In 1942, Henan Province was devastated by the most tragic famine in modern Chinese history, resulting in the deaths of at least three million men, women and children. Although the primary cause of the famine was a severe drought, it was exacerbated by locusts, windstorms, earthquakes, epidemic disease and the corruption of the ruling Kuomintang government.
The story of a woman who loves her dog more than her husband. And then her husband loses the dog.
Four tales, each centered on a woman, journey inward to explore the enigmatic reality of their lives, connecting through a single narrative thread.
The odd-couple courtship saga continues of wealthy, middle-aged retiree Qin Fen and serious-minded young air hostess Xiaoxiao. After an amusing prelude in which Qin presides over a lavish divorce ceremony for an amicably splitting married couple, he and Xiaoxiao decide to address their own relationship barriers — her youth and beauty, his cynical, childish sense of humor — by entering into a trial marriage while on a trip to the country's tropical southeast.
Four friends come up with an unusual idea to make some money and have fun doing it. For a small fee, they will impersonate and act out any character role for their customers. In the course of executing this novel service, they encounter a whole spectrum of people in society, finding ways to genuinely help them boost their morale and overcome their fears, while gaining unusual and new insights into the human condition.
A young boy discovers a magical rock that can make any wish come true. But the rock is stolen by a school bully who uses it to create a powerful and dangerous monster. The only way to stop the beast is to enlist the help of superhero Ultraman Gaia. The boy does everything he can to help the XIG Team, a brave group of humans who have direct contact with Ultraman Gaia as well as Ultraman Dyna and Ultraman Tiga.
Desperate to help her ailing brother, a young woman agrees to compete in a deadly game of "Would You Rather" hosted by a sadistic aristocrat.
A star quarterback gets knocked out of the game and an unknown third stringer is called in to replace him. The unknown gives a stunning performance and forces the ageing coach to reevaluate his game plans and life. A new co-owner/president adds to the pressure of winning. The new owner must prove herself in a male dominated world.
An impromptu goodbye party for Professor John Oldman becomes a mysterious interrogation after the retiring scholar reveals to his colleagues he never ages and has walked the earth for 14,000 years.
Based on the classic novel by Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game is the story of the Earth's most gifted children training to defend their homeplanet in the space wars of the future.
An idealistic FBI agent is enlisted by a government task force to aid in the escalating war against drugs at the border area between the U.S. and Mexico.
Cobb, a skilled thief who commits corporate espionage by infiltrating the subconscious of his targets is offered a chance to regain his old life as payment for a task considered to be impossible: "inception", the implantation of another person's idea into a target's subconscious.
As the world fell, young Furiosa is snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers and falls into the hands of a great Biker Horde led by the Warlord Dementus. Sweeping through the Wasteland they come across the Citadel presided over by The Immortan Joe. While the two Tyrants war for dominance, Furiosa must survive many trials as she puts together the means to find her way home.
A ticking-time-bomb insomniac and a slippery soap salesman channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept catches on, with underground "fight clubs" forming in every town, until an eccentric gets in the way and ignites an out-of-control spiral toward oblivion.
At a tiny Parisian café, the adorable yet painfully shy Amélie accidentally discovers a gift for helping others. Soon Amelie is spending her days as a matchmaker, guardian angel, and all-around do-gooder. But when she bumps into a handsome stranger, will she find the courage to become the star of her very own love story?
Léon, the top hit man in New York, has earned a rep as an effective "cleaner". But when his next-door neighbors are wiped out by a loose-cannon DEA agent, he becomes the unwilling custodian of 12-year-old Mathilda. Before long, Mathilda's thoughts turn to revenge, and she considers following in Léon's footsteps.
During its return to the earth, commercial spaceship Nostromo intercepts a distress signal from a distant planet. When a three-member team of the crew discovers a chamber containing thousands of eggs on the planet, a creature inside one of the eggs attacks an explorer. The entire crew is unaware of the impending nightmare set to descend upon them when the alien parasite planted inside its unfortunate host is birthed.
All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.
In the ravaged near-future, a savage motorcycle gang rules the road. Terrorizing innocent civilians while tearing up the streets, the ruthless gang laughs in the face of a police force hell-bent on stopping them.
