Cow (2009)

Director
Guan Hu

Main cast
Huang Bo; Yan Ni

Genres
Drama, War

Description
A Chinese peasant is given the responsibility of protecting his village's special dairy cow during a particularly harsh winter in 1940.


Similar movies

Young Park Seol-Hee is eagerly planning her wedding to a young anti-Communist activist when the North Koreans invade. Her fiancé is forced to flee, leaving her behind with her family in their tiny, rural South Korean village. Rather than resist the North Korean regiment that comes to occupy the area, the townspeople (to Seol-Hee's dismay) decide to cooperate with them in order to ensure their own survival. The North Koreans, however, turn out not to be all that Seol-Hee expected. She soon realizes that there is a history between her family and that of the regiment's leader, Lieutenant Kim Jeong-woong. In between the hilarious day to day antics of Seol-Hee's eccentric family and the hard realities of war, the attachment between Seol-Hee and Jeong-woong grows. As the occupation continues, Jeong-woong becomes torn between trying to follow the increasingly harsh orders from his general and protecting the people that he has come to love and care for so much.
In autumn of 1526, the Emperor, Charles V, sends his German landsknechts led by Georg von Frundsberg to march towards Rome. The inferior papal armies, commanded by Giovanni de'Medici, try to chase them in the midst of a harsh winter. Nevertheless, the Imperial armies manage to cross the rivers along their march and get cannons thanks to the maneuvers of its Lords. In a skirmish, Giovanni de'Medici is wounded in the leg by a falconet shot. The attempts to cure him fail and he dies. The Imperial armies assault Rome. The film is beautifully but unassumingly set, and shows the hard conditions in which war is waged and its lack of glory. It ends straightforwardly with the declaration made after the death of Giovanni de'Medici by the commanders of the armies in Europe of not using again fire weapons because of their cruelty.
In the fascist Italy of 1935, a painter trained as a doctor is exiled to a remote region near Eboli. Over time, he learns to appreciate the beauty and wisdom of the peasants, and to overcome his isolation.
Loosely based on events from Hungarian history, the story evolves around a small peasants' revolt in 1890.
In 1911, a willful and determined man from peasant stock named Charles Saganne enlists in the military and is assigned to the Sahara Desert under the aristocratic Colonel Dubreuilh.
This film is based on the book about Vasili Ivanovich Chapaev (1887 - 1919) who was in real life the Commander of the 25th Division of the Red Army. Chapaev is an uneducated peasant and a decorated hero in the World War I and later in the Russian Civil War, that followed the Russian revolution. This man of action is fighting on the side of the poor people. His troops consist of peasants, just like him. Unable to write, he can brilliantly demonstrate various battle tactics by moving potatoes on the table. He is street smart. He never lost a battle against the experienced Generals of the Tzar's Army.
During the Japanese occupation of China, two prisoners are dumped in a peasant's home in a small town. The owner is bullied into keeping the prisoners until the next New Year, at which time they will be collected. The village leaders convene to interrogate the prisoners. The townspeople then struggle to accommodate the prisoners. One is a bellicose Japanese nationalist, the other a nervous translator. Will the townspeople manage to keep the prisoners until the New Year?
A Romanian peasant fights to get back to his family after he's imprisoned by the Nazis.The picture is based on real events. It includes Hungary's government in collaboration with the Nazis, the encroachment of Romania by Stalin's troopers, and other happenings.
The story of a platoon during the Korean War. One by one, Corporal Denno's superiors are killed until it comes to the point where he must try to take command responsibility.
Vlad Tepes is a great hero, but when he learns the Sultan is preparing for battle and needs to form an army of 1,000 boys, including Vlad's son, he vows to find a way to protect his family. Vlad turns to dark forces in order to get the power to destroy his enemies and agrees to go from hero to monster as he's turned into the mythological vampire Dracula.
English General Charles George Gordon, a devout Christian, is appointed military governor of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan by Prime Minister Gladstone. Ordered to evacuate Egyptians from the Sudan, General Gordon stays on to protect the people of Khartoum, who are under threat of being conquered by a Muslim army.
