2046

He was a writer. He thought he wrote about the future but it really was the past. In his novel, a mysterious train left for 2046 every once in a while. Everyone who went there had the same intention, to recapture their lost memories. It was said that in 2046, nothing ever changed. Nobody knew for sure if it was true, because nobody who went there had ever come back – except for one. He was there. He chose to leave. He wanted to change.

Directed by Kar Wai Wong | Starring : Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Ziyi Zhang, Li Gong, Faye Wong, Takuya Kimura | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, Valladolid Film Festival, London Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival, Bangkok Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Adelaide Film Festival, Sofia Film Festival, Istanbul Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Seattle Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro Film Festival

英雄 | Hero

Director Zhang Yimou brings the sumptuous visual style of his previous films (Raise the Red Lantern, Shanghai Triad) to the high-kicking kung fu genre. A nameless warrior arrives at an emperor’s palace with three weapons, each belonging to a famous assassin who had sworn to kill the emperor. As the nameless man spins out his story—and the emperor presents his own interpretation of what might really have happened—each episode is drenched in red, blue, white or another dominant color. Hero combines sweeping cinematography and superb performances from the cream of the Hong Kong cinema (Maggie Cheung, Irma Vep; Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, In the Mood for Love). The result is stunning, a dazzling action movie with an emotional richness that deepens with every step.

Directed by Yimou Zhang | Starring : Jet Li, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Maggie Cheung, Ziyi Zhang, Donnie Yen | Presented at Palm Springs Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Jerusalem Film Festival, Edda Film Festival, Marrakech Film Festival, Ghent Film Festival, Brothers Manaki Film Festival, Sao Paulo Film Festival, Istanbul Film Festival

花样年华 | In the Mood for Love

Hong Kong, 1962. Chow Mo-wan and Su Li-zhen move into neighboring apartments on the same day. Their encounters are polite and formal—until a discovery about their respective spouses sparks an intimate bond. At once delicately mannered and visually stunning, Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love is a masterful evocation of romantic longing and fleeting moments in time.

Directed by Kar Wai Wong | Starring : Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Maggie Cheung, Ping Lam Siu, Tung Cho ‘Joe’ Cheung, Rebecca Pan | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Edinburgh Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, San Sebastian Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Reykjavik Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Mar del Plata Film Festival, Bangkok Film Festival, Cinemanila Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival

东邪西毒 | Ashes of Time

Ou-yang Feng lives in the middle of a desert, where he acts as a middle man to various swordsmen in ancient China. One of those swordsmen is Huang Yao-shi, who has found some magic wine that causes one to forget the past. At another time, Huang met Mu-rong Yin and under the influence of drink, promised to marry Mu-rong’s sister Mu-rong Yang. Huang jilts her, and Mu-rong Yin hires Ou-yang to kill Huang. But then Mu-rong Yang hires Ou-yang to protect Huang. This is awkward, because Mu-rong Yang and Mu-rong Yin are in reality the same person. Other unrelated plot lines careen about. Among them is Ou-yang’s continuing efforts to destroy a band of horse thieves. Oy-yang recruits another swordsman, a man who is going blind and wants to get home to see his wife before his sight goes completely. The swordsman is killed. Ou-yang then meets another swordsman (Jackie Cheung) who doesn’t like wearing shoes. Oy-yang sends this man after the horse thieves, with better results. We then find out what a man must give up to follow the martial path.

Directed by Kar Wai Wong | Starring : Leslie Cheung, Brigitte Lin, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung Ka Fai | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival, Shanghai Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro Film Festival, Helsinki Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Sao Paulo Film Festival, Mar del Plata Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Istanbul Film Festival

新同居时代 | In Between

Three directors deliver three stories about the love of in the modern world. Three love stories are presented: A man who cannot give up his freedom despite the fact that he loves his girlfriend, a naive man who learns love and loss in an adulterous relationship with the wife of his boss, and a man who develops a friendship with his girlfriend who gets pregnant after a night of passion with him. The irony of the modern society’s relationships living in the same place does not mean living together works out tastefully.

