A Beautiful Life (2011)
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The Soong family was a political dynasty in China that reached the highest levels of power. This film follows the lives of the three Soong daughters, who were educated in America and returned to China. Ai-ling (the oldest) married a wealthy and powerful businessman. Ching-ling married Sun Yat-sen, the revolutionary founder of modern China. Mei-ling (the youngest) married Chiang Kai-shek, China's l
A love story between a country boy in Beijing to study and a wealthy businessman set against the backdrop of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident
Filmmaker Ning Ying returns to her favorite theme â the gradual decay of traditional Chinese values and culture at the dawn of the 21st century â in this low-key drama. Desi (Yu Lei) is a cab driver who has recently broken up with his wife. Lonely, Desi is searching for a new love, and as he drifts through Beijing in search of fares and a girlfriend, he sees a city that is increasingly bending to the influence of the West, with traditional pastimes and customs forced to make way for the onslaught of the free-market economy. Xia Ri Nuan Yangyang has been screened on the international film festival circuit in two different versions; the cut shown at the 2001 Rotterdam Film Festival ran 99 minutes, while the film was only 79 minutes when it appeared at the Berlin Film Festival that same year.
Country girl Yu Hong leaves her village, her family and her lover to study in Beijing. At university, she discovers an intense world of sexual freedom and forbidden pleasure. Enraptured, compulsive, she falls madly in love with fellow student Zhou Wei. Driven by obsessive passions they can neither understand nor control, their relationship becomes one of dangerous games - betrayals, recriminations, provocations - as all around them, their fellow students begin to demonstrate, demanding democracy and freedom. Was the only Asian film selected to compete for the Palme d'Or in 2006. In September of 2006, director Lou Ye was barred from making movies for five years because the film incorporated footage of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and wasn't screened for Chinese officials. The Chinese government also demanded that all copies of the film be confiscated
Sunflower is the story of the Zhang family in Beijing father, mother and son across three decades, centering on the tensions and misunderstandings between father and son. Nine-year-old Xiangyang is having the time of his life, free of adult supervision until the day he meets the father he can hardly remember. Having spent years away, he returns with strong ideas about his son learning to draw. But Xiangyang chafes under his father's constant rules and soon stages his own revolution against the lessons enforced.
A connected series of love notes scribbled in library art books convinces gawky grocery store clerk Hyun-chae (Bae Doo-na) that a mystery man - known only as 'Vincent' - is pursuing a relationship with her. Meanwhile, an infatuated pal from her high-school days - shy, quirky subway driver Dong-ha (Kim Nam-jin) - relocated to Seoul to ACTUALLY pursue a relationship with her, which she rejects in favor of the ersatz paper chase provided by her mystery man, going so far as to pawn Dong-ha off on her friend at one point.
A look at modern-day life in China's capital centered on a ménage-a-quatre involving a young woman, her boss, her husband and her boss's wife. Massage girl Pingguo (Apple) (The stunning Fan Bingbing) lives in a cramped apartment with her bad-tempered window cleaner husband Kun (Tong Dawei), barely eking by on their miniscule pay. When Pingguo gets raped by her boss Lin (Tony Leung) one afternoon, Kun, who is washing the windows of the building, witnesses the act. The enraged Kun tries to get even first by (unsuccessfully) blackmailing Lin, then by sleeping with Lin's wife (Elaine Kam). The relationships get even more tangled when Pingguo discovers she's pregnant. With the paternity of the baby up in the air, Kun, who is eager for money, strikes a deal with Lin, who is eager for a son.
Marco (Dingdong Dantes) has found the perfect girl in Divina (Iza Calzado). Though they've only spoken on the phone, they're convinced they're meant to be together. One problem: Divina's living in 1957 and Marco in 2006. If these two are going to be together, they'll have to bend time and space to do it. Directed by Mark A. Reyes, this fantastical romance also stars Paolo Contis, Karylle, Chinggoy Alonzo and Jojo Alejar.