During World War II in the freezing Netherlands winter of 1944/1945 the western Netherlands are in the grip of a famine. Many people move east to provide for their families. Fourteen year old Michiel can't wait to join the Dutch resistance, to the dismay of his father, who, as mayor, works to prevent escalations in the village.
Set in the Basque region, a story of the rivalry of two families, period 1870-1935
A young widow, Noriko, lives with her senile father-in-law, Shukichi, on a farm. He believes his favorite cow, long gone, is still alive. Noriko pretends to be the cow and lets him milk her - a satisfying arrangement for them both.
Anne Shirley, now a schoolteacher, has begun writing stories and collecting rejection slips. She makes the acquaintance of a handsome, rich, bachelor, chases a cow, and wins (to her chagrin) a baking soda company's writing contest. She acts as Diana's maid of honor, and refuses Gilbert Blythe's marriage proposal; which sends her to teach Kingsport Ladies' College, an exclusive girls school, where she meets opposition from one of the teachers, Miss Brooke, and the Pringle clan (one of whom is a rich, handsome bachelor). But while Anne enjoys the battle, and the friends she makes, she returns to Avonlea.
Promise Me This is a film written and directed by the award-winning Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica. An old man named Živojin Marković, living in a remote village prays for his grandson Tsane to go to the city, sell his cow and bring back a wife. In the city he is supposed to meet up with his grandfather's stepbrother, but this man is dead. Instead, he meets this man's two grandsons, two good-natured brothers who are nevertheless small-time criminals and experts in demolition. Tsane soon clicks with these men, and also falls in love with a schoolgirl (Jasna), who he wants to marry as part of his testament with his grandfather. He gets involved in this girl's family affairs, rescuing both her and her mother from prostitution and gangsters headed by a man called Bajo, and the new group of people return to the small village in time to celebrate Živojin's wedding to his neighbor, despite the gangsters' best efforts to stop the celebration, which results in a double wedding .
A woman inexplicably finds herself cut off from all human contact when an invisible, unyielding wall suddenly surrounds the countryside. Accompanied by her loyal dog Lynx, she becomes immersed in a world untouched by civilization and ruled by the laws of nature.
George lives with her lover, Childie, and plays a cheerful district nurse in a BBC soap opera. However, her character is to be killed off, and George realises that the only other job she can get is the voice of a cow in a children's TV programme. Her life begins to fall apart as Childie has an affair with a predatory TV producer.
Plucked from an orphanage as a literal love slave, the now adult Natalija (a luminous Kseniya Kutepova) serves her ape-like husband by tending his prized cow—whose milk they sell to customers on passing trains. When hubby suddenly drops dead, however, Natalija’s narrow life of cows and rails finally starts opening up. Dumping his body at the local hospital, dropping by church to say a few prayers and trading in the cow for a pet goat, she slowly eliminates all trace of his former hold on her, searching out a new life in the freedom that emerges.
The first of several social realism films by Ken Loach, this had less impact than those made as TV plays. Poor Cow follows the tangled life of Joy, who turns to Dave after her lover is jailed for theft. When Dave in turn is jailed, she is left with a son to keep. When he goes missing, she sees what's important.
A woman who has a funny bone for a backbone, Funny Cow charts the rise of a female stand-up comic who delivers tragedy and comedy in equal measure in the sometimes violent and always macho clubs of Northern England in the '70s.
The O'Leary brothers -- honest Jack and roguish Dion -- become powerful figures, and eventually rivals, in Chicago on the eve of its Great Fire.
The film follows the character of Immanuel who works in a book publishing firm. When the company is closed down due to unexpected reasons, Immanuel and his family find it difficult to make both ends meet. The hardships and harsh realities he faces forces him to see himself and his life in a new perspective that is often outside his personal comfort zone.
