Looking for a common theme among the lineup at this or any other year’s New York Asian Film Festival can sometimes feel akin to looking for acrostics in Shakespeare. For its programmers, a committed group of hardcore film enthusiasts, eclecticism is a virtue. They have no scruples about screening Power Kids, the story of a sassy band of tweeners who save a dying friend with their Muay Thai boxing skills, next to Annyong Yumika, a documentary treatment of soft-core porn legend Yumika Hayashi. Sure, there are the requisite Kung Fu excursions from Hong Kong (Gallants, IP Man 2) and gore-tastic school-girl extravaganzas from Japan (Mutant Girls Squad), but there’s also a folk-rock doc (Live Tape), a metaphysical mind-fuck (Symbol), and the best Guy Ritchie movie Guy Ritchie never made (Crazy Racer). All of which, I suppose, serves to underscore what are really the festival’s perennial themes: irreverence and diversity. Some favorites after the jump.

Symbol (Japan, 2009) - Though I’m certain Hitoshi Matsumoto’s latest will inevitably be dubbed “J-quirk,” I think it a rather trivializing designation for a film this sublimely absurd. Symbol tells the improbably twined stories of a.) a hard luck Mexican wrestler named “Escargot Man,” and b.) a nameless everyman who unaccountably wakes up in a room adorned with tiny, alabaster sculptures of genitalia. My favorite film of the festival thus far, it’s Ionesco on mescaline.

Castaway on the Moon (Korea, 2009) – After a failed suicide finds Mr. Kim washed ashore on a deserted island in the Han river, he decides to stay there, living as an exile in plain sight. Oddly enough, the only person who notices is a cute, space-obsessed agoraphobe, who spies him through her telescope. A romance via messages in bottles ensues, which isn’t nearly as saccharine as it sounds.

Golden Slumber (Japan, 2010) – Named for the Beatles tune nestled within the climactic medley of Abbey Road, Golden Slumber’s warm-fuzzy title belies a deft, strange, and elaborately-plotted thriller. A log line might read: “When Aoyagi gets framed for assassinating the prime minister, he finds out who his friends really are.” Think Hitchcock leavened with pyrotechnics and an unapologetically sincere message about friendship.

Little Big Soldier (China/Hong Kong, 2010) – Imagine Midnight Run set against the backdrop of China’s Warring States period and you’ll get the flavor of Jackie Chan’s latest. A send-up of China’s recent spate of historical epics, it’s also a welcome antidote to the jejune buddy pictures Chan’s been making stateside.

Cow (China, 2009) – Ignoring W.C. Fields famous dictum that one should “never work with children or animals,” writer/director Guan Hu has crafted what might be the best man-cow romance ever consigned to film. Set against the backdrop of the Sino-Japanese war, Huang Bo stars as a village rube assigned to protect an American Holstein for a retreating communist battalion.

Crazy Racer (China, 2009) - Bungling gangsters, con artists, and a washed up cyclist all variously collide in this frenzied caper comedy worthy of Guy Ritchie. The style is practically homage, but Crazy Racer has more heart than six Sherlock Holmes.

The New York Asian Film Festival begins tomorrow night and runs through July 8th.