READY or not, the New York Asian Film Festival is upon us again.

Begun seven years ago, the fest has become one of New York’s most important cinematic events. For the next 17 days, 43 features and two programs of shorts from six nations will unreel at the IFC Center and the Japan Society.

(Full disclosure: I am one of the judges who will choose the event’s best film.)

Whether you’re an Asian junkie like I am or just a casual viewer, there’s a film to turn you on, including two each by Hong Kong action ace Johnnie To (“Sparrow” and “Mad Detective”) and Japanese mayhem master Takashi Miike (“Like a Dragon” and “Sukiyaki Western Django”).

“Sparrow” – about pickpockets in HK – is a departure for the director, according to Grady Hendrix, one of the festival’s programmers.

“It’s very light, almost like one of those French musicals like ‘The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,’ ” says Hendrix. “There aren’t any musical numbers in it, but it’s so stylish, you keep expecting the whole cast to burst into musical numbers. It’s really phenomenal.”

For something completely different, there’s Yoshinori Nishimura’s splatterfest “Tokyo Gore Police,“ featuring Eihi Shiina, whom you’ll remember from Miike’s “Audition.”

“Without a doubt, it’s the most transgressive, insane, completely over-the-top film we’ve ever shown,” says Hendrix.

“It’s basically ‘RoboCop’ meets a David Cronenberg movie. It’s set in the near future, and everyone’s getting diseases that make their bodies mutate. I’m expecting people vomiting in the aisle and walking out.”

Also high on Hendrix’s list of must-sees is Koji Wakamatsu’s “United Red Army,“ a docudrama about 1960s terrorism in Japan; Joe Ma’s women-in-prison thriller “Sasori”; and Kenta Fukasaku’s “X-Cross,“ about a cult that worships one-legged women. (!)

I’m pleased that Hitoshi Yazaki’s “Strawberry Shortcakes” – a Japanese “Sex and the City” – is part of the festival. A bittersweet look at four young women struggling to survive in Tokyo, I raved about it when I saw it in Rotterdam two years ago.

For the first time, the festival includes films from Indonesia and Vietnam.

The Vietnamese entry is Truc Nguyen’s actioner “The Rebel” (“What people wish the new Indiana Jones movie would have been,” says Hendrix) and Indonesia’s “Kala,“ a conspiracy thriller by Joko Anwar.

For the full schedule, visit subwaycinema.com.

vam@nypost.com