Scientist Siddharth(Sharman Joshi) is given "Ma Kasam" by elder brother Harsh(Sanjay Suri) to bring her along for his wedding with Aaliyah(Chitrangada Singh) to be held in Mauritius. Their mom(Shabana Azmi) is least interested in attending the wedding because Harsh is getting married against her wishes. Dad(Boman Irani) and Siddharth succeed in bringing mom to Mauritius where Aaliyah is Siddharth
In desperation brought on by near-starvation, Helge Roos kills his master's ox and feeds it to his wife and baby daughter. No-one suspects anything until the meat is finished and Helge tries to sell the hide at a local market. He is spotted by the local vicar and, wracked with guilt, confesses. The vicar assures him that if he gives himself up, he'll be treated leniently, but Helge's sentence is far harsher than anyone predicted...
After their father dies, a family of five are forced to survive on their own in a Kurdish village on the border of Iran and Iraq. Matters are made worse when 12 year old Ayoub, the new head of the family, is told that his handicapped brother, Madi, needs an immediate operation in order to remain alive. This heartbreaking tale shows the lengths to which a family will go in order to survive in the harshest of conditions, where even the horses are fed liquor in order to work.
This is a touching and somber journey of Lasya, who lives with her father Karma and younger brother Chomo in a remote village in the Himalayas. Pristine snow capped mountains surround their tiny hamlet and barren harsh land stretches for miles into nowhere. One day the army moves in, settles a hundred yards across their doorstep. The last bit of comfort the family draws from their familiar surroundings changes into a harsh ceaseless irreversible conflict. The film depicts the life of this family whose dream like existence is interrupted by inevitable odds, one after the other.
When three women living on the edge of the American frontier are driven mad by harsh pioneer life, the task of saving them falls to the pious, independent-minded Mary Bee Cuddy. Transporting the women by covered wagon to Iowa, she soon realizes just how daunting the journey will be, and employs a low-life drifter, George Briggs, to join her. The unlikely pair and the three women head east, where a waiting minister and his wife have offered to take the women in. But the group first must traverse the harsh Nebraska Territories marked by stark beauty, psychological peril and constant threat.
Into the White is an anti-war movie. High above the harsh Norwegian wilderness, English and German pilots shoot each other to the ground after a violent chance encounter. Isolated, they must fight to survive the brutal winter. Though war has made them enemies, antagonism is hard to maintain as days go by. Through mutual need, unlikely friendships bloom. Somehow, they become comrades. War, after all, is absurd.
When Will Stoneman's father dies, he is left alone to take care of his mother and their land. Needing money to maintain it, he decides to join a cross country dogsled race. This race will require days of racing for long hours, through harsh weather and terrain. This young man will need a lot of courage and a strong will to complete this race.
In the mid 1970s a group of young men leave the Connemara Gaeltacht, bound for London and filled with ambition for a better life. After thirty years, they meet again at the funeral of their youngest friend, Jackie. The film intersperses flashbacks of a lost youth in Ireland with the harsh realities of modern life. For some the thirty years has been hard, working in building sites across Britain. Slowly the truth about Jackie's death become clear and the friends discover they need each other more than ever. However, by the end, the friends split up for good, going their separate ways.
Siddhartha is the story of a young Brahmin and his search for a meaningful way of life. His journey takes him through periods of harsh asceticism, sensual pleasures, material wealth, self-revulsion and eventually to the oneness and harmony that he had been seeking. The story is based on the best-selling novel by German Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse.
Monk Dawson is a film that was released in 1998, directed and produced by Tom Waller and starring John Michie, Benedict Taylor, Rhona Mitra and Paula Hamilton. It was based on the novel of the same name written by Piers Paul Read. The film is about Eddie Dawson, a monk who has led a sheltered existence at a Benedictine monastery, but when he is expelled from his order he has to learn to deal with the harsh realities of everyday life, including falling in love, and the betrayal of a friend.
Paul Snider is a narcissistic, small time hustler who fancies himself a ladies man. His life changes when he meets Dorothy Stratten working behind the counter of a Dairy Queen.
Got the facts on Milk? (also known as "The Milk Documentary" is an entertaining, award winning feature documentary that dares to question the conventional wisdom of the much publicized health benefits of milk and dairy products. Addressing myth, truth and all in-between, the film is a humorous yet shocking exposition that provokes serious thought about this everyday staple.
