bickering siblings Honlenny Huffington and Kiara Howard could also do with some wise words from the likes of red-bearded pawnbroker Ambrosio Huffington and Rastafari drum-maker Elkin Robinson to help them out of a jam in Samir Oliveros's droll rite of passage, Bad Lucky Goat, after they damage their father's truck in accidentally killing Vincent Van Goat in the tiny town of Port Paradise on the Colombian Caribbean island of Old Providence. And, finally, a more sombre mood descends upon Chilean auteur Sebastián Lelio's A Fantastic Woman, as transgender Santiago singer Daniela Vega not only has to endure the loss of fiftysomething partner Francisco Reyes, but she also has to put up with the hostility of his brother, Luis Gnecco, and ex-wife Aline Kuppenheim, as well as the prejudice of Amparo Noguera, a detective with the Sexual Offences Investigation Unit.