Stories about three very different women and the men they attract. Adelina sells black-market cigarettes in Naples, is married to the unemployed Carmine, and faces a jail sentence. She can avoid it as long as she's pregnant. Several years and seven children later, Carmine is exhausted, so jail looks inescapable as does her contempt for Carmine. In Milan, Anna drives a Rolls, is bored, and picks up a writer. She talks dreamily of running off with him until he dents her car; that gets her emotional attention. Mara, a Roman call girl, turns the head of a naive seminarian, prompting a run-in with his granny and a vow of abstinence. Mara's fizzy lover from Bologna grows impatient.
A mysterious woman frequents tea shops and other places looking for the right man. A cup of green tea will show you the way to find your true love.
A dash of style with loads of attitude and a hunger to reach the stars, Lafangey Parindey is about a group of youngsters living in the backstreets of Mumbai. It is an unusual love story of Nandu (Neil Nitin Mukesh) and Pinky (Deepika Padukone) whose path to love is paved by friendship, grit and hope.
On a rainy London night in 1946, novelist Maurice Bendrix has a chance meeting with Henry Miles, husband of his ex-mistress Sarah, who abruptly ended their affair two years before. Bendrix's obsession with Sarah is rekindled; he succumbs to his own jealousy and arranges to have her followed.
Emerging from the Chinese film renaissance of the 1990s (Raise the Red Lantern, Farewell My Concubine) this haunting folk tale set in rural China in the 1920s tells the story of a young woman forces to grieve the death of a man she was destined to marry. Combining astonishing visuals with intriguing plot turns, this moving drama is not to be missed. When the spirited Young Mistress (Wang Lan) is kidnapped on the way to her arranged wedding, the groom is killed in an explosion in an attempt to rescue her. The peasant charged with her care, Kui (Chang Shih) manages to free her but the groom's bitter mother forces the Young Mistress to honor her agreement by marrying a wooden statue of her son, and staying chaste. Director Jianxin Huang's fascinating exploration of forbidden love and rigid social hierarchy reveals a culture in turmoil, where tradition is taken to cruel extremes and young lovers may not survive.
Where is the end of the world? A rich girl diagnosed with leukemia wants to follow a sailor friend to St Kilda, Scotland to find out...but first she must search him out, who is missing.
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mål is a small insignificant town where nothing ever happens, where the latest trends are out of date when they get there. Young Elin has a bit of a bad reputation when it comes to guys, but the fact is that she has never done *it*. Another girl in her school, Agnes, is in love with her but is too shy to do anything about it. For different reasons, Elin ends up at Agnes' birthday party as the only guest. They have a girl's night out together but after that Elin desperately avoids Agnes, refusing to even consider her own homosexuality.
Lee Ji-hwan (Cha Tae-hyun) receives photographs in the mail that reminds him of how he met two girls, Shim Su-in (Son Ye-jin) and Kim Gyeong-heui (Lee Eun-ju), one summer five years ago. He shares his memories with his friend Cheol-hyeon (Park Young-woo). He recalls initially being in love with Su-in, but she rejects him. Throughout the summer, the three remain friends. Ji-hwan and Gyeong-heui develop feelings for each other but are reluctant to admit it. Ji-hwan recalls the complex relationship between the three to Cheol-hyeon.
t tells the story of two lovers, Prem (Salman Khan) and Nisha (Madhuri Dixit). Their older siblings, Rajesh and Pooja get married. After Pooja has her baby, the elders decide to get Prem married with a girl like Pooja. Prem and Nisha slowly fall in love with each other. Prem tells his sister-in-law...
In a building site in present-day Tehran, Lateef, a 17-year-old Kurdish worker is irresistibly drawn to Rahmat, a young Afghan worker. When Lateef is given heavier tasks to compensate for new Afghan worker Rahmat, he resents his displacement and treats Rahmat cruelly. After one of his pranks, however, Lateef discovers Rahmat's secret--he is a girl named Baran. Latif's heart softens towards Baran and he shows his new affection for her by doing what he can to ease the hardships she suffers at work. revelation of Rahmat's secret changes both their lives.Baran is a 2001 Iranian film directed by Majid Majidi, based on an original script by Majid Majidi. The movie is set during recent times in which there are a large number of Afghan refugees living on the outskirts of Tehran. Almost a silent movie, Baran won a number of awards both nationally and internationally for the director and writer Majid Majidi.