In the harsh post-war years' Catalan countryside, Andreu, a child that belongs to the losing side, finds the corpses of a man and his son in the forest. The authorities want his father to be made responsible of the deaths, but Andreu tries to help his father by finding out who truly killed them. In this search, Andreu develops a moral consciousness against a world of adults fed by lies. In order to survive, he betrays his own roots and ends up finding out the monster that lives within him.
School nurse Alice Goodwin lives with her husband and two daughters on a dairy farm in a small Wisconsin community. After an accident on her property involving a friend's child, the town turns against her and Alice finds herself fighting charges of child abuse.
Hua, a young woman from Beijing, is a recent arrival in Paris. Exiled in an unknown city, she wanders between her tiny apartment and the university, drifting between former lovers and recent French acquaintances. She meets Matthieu, a young worker who falls madly in love with her. Possessed by an insatiable desire for her body, he treats Hua like a dog. An intense affair begins, marked by Matthieu’s passionate embraces and harsh verbal abuse. When Hua determines to leave her lover, she discovers the strength of her addiction, and the vital role he has come to play in her life as a woman.
On a dairy farm in the Eastern Townships, in the middle of a drought and while the land is parching, a drama will disrupt the life of the Santerre family. Confronted to each other they will have to learn to forgive.
When the daughter of the town's leading citizen and a local dairyman have a romance,and the man makes a sudden-and-unexplained trip out of town, the local gossips, employing the small-town's shared telephone lines, start a malicious gossip campaign discussing the assumed-but-incorrect reason.
Harsha, a multi-millionaire guy who has everything but there is something else he's looking for and in the process he adopts a complete village trying to bring change in the people.
I Origins follows a molecular biologist studying the evolution of the human eye. He finds his work permeating his life after a brief encounter with an exotic young woman who slips away from him. As his research continues years later with his lab partner, they make a stunning scientific discovery that has far reaching implications and complicates both his scientific and and spiritual beliefs. Traveling half way around the world, he risks everything he has ever known to validate his theory.
Out of Africa tells the story of the life of Danish author Karen Blixen, who at the beginning of the 20th century moved to Africa to build a new life for herself. The film is based on the autobiographical novel by Karen Blixen from 1937.
The Legend of Bhagat Singh is a 2002 Indian historical biographical film about Bhagat Singh, a freedom fighter who fought for Indian independence.It shows in detail how Singh came to develop his views on the British Raj and his struggle for Indian independence.
A musical romantic movie exploring the journey that ensues when the blue blooded boy Inder, "Who wanted to love no one" crosses paths with Saru, "Whom no one wanted to love". All their lives they were waiting to meet, but they just didn't know it . A musical tale of love , longing and loss. Sanam Teri Kasam - A Love story sealed with a Curse.
A young mute girl from Pakistan loses herself in India with no way to head back. A devoted man with a magnanimous spirit undertakes the task to get her back to her motherland and unite her with her family.
A story revolving around a dysfunctional family of two brothers who visit their parents and grandfather in Coonoor, and end up falling for the same woman.
Our story takes place in the fertile, San Joaquin Valley. Fueled by gin and sheer determination, Elizabeth James (Ms. Liz) operates her third generation dairy farm outside the region's domineering co-ops. To help keep the place afloat, she's employed five renegade ranch hands. These boys have put a pin in responsibility and opted to stretch out the party as long as possible. Unfortunately, women, booze, and fisticuffs can only lead to one outcome: trouble. With the dairy farm reporting its third straight deficit year, Ms Liz is attracting some unwanted attention. Delbert Furgeson, the owner of the area's largest co-op, is pushing to buy her out. This only incenses the prideful Ms Liz and starts a volatile feud between the two. Sharing the narrative are the ranch hands.
A frail priest is assigned to a small French provincial town where he slowly is able to help some wayward souls rediscover their faith in God, but must soon contend with his own realization that he is dying.
