一代宗师 | The Grandmaster

With martial arts getting more popular in the Thirties, more people seek to learn them via the professionals at Foshan in Southern China. Some of the experienced masters like to challenge their counterparts and undergoing battles. To have their whole concentration, it is their practice to lock up the venues and no one is allowed to leave during battles. No food and no rest before reaching any results. Ip Man is a young rich man extremely talented in martial arts, but he chooses to keep a low profile. Yet this doesn’t keep him out of these troubles ahead. One day he is trapped in this battleground so he has to use every means in order to get out of there. The masters are amazed by his abilities. Master Kung and his daughter Kung Yi are amongst, and the latter is attracted to this newcomer. A high warlord is assassinated by his own guard Yi Xian Tian. All masters in Foshan vow to take Tian down no matter what.

Directed by Kar Wai Wong | Starring : Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Ziyi Zhang, Chen Chang, Benshan Zhao, Hye-kyo Song | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Belgrade Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival

不散 | Goodbye Dragon Inn

A Japanese tourist takes refuge from a rainstorm inside a once-popular movie theater, a decrepit old barn of a cinema that is screening a martial arts classic, King Hu’s 1966 “Dragon Inn.” Even with the rain bucketing down outside, it doesn’t pull much of an audience – and some of those who have turned up are less interested in the movie than in the possibility of meeting a stranger in the dark.

Directed by Ming-liang Tsai | Starring : Kang-sheng Lee, Shiang-chyi Chen, Kiyonobu Mitamura, Tien Miao, Chao-jung Chen | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Vienna Film Festival, Tokyo Film Festival, London Film Festival, Hawaii Film Festival, Stockholm Film Festival, Oslo Film Festival, Nantes Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Febio Film Festival, Belgrade Film Festival, Wisconsin Film Festival, Buenos Aires Film Festival, Istanbul Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Singapore Film Festival, Munich Film Festival, La Rochelle Film Festival, Maine Film Festival

任逍遥 | Unknown Pleasures

Unknown Pleasures, sequel to the widely praised Platform, again focuses on a generation of Chinese kids. In fragmentary observations, Jia sketches a picture of the lethargy of today’s youth, a generation that has grown up with technological gadgets, advertising and Internet. Jia refers to moments in the eventful year 2001, when an unemployed man blew up a whole building and the Olympic Summer Games of 2008 were granted to Beijing. In as far as the scenes were not improvised, the script of the film was inspired by work of the philosopher Zhuangzi, a Taoist who argues in favour of enjoying the (unknown) pleasures of life. The two unemployed kids Xiao Ji and Bin Bin have plenty of time for pleasures like hanging out and falling in love. In the case of Xiao Ji the subject of his affections is Qiao Qiao, a dancer and model for an advertising campaign for a major Mongolian brand of drink. The fact that Qiao Qiao has a dangerous friend does not make much impression on Xiao Ji: he takes his inspiration from American crime films and most wants to die young. Bin Bin does not have much faith in the future either. His girlfriend is going to Beijing to study. She wants to become a businesswoman, while Bin Bin’s ambitions do not extend any further than karaoke and cartoons.

Directed by Zhang Ke Jia | Starring : Tao Zhao, Wei Wei Zhao, Qiong Wu, Hongwei Wang, Zhubin Li | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Belgrade Film Festival, Istanbul Film Festival, Singapore Film Festival, San Sebastian Film Festival

夏日暖洋洋 | I Love Beijing

The third film in director Ning Ying’s “Beijing Trilogy”, this romantic drama follows the fortunes of a young cab driver who is depressed because of a recent divorce. He turns his personality around to become a ladies’ man, wooing a waitress, a librarian, and then a talk-show host. Lost in the dating wars, he longs to find the love of his life in the rapidly changing city of Beijing. Winner of the Don Quixote Award at the Berlin Film Festival.

Directed by Ying Ning | Starring : Yu Lei, Zuo Baitao, Höng Tao, Yi Gai, Miao Liu | Presented at Rotterdam Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Belgrade Film Festival, Karlovy Vary Film Festival

榴莲飘飘 | Durian Durian

Durian Durian is an extension of the life of Fan, the illegal immigrant girl in Little Cheung. Fan strikes up a friendship with fellow immigrant Yan, the hardest working prostitute in town who must endure the harsh conditions of her job on one side of the border (HK) while she tries to turn her profits into a success on the other side of the border (China). One day, the pimp accompanying her gets his head smashed from behind in a random act of violence. The weapon is a strange, spiky fruit known as the “durian”. The idealistic and naive views of Hong Kong that the girls share are destroyed by differences in culture, isolated existences, and limited choices.

Directed by Fruit Chan | Starring : Hailu Qin, Wai-Fan Mak, Suet-man Mak, Xiao Ming Biao, Wai Yiu Yung | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, London Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Belgrade Film Festival, Cinemanila Film Festival

小武 | Pickpocket

From award-winning 6th generation Chinese director Jia Zhangke comes the story of Xiao Wu. A small town pickpocket, like his friends never having managed to get away from the streets, he finds himself alone with his troubles. A local cop is out to get him and his love affair with Mei Mei, the local karaoke hostess, is going no where. He realizes it’s times to think about his future, but can he find the force to break with his criminal past? A new look at modern China in the debut film of one of contemporary cinema’s greatest artists.

Directed by Zhang Ke Jia | Starring : Hongwei Wang, Hao Hongjian, Zuo Baitao, Ma Jinrei, Liu Junying | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Singapore Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, London Film Festival, Nantes Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Buenos Aires Film Festival, San Francisco Film Festival, Taipei Film Festival, Belgrade Film Festival