An aged father and his younger, mentally challenged son have been working hard every day to keep the bathhouse running for a motley group of regular customers. When his elder son, who left years ago to seek his fortune in the southern city of Shenzhen, abruptly returns one day, it once again puts under stress the long-broken father-son ties. Presented as a light-hearted comedy, Shower explores the value of family, friendship, and tradition.
Born Free (1966) is an Open Road Films Ltd./Columbia Pictures feature film starring Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers as Joy and George Adamson, a real-life couple who raised an orphaned lion cub to adulthood, and released her into the wilds of Kenya.
Beijing, 1902: an enterprising young portrait photographer named Liu Jinglun, keen on new technology, befriends a newly-arrived Englishman who's brought projector, camera, and Lumière-brothers' shorts to open the Shadow Magic theater. Liu's work with Wallace brings him conflict with tradition and his father's authority, complicated by his falling in love with Ling, daughter of Lord Tan, star of Beijing's traditional opera. Liu sees movies as his chance to become wealthy and worthy of Ling. When the Shadow Magic pair are invited to show the films to the Empress Dowager, things look good. But, is disaster in the script? And, can movies preserve tradition even as they bring change?
Mak Dong has just been released from the army and is on his way home, when he helps out a woman on the train. A couple of guys are hassling her, and he steps in gets his ass kicked and gets booted off the train. She calls him, because she collected his luggage and they agree to meet. It turns out she is a mobster's girlfriend and she gets him a job with the gang. Meanwhile his real family consists of 3 brothers, one is a wife beating detective, the second is severely handicapped and happy while the third sells eggs. He is still getting his ass kicked on a regular basis but the mob boss Bae Tse-Yong, takes him into the family and allows his to call him "Big Brother". Apparently this is a big thing among Korean mobsters. Now he's got two families and can't seem to handle either of them but one of them is going to be the death of him.
Six years ago a mysterious shooting takes place in Seoul. The after effects of the shooting results in Han-kyu Lee (Song Kang-Ho) losing his job at the NIS (National Intelligence Service). Six years later, Ji-won Song (Kang Dong-Won), an ex North Korean spy. now operates somewhere in the Seoul metropolitan area. As these two men hide their identities and work their particular angles, trouble brews again ....
18 year old Ainu (Lily Ho) is kidnapped and sold to a brothel. Her good looks and wild personality make her very popular with the lustful clients, but also draws the lesbian attentions of brothel madam Betty Tei Pei. Betty teaches Ainu the ways of lust and the ways of kung fu, and Ainu becomes more and more similar to her captor. But rage at her treatment is still burning inside her.
It recounts the harrowing story of life at one of Mao's camps, at the end of the fifties, where 'rightists' were sent to be 're-educated through labor'.
The lead actress is Shu Pei Pei, who is quite forceful as a no-nonsense fighter decked out in an array of colorful swordswoman fashions. I've seen her in nine other films, although I don't recall any which featured her in an action role before. This one is the very last film she did, according to her IMDb filmography. It came at the very end of the Shaw Bros. swordswoman cycle, which had been dominated by Cheng Pei Pei and Shih Szu up to this time. Miss Shu is very good and I wish she'd played more roles like this. Her character is Miss Ba, whose brother is involved in some shady deals with the "rascals" from the title village. When he turns up dead, with a note implicating the film's hero, Luo Hong Xun, Ms Ba vows revenge and goes after Mr. Luo, even though she knew her brother was being used by the bad guys. Eventually, Miss Ba and Mr. Luo team up to seek out the real culprits, culminating in a stunning series of fight sequences in the "village of tigers."
This top ten box office hit reunites the star duo from Come Drink With Me in another classic action adventure. Cheng Pei-pei (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) radiates her trademark charm while wielding the deadly title weapon, which is implicated in multiple murders and a major heist. Whether single-handedly fighting sixteen bandits or avenging her father's brutal death, she demonstrates why she was Hong Kong's number one swordswoman -- and no slouch with the whip either!