Tony Lip, a bouncer in 1962, is hired to drive pianist Don Shirley on a tour through the Deep South in the days when African Americans, forced to find alternate accommodations and services due to segregation laws below the Mason-Dixon Line, relied on a guide called The Negro Motorist Green Book.
A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.
The story of a Antoine, a physician who was exiled to China in the 1930's due to his drug habit.
An American oil company representative almost sacrifices his marriage for his career.
The love story of an abused English girl and a Chinese Buddhist in a time when London was a brutal and harsh place to live.
In 1960s China, French diplomat Rene Gallimard falls in love with an opera singer, Song Liling – but Song is not at all who Gallimard thinks.
In 1375, China was in chaos between Yuan Dynasty and Ming Dynasty. Coryo (an ancient kingdom of Korea then) sent a delegation of many diplomats, soldiers and a silent slave to make peace with the new Chinese government. However, this delegation got charged as spies and sent in exile to a remote desert.
Bilike has never seen a ping-pong ball before. He and his family live without electricity and running water in a solitary tent home among the vast steppe grasslands. The magnificent landscape here has changed little since the days of Genghis Kahn. But life in the middle of nowhere can be exciting for a young boy. The smallest of details become big events for curious Bilike and his best friends Erguotou and Dawa. The mystery of the small white ball floating in the creek leads to questions about the world around them, as well as innocent mischief.
During China's Tang dynasty the emperor has taken the princess of a neighboring province as his wife. She has borne him two sons and raised his eldest. Now his control over his dominion is complete, including the royal family itself.
A beautiful temptress re-kindles an old romance while trying to escape her past during a tension-packed train journey.
A story about coming to the end of your journey as an expat in China, told through the lens of the films that inspired us.
During the Cultural Revolution, two young men are sent to a remote mining village where they fall in love with the local tailor's beautiful granddaughter and discover a suitcase full of forbidden Western novels.
The film follows Mr. Shi, a retired widower from Beijing. When his only daughter, Yilan, who lives in Spokane, Washington and works as a librarian, gets divorced, he decides to visit her to help her heal. However, Yilan is not interested. She tries keeping an emotional distance but when this finally fails she begins physically avoiding her father. He confronts her about an affair with a married Russian man and she, in turn, lets loose about all the gossip she'd heard as a young girl about his alleged affair with a female colleague back in China.
To put her younger sister Huilan (Margaret Tu Chuan) through college, Huilian (Grace Ting Ning) became a taxi dancer and is despised by Huilan. Now married to a good husband (Guan Shan), the lonely Huilan falls for a man after her money. To protect her younger sister, Huilian puts herself at risk. Grace Ting Ning plays a sad role, as the noble sister who keeps her purity in a cesspool.
A wealthy young man pursues a young woman of modest means, but circumstances often separate them as the years pass.
A young teenager returns home after an absence to find his village in Iran deserted because of an incredibly severe drought. He begins a search to find his family, traveling through an amazingly bleak and desolate landscape. Primarily an essay on the issue of humans vs. nature, the film is of interest for technical and cultural reasons.
During World War II, a secret agent must seduce then assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai. Her mission becomes clouded when she finds herself falling in love with the man she is assigned to kill.
A town in Fengjie county is gradually being demolished and flooded to make way for the Three Gorges Dam. A man and woman visit the town to locate their estranged spouses, and become witness to the societal changes.
Pan Xiao, a young lawyer, goes to a rural small village settled in the western desert lands of China to handle the case of a falcon poacher who has ran over a policeman. Pan wins the case through sophisticated reasoning and forces the poacher to give him his car as a reward. Then, he just drives back home, but the return will not be an easy one.
Region of Castilla La Vieja, Spain, early 20th century. In Luján, a village ravaged by drought, Juan, a humble farmer who survives with his wife and son, confronts a local loan shark and is imprisoned as a result.
Engineer Jake Holman arrives aboard the gunboat USS San Pablo, assigned to patrol a tributary of the Yangtze in the middle of exploited and revolution-torn 1926 China. His iconoclasm and cynical nature soon clash with the 'rice-bowl' system which runs the ship and the uneasy symbiosis between Chinese and foreigner on the river. Hostility towards the gunboat's presence reaches a climax when the boat must crash through a river-boom and rescue missionaries upriver at China Light Mission.