Doris simply wanted to open a refined, stylish coffee shop in a bohemian Taipei neighborhood, but when she's stuck with a load of useless gifts from the opening celebration, her younger sister Josie turns the café into a burgeoning bartering business. There, even a soulful song (by Japanese singer Atari Kosuke in a cameo) is a tradable commodity. One day, a traveler brings in 35 soaps from around the world with a story for each of them, awakening Doris' imagination about the outside world that she has never seen.
Aunt Mei's famous homemade dumplings provide amazing age-defying qualities popular with middle-aged women. But her latest customer, a fading actress, is determined to find out what the secret ingredient is.
The story of a father's tireless love for his autistic son. A terminally ill father's attempt to teach his autistic son the necessary life skills to survive on his own before he passes away. It is also a poignant tribute to the infinite love that parents have for their children and their unending desire to take care and look after them to their best abilities, no matter the struggle, no matter the effort.
Mabel, Liam and Aaron have been friends since childhood. Their bonds of friendship are tested when, years later, they realize their friendship is the only reason they have made it through emotional hardships and extreme tragedies.
Two boyhood friends are separated due to the disappearance of the sister of one of them, then later meet again as teenagers, when one of them has become a pop singer, and they discover feelings that they did not know they had.
The Japanese forces occupy Shanghai and slowly start spreading terror in the city. Chen Zhen, who was presumed dead, returns to fight against the Japanese and put an end to their tyrannical rule.
Based on various horror and ghost tales set in universities, the film centers around some students who encounter paranormal events in their university. They must fight against their fears and scary things that are haunting their university.
After losing their baby, a married couple adopt 9-year old Esther, who may not be as innocent as she seems.
In the near future, a group of war journalists attempt to survive while reporting the truth as the United States stands on the brink of civil war.
Teenager Riley's mind headquarters is undergoing a sudden demolition to make room for something entirely unexpected: new Emotions! Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust, who’ve long been running a successful operation by all accounts, aren’t sure how to feel when Anxiety shows up. And it looks like she’s not alone.
Following the death of the Leigh family matriarch, Annie and her children uncover disturbing secrets about their heritage. Their daily lives are not only impacted, but they also become entangled in a chilling fate from which they cannot escape, driving them to the brink of madness.
Chris and his girlfriend Rose go upstate to visit her parents for the weekend. At first, Chris reads the family's overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter's interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he never could have imagined.
Pennsylvania, 1956. Frank Sheeran, a war veteran of Irish origin who works as a truck driver, accidentally meets mobster Russell Bufalino. Once Frank becomes his trusted man, Bufalino sends him to Chicago with the task of helping Jimmy Hoffa, a powerful union leader related to organized crime, with whom Frank will maintain a close friendship for nearly twenty years.
When a young boy begins behaving strangely, shocking truths emerge as the story unfolds through the eyes of his single mother, a teacher who is believed to be responsible, and the child himself.
A twist of fate leaves a hapless accountant romantically torn between two sisters.
Mia, an aspiring actress, serves lattes to movie stars in between auditions and Sebastian, a jazz musician, scrapes by playing cocktail party gigs in dingy bars, but as success mounts they are faced with decisions that begin to fray the fragile fabric of their love affair, and the dreams they worked so hard to maintain in each other threaten to rip them apart.
Deliveryman Jongsu is out on a job when he runs into Haemi, a girl who once lived in his neighbourhood. She asks if he'd mind looking after her cat while she's away on a trip to Africa. On her return, she introduces to Jongsu an enigmatic young man named Ben, who she met during her trip. One day Ben tells Jongsu about his most unusual hobby.
Salvador Mallo, a filmmaker in the twilight of his career, remembers his life: his mother, his lovers, the actors he worked with. The sixties in a small village in Valencia, the eighties in Madrid, the present, when he feels an immeasurable emptiness, facing his mortality, the incapability of continuing filming, the impossibility of separating creation from his own life. The need of narrating his past can be his salvation.
Several friends travel to Sweden to study as anthropologists a summer festival that is held every ninety years in the remote hometown of one of them. What begins as a dream vacation in a place where the sun never sets, gradually turns into a dark nightmare as the mysterious inhabitants invite them to participate in their disturbing festive activities.
Secure within a desolate home as an unnatural threat terrorizes the world, a man has established a tenuous domestic order with his wife and son, but this will soon be put to test when a desperate young family arrives seeking refuge.
May, a woman singer from the mainland of China, suddenly loses her voice and has conflicts with Ah Lei, her producer and secret lover. In anger she goes to Old Town of Jingtong where she meets Xiao Mo, a warmhearted man. Xia Mo helps May find a place to stay, and finds her work at local restaurant. May finds happiness and consolation in the old streets of the small town, and her voice gets better and better.