A noble swordsman and a one-armed swordswoman go up against the vicious Crimson Charm gang of thieves and cutthroats. The lovely and lethal Ivy Ling Po teams with the amazing Chang I for a classic tale of good versus evil in which the best man and one-armed woman wins.
Liang is a four-year-old little rebel, possessed of a pair of luminous eyes and a precociously indomitable will. His father deposits him at a well-appointed residential kindergarten in post-1949 Beijing, since his parents are often away. Life at the kindergarten appears rich and colourful, made up of a variety of cheerfully sunny rituals and games meant to train these children to be good members of society.
Two private bankers, Alistair and Jamie, who have the world at their feet get their kicks from playing a 12 hour game of hunt, hide and seek with people from the margins of society. Their next target is Sean Macdonald a parentless teenager who lives with his sister on a housing estate on the outskirts of Edinburgh. She's in debt, he's going nowhere fast. Sean agrees to play for cash.
Footpath is a Hindi crime thriller film directed by Vikram Bhatt and released in 2003. The film stars Aftab Shivdasani, Rahul Dev, Bipasha Basu and marked the debut of Emraan Hashmi. The film failed to do well at the box office. This film is inspired by the Hollywood flick State of Grace.
Arjun Singh (Aftab Shivdasani) and the Srivastav brothers, Raghu (Emraan Hashmi) and Shekhar (Rahul Dev), are neighbors in a gangster-prone area in Bombay. When Arjun's union leader father is killed, the brothers urge him to avenge his death. They get a sword and find the killers - and kill them. Arjun is the prime suspect in this homicide and the brothers get him to run to Delhi, where he begins a new life as a Real Estate Agent, Mohan Kumar Sharma
Three middle aged men, long time friends, get together in a normally closed Karaoke bar to drink their failed lives away. Secrets are revealed and sometimes discovered and they sing their miseries one by one during Karaoke sessions. The arrival of a lone woman to the bar will facilitate revealing of the final secret.
A country schoolteacher reaching retirement comes to Wuhan in search of his only son. His dying wife has requested to see her boy one last time. He is met by his daughter Yanhong who works as an escort in a karaoke bar. Yanhong introduces him to a policeman who sympathizes with his plight and agrees to help him to find his son. The two quickly become friends. Yanhong also presents her father to her boyfriend, the owner of the karaoke, an older man, who drives a luxury car. However when the four of them meet for dinner one night the old policeman recognizes the boyfriend as a man he arrested over ten years ago...
Adapted from a sex-stuffed cult novel, LALAPIPO (a play on the phrase âA Lot of Peopleâ) follows divergent seedy strands of sexual and narrative spaghetti through the sticky Tokyo night. Thereâs a chubby freelance writer whoâs so obsessed with masturbating to the sound of his upstairs neighbors going at it that he forgets to deal with his own love life and when he finally does have sex he is immediately filled with self-loathing. The upstairs neighborâs story then splits off like an amoeba: sheâs an office lady seduced by a âtalent scoutâ who is falling down the sex industry ladder, moving from hostess, to massage girl, to private karaoke attendant. The talent scoutâs story then splits off and runs in its own direction, revealing the sorry state of this young pimpâs soul. From there, the movie takes more and more time to consider the lives of more and more characters until the entire Japanese sex industry is filled with the wailing of lost souls.
In this imaginative independent drama, Angela (Chloé Winkel) is a French art student living in Germany who loves to draw comics and creates elaborate tales drawn in a soft and romantic style. One night, Angela meets Yamamoto (Jon Yang), a club DJ from Japan, who invites her to come to Tokyo with him. Infatuated with Yamamoto, Angela impulsively agrees, and is soon sharing an apartment with a handful of Western expatriates who work at a nightclub where Japanese businessmen drink, sing karaoke, and date the "hostesses" for a fee.