The story of hard-luck Melvin Dummar, who claimed to have received a will naming him an heir to the fortune of Howard Hughes.
Four young siblings: Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne, live a stoic existence in a small village in the English country side. Their old father, an Anglican minister, a rigid spinster aunt and Tabby, the maid, complete their household. The siblings have artistic ambitions and rely upon each other for companionship. Branwell is a painter and a self portrait with his sisters is worthy of the general admiration of the family. He wants to pursue a professional career, but only goes as far as to establish a friendship with Leyland, another artist. Emily's favorite pastime is to walk across the bleak moors that surround the village dressed as a man. Anne, the youngest of the siblings, is her companion. Charlotte, more ambitious than the others, convinces their reluctant aunt to give her money to go to Belgium in order to study French.
Small-town sisters Dottie and Kit join an all-female baseball league formed after World War II brings pro baseball to a standstill. When their team hits the road with its drunken coach, the siblings find troubles and triumphs on and off the field.
A destitute 14 year old struggles to keep his life together despite harsh abuse at his mother's hands, harsher abuse at his father's, and a growing separation from his slightly older brother. Petty thefts for food grow into more major takes until he steals a cash box from the diner where he works. Although Joe uses the money to pay off some of his father's debts and to replace his mother's records that his father smashed in a fit of temper, Joe gets no thanks...
It's the winter of 1935 and Max Brown is newly arrived in Willowgreen, Saskatchewan - a rural Canadian prairie town - on his first teaching job in a one room schoolhouse. He quickly realizes that this is not his dream situation: the winter is harsher than he's ever experienced, he's living in the basement of the school, the older of his students treat him poorly and his wages are paltry if and when he ever does get paid. He also feels physically and emotionally isolated. There, he bonds primarily with two townsfolk. Harris Montgomery sees Max as an obvious choice to espouse the politics of socialism. And Alice Field sees in Max a person like herself: being a British war bride, she is an alien in a harsh environment. Alice is in an unsatisfying marriage and turns to Max for emotional support. As Max goes through his first year in Willowgreen, he learns to understand life in a rural prairie town, both from the viewpoint of his students and for his own benefit.
Princess Beatrice's days of enjoying the regal life are numbered unless her only daughter, Princess Alexandra, makes a good impression on a distant cousin when he pays a surprise visit to their palace. Prince Albert has searched all over Europe for a bride and he's bored by the whole courtship routine. He is more interested in the estate's dairy than Alexandra's rose garden. And then he starts playing football with the tutor and Alexandra's brothers. Invite the tutor to the ball that night and watch how gracefully Alexandra dances with him.
16 -year-old Mari has just been released from a juvenile detention school after one year of treatment. To prevent her from making contact with her old gang, she is sent to Skåne in southern Sweden, where she will work in a dairy shop. She doesn't like being there so she decides to run away and hitchhike her way up to Stockholm. She makes contact with her old gang but realizes that she's not welcome anymore and her boyfriend has even hooked up with a new girl.
A call girl goes to a priest to confess a sin she hasn't committed yet: she plans to kill herself on her next birthday. Then she disappears and he goes looking for her, enlisting the help of an ad hoc congregation of troubled souls along the way. A story about forgiveness.
The film was originally submitted as the Albanian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film, but it was rejected due to protest of Bujar Alimani, the director of Amnesty, that The Forgiveness of Blood shouldn't be eligible due to American artists' input on the project. AMPAS disqualified it and Albania submitted instead Alimani's film. The film deals with the issue of an Albanian family feud.
When a gunman killed five Amish children and injured five others in a Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania schoolhouse shooting in October of 2006, the world media attention rapidly turned from the tragic events to the extraordinary forgiveness demonstrated by the Amish community.
When Danny and his gang attempt to rob the warehouse of a mob boss, they find themselves on the run. Danny goes back to his hometown to find his mother has recently died leaving him the farm on the condition that he must open the dairy and run it for two years. However the gang is double crossed by Mo and the mob begin to hunt them down, meanwhile Danny and his gang consider robbing the mill in his town.

© Valossa 2015–2024