Even in modern-day Taipei, women feel the societal pressure to get married and have children before the clock runs out. Thankfully, there is a solution: freeze your eggs and prolong your fertility until the right one comes along! Starring Ariel Lin, the film is a glimpse of what millions of working women struggle with: finding the balance between pursuing a career and marriage.
A retired and widowed Chinese master chef Chu and his family live in modern day Taipei, Taiwan. He lives with his three attractive daughters, all of whom are unattached. Soon, each of the daughters encounter new men in their lives. When these new relationships blossom, stereotypes are broken and the living situation within the family changes.
A boy experiences first love, friendships and injustices growing up in 1960s Taiwan.
Three young souls, with different purposes, comes to the coast and search for the meaning of their life, a journey considerably longer than any of them has taken before.
Winston Chen, a prominent businessman, goes missing after racking up $100 million in debts to the Taipei underworld. Two enforcers sent to find him, and they track down his son, Red Fish, the leader of a street gang.
Each member of a family in Taipei asks hard questions about life's meaning as they live through everyday quandaries. NJ is morose: his brother owes him money, his mother is in a coma, his wife suffers a spiritual crisis when she finds her life a blank and his business partners make bad decisions.
In this portrait of small-time hoods rendered in rhythm-of-life anecdotal detail, Gao is the leader of a circle of layabouts including his sidekick, Flathead, and their girlfriends, Pretzel and Ling. He is also the originator of petty crime schemes, which promise to get the gang nowhere fast.
An uncompromising look into urban life from the eyes of a voyeuristic photographer, a rebellious teenager, and a married couple teetering on the edge of adultery.
A young woman urgently seeks to navigate the maze of contemporary Taipei and find a future. She hopes that her boyfriend Lung is the key to the future, but Lung is stuck in a past that combines baseball and traditional loyalty that leads him to squander his nest egg bailing her father out of financial trouble.
Fei works illegally as a hustler in order to support his family, yet when he realizes they are willing to accept his money but not his way of life, there is a major breakdown in their relations. Through his relationship to the headstrong Long, Fei seems able to find a new lease on life, but then he encounters Xiaolai, the love of his youth, who confronts him with the guilt of his repressed past.
Defying his parents, disaffected youth Hsiao Kang drops out of the local cram school to head for the bright lights of downtown Taipei. He meets Ah Tze, a young hoodlum, and their relationship is a confused mixture of hero-worship and rivalry that soon leads to trouble.
Hao, a chubby gay man, works as a janitor at a gay spa. For him, romantic relationships are an unreachable dream. One day, an attractive customer, Kai, walks into the place, and Hao has the opportunity to massage him.
On a dark and rainy night, a historic and regal Taipei cinema sees its final film: 1967 martial arts feature "Dragon Inn". As the film plays, the lives of the theater's various employees and patrons intersect, and two ghostly actors arrive to mourn the passing of an era.
A young woman wandering around meets a young man going to a casting call for a pornographic film.
Mr. Lin is a happily retired man who spends his time keeping company with his toddling grandson, walking his dog, and playing golf with his in-laws. Recently, he has been obsessed with houses with river views. In Lin's city of demolitions and reconstructions, money-making investors buy and sell houses at unaffordable prices. Above the skyline of Taipei, will the boundaries between daydreams and reality ever blur?
Liang Ruoqing is a girl who, after being lied to and dumped by her ideal high-school boyfriend Ai Ren, develops love phobia and vows to never fall in love again. However, she meets a handsome doctor Lu Zhehan at her grandfather's hospital. Lu Zhehan seems to be the perfect guy but since she doesn't believe in "perfect" anymore, she thinks that he is too good to be true. Her new journey begins when she tries to show to all of the women that this doctor is not as good as everyone thinks he is, but fate is playing a trick on her. The more she tries to uncover his hidden evil nature, the more she discovers that he may be the right guy to cure her love phobia.
I enjoy religion, I appreciate belief systems and how they offer structure to people's lives. I also appreciate how spirituality manifests itself in Asian cultures as this almost earthbound presence guiding people through every day life and when they need an extra bit of help they need only ask whichever deity holds dominion over their desire. Here is an experimental film I made with videos from my iPhone. Shot across Taiwan and South Korea. An experimental film I made with videos from my iPhone. Shot across Taiwan and Korea. My aim was to explore success in how it pertains to every day life, the satisfaction of small moments, spirituality, superstition, and daily rituals.
Presumed dead, master con artist and recovering amnesiac Dorothy is discovered by Shanghai Longu-bang, a mob who wants payback for her conning them. With no memories and nowhere to go, she must rely on a local crime underboss to elude Taipei's criminal underworld all while tracking down leads to her mysterious past.
A bachelor who decides to propose to his girlfriend with his mother's ring only to have the ring accidentally knocked into the gutter by a boy. He experiences the crazy nightlife in Taipei and meets many interesting individuals throughout his mission to get the ring back.