Ayako becomes the mistress of her boss so she can pay her father's debt and prevent him from going to prison for embezzlement.
Policeman Ki-Hoon's life is duplicitous, oscillating between the amenable, newly pregnant wife and a very appealing mistress- the singer Ga-yee. His world gets shaken up when he gets news during a murder investigation that Ga-yee is pregnant and her obsession with him rules out abortion as an option. In a very twisted chance of fate, Ki-hoon and Ga-yee end up locked in the trunk of his car on the side of the road as raw despair brings to light the shocking truth about his wife and his mistress.
Twisted, apocalyptic satire, THIS IS NOT A MOVIE envisions the end of the world through the bi-polar mind of a strung-out pop-culture addict. Starring Edward Furlong and Peter Coyote, with a jagged, atmospheric score from Slash.
On a calm summer day in 1991, in the bustling Lokhandwala Complex, five criminals including Maya and Dilip were counting 70 lakhs in flat no. 32 B, when 286 policemen, headed by ACP Khan, took strategic positions around their building. A gunfire ensued and the entire nation witnessed the most talked about daylight encounter lasting 6 hours that transformed suburban Mumbai into a war zone.
Unemployed and branded a trouble-maker, Jaikishan lives a poor lifestyle in a slum-area called Asha Colony, very near Andher's Lokhandwala Complex along with his sister, Seema; mom and dad. He comes to the rescue of a homeless orphan, Mili, who suffers from a deep inferiority complex, and permits her to live with his family. Brutally outspoken, he believes that India should be awarded unlimited gold medals for corruption at all levels, fully aware that these beliefs portray him as a 'revolutionary', and prevent him from securing any gainful employment. His life will be turned upside down when he refuses to go along with the plans of the Khan family - consisting of builder, Majid; his goon brother, Farid, and their seemingly benevolent father, Jahangir. His family will also be traumatized after the Police arrest him for the alleged broad-daylight murder of Farid.
Chengdu nowadays. The state owned factory 420 shuts down to give way to a complex of luxury apartments called "24 CITY". Three generations, eight characters : old workers, factory executives and yuppies, their stories melt into the History of China.
With Gandhi My Father, producer Anil Kapoor and director Feroz Abbas Khan have shed light onto Gandhi the person, rather than Gandhi the icon. Using Gandhiâs political career as a canvas, the film paints a picture of his intricate, complex, and strained relationship with his son Harilal Gandhi.
Larsen, an aspiring poet in '20s Oslo, leaves his girlfriend to spend a year as a trapper in East Greenland. There he is teamed with a seemingly rough old sailor/trapper, Randbæk, and a scientist, Holm. Trapped in a tiny hut together as the Arctic winter sets in, a complex and intense love/hate relationship develops between Randbæk and Larsen, who are more similar than either would like to admit. A powerful psychological and physical drama set against stunningly bleak Arctic scenery.
Story of a tumultuous and complex relationship between a father (Mohan Agashe) and son (Ajay Devgan), set against the backdrop of a thriving kidnapping industry in the Hindi heartland of Bihar.
This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life eventâthe arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbafâas the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves.
As the 18th descendant of an extremely insignificant philosopher and inventor from ancient China, McDull is fortunate that he does not have a lot to live up to. However, his mother has higher aspirations for him and decides to send him to a martial arts school in China. Overweight and slow on his feet, McDull is the last of his classmates to run away when the headmaster needs to choose someone to represent the school in an international children's martial arts competition.
Aditya Singh, fondly called Adi Chachu by the children of his brother, lives in a large mansion in Mumbai with his brother, sister-in-law, sister and grandmother. He is the only one working in the family. He falls in love with a local teacher, Priya. They confess their feelings to each other and plan a wedding. However, before the wedding day Adi is run over by a truck to save Parth and dies. In afterlife, he meets The Hindu God of Death, Yamraj, a kind-hearted, emotional deity with designer clothes and an red old car. Yamraj allows Adi to go back to Earth as a ghost to stop his evil uncle who wants to sell Adi's mansion to industrialist Hirachand. Adi enlists the aid of Shakti, a little boy, in order to save his family home.
Set in Glasgow during the mid 70s, Ratcatcher is seen through the eyes of twelve-year-old James Gillespie (William Eadie), a young boy haunted by a secret. Feeling increasingly distant from his family, his only escape comes with the discovery of a new housing development on the outskirts of town where he has the freedom to lose himself in his own world.
George Clooney plays the dry cynical character of Ryan Bingham, an executive who specializes in "downsizing". Ryan lives out of his suitcase, traveling the country for the sole purpose terminating unwanted employees day after day. Just as Ryan is about to reach his life-long goal of the ten million mile frequent flyer mark some major changes come his way. Changes that threaten to crack the cold heartless exterior that is Ryan Bingham.
Everybody knows that your life is a story. But what if a story was your life? Harold Crick is your average IRS agent: monotonous, boring, and repetitive. But one day this all changes when Harold begins to hear an author inside his head narrating his life. But when the narration reveals he is going to die, Harold must find the author and convince them to change the ending.
Angelina Jolie and Edward Burns sizzle in this romantic comedy about making choices, making friends and making a mess. Lanie (Jolie) is a beautiful, ambitious newscaster who thinks that having the perfect hair, perfect boyfriend and perfect apartment adds up to the perfect life, until an encounter with a street psychic throws her world into chaos.
Veronica is brilliant, gifted and beautiful, but the handsome aristocrat she loves, Marco Venier, cannot marry her because she is penniless and of questionable family. So Veronica's mother, Paola, teaches her to become a courtesan, one of the exotic companions favored by the richest and most powerful Venetian men. Veronica courageously uses her charms to change destiny -- and to give herself a chance at true love.
Ethan, a magician rendered paralyzed in an accident, sets off a furor when he makes a petition to the court to end his own life.
Xiao Yu (Zhou), a barista and cake maker in a teahouse-café by Westlake in Hangzhou. Since a car crash long ago, she had been leading a peaceful life with her kind-hearted best friend and fellow car crash survivor Tong (Yim) who is unabashed in admitting that his feelings for Xiao Yu have developed into love. One day A Qin (Chen) celebrates his birthday alone in her café. Xiao Yu's curiosity sparks off their dialogues and both discover they have many parallels. But A Qin is a player who is escaping to Hangzhou from the pressures of his relationships in Beijing and Xiao Yu is pursued by Tong ... What will be their choices?
Beautiful young housewife Séverine Serizy cannot reconcile her masochistic fantasies with her everyday life alongside dutiful husband Pierre. When her lovestruck friend Henri mentions a secretive high-class brothel run by Madame Anais, Séverine begins to work there during the day under the name Belle de Jour. But when one of her clients grows possessive, she must try to go back to her normal life.
A writer awakens one day to find a strange but beautiful woman in bed with him. He quickly falls in love with her, thinking he has found his muse, but as time passes she becomes more and more unattainable.
An all-star cast sparks this captivating comedy about a group of old friends whose 10-year high school reunion creates some hilariously unexpected surprises. Willie, Tommy, and Paul may have lost a bit of their youth, but they're still ready to party with Uma Thurman, Rosie O'Donnell, Lauren Holly, and Mira Sorvino -- the beautiful girls who've turned their lives upside down!
In this sequel to the 1980 classic, two children are stranded on a beautiful island in the South Pacific. With no adults to guide them, the two make a simple life together and eventually become tanned teenagers in love.
Dangerous Liaisons is a Chinese film by Hur Jin-ho based on the novel with the same title by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. It has been adapted five times to date, including the eponymous Hollywood film (1988) and Untold Scandal from South Korea (2003).
After losing his family when he was young, Nam-soon feels no pain. He cannot feel physical pain and is emotionally barren until he meets Dong-hyeon, who calls herself a vampire because she suffers from hemophilia. Unlike Dong-hyeon, when Nam-soon is injured, she bleeds from even the smallest wound. As the two grow closer, Dong-hyeon suddenly begins to lose his lifelong insensitivity to pain and the hurt of a lifetime washes over him.
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