Directed by Sylvia Chang, Yonfan, Leung Chun ‘Samson’ Chiu | Starring : Maggie Cheung, Sylvia Chang, Winston Chao, Chien-lien Wu, Nicky Wu | Presented at Pusan Film Festival

阮玲玉 | Center Stage

In the 1930s, in China, there was a woman film-actress who was tagged as “the Chinese Garbo.” She was a wildly popular performer who made her first film at age 16 and died by her own hand at age 25. Ironically, she was famous for playing tragic heroines, and her own life mirrored the kinds of situations she portrayed onscreen. In this biopic, Ruan Ling-yu is riding high in her career when the press decides to take her down a notch or two, bitterly criticizing her for an affair with a married man. This situation is unbearable for her, and she kills herself, but not before uttering the words “Gossip is a terrible thing.” In addition to the central drama, scenes from actual films starring the actress are included, and the actors in this biopic occasionally step out of character to address the camera, recounting some significant fact about the individuals whose lives they are playing, and the nature of those times in China.

Directed by Stanley Kwan | Starring : Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung Ka Fai, Han Chin, Carina Lau, Lawrence Ng | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival, Adelaide Film Festival, Transilvania Film Festival

阿飞正传 | Days of Being Wild

Set in 1960, the film centers on the young, boyishly handsome Yuddy, who learns from the drunken ex-prostitute who raised him that she is not his real mother. Hoping to hold onto him, she refuses to divulge the name of his real birth mother. The revelation shakes Yuddy to his very core, unleashing a cascade of conflicting emotions. Two women have the bad luck to fall for Yuddy; one a quiet lass named Su Lizhen who works at a sports arena, the other a glitzy showgirl named Mimi. Yuddy passively lets the two compete for him, unable or unwilling to make a choice. As Lizhen slowly confides her frustration to a cop named Tide, he falls for her. The same is true for Yuddy’s friend Zeb, who falls for Mimi. Later, Yuddy learns of his birth mother’s whereabouts and heads out to the Philippines.

Directed by Kar Wai Wong | Starring : Leslie Cheung, Maggie Cheung, Andy Lau, Carina Lau, Tony Leung Chiu Wai | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, Cinemanila Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival, Milwaukee Film Festival

滚滚红尘 | Red Dust

Red Dust tells us the story of writer Shao Hua during the period 1935-1950. The story starts from a very personal point of view, by depicting the days when Shao Hua used to write alone, locked up in the attic by her father, then slowly unfolds to the wider reality of a country suffering poverty and persecution, because of the Japanese first, because of the clashes between the nationalists and the communists later. However, it’s not a sad movie: Shao Hua has love and friendship to care about, and indeed the movie is more of a journey of her heart, as she climbs through the ups and downs of life, with moments of laughter and glee following or giving way to moments of disappointment and insight. Alongside, as she is a writer, we also get to see as the steps of her existence influence the developing of her novel.

Directed by Ho Yim | Starring : Brigitte Lin, Han Chin, Maggie Cheung, Richard Ng, Josephine Koo | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Singapore Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival

爱在别乡的季节 | Farewell China

Hong Kong acting legends Tony Leung Ka-Fai and Maggie Cheung star as a Chinese couple separated by the painful, arduous and risky process of illegal immigration to America. A year after his wife leaves for New York City, Leung Ka-Fai follows, but discovers his wife’s been lost in the crush of poverty, hardship and urban decay. Gritty and unsentimental, Farewell China was nominated for Best Film at the Hong Kong Film Award.

Directed by Clara Law | Starring : Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung Ka Fai, Hayley Man, Chun Liao, Peter Yip | Presented at Torino Film Festival

客途秋恨 | Song of the Exile

In Song of the Exile, renowned Hong Kong director Ann Hui tells us a sentimental story that is partially based on her own life story. The film, made in 1990, stars acclaimed actress Maggie Cheung, Asia Pacific Film Festival Best Actress Lu Hsiao-fen, and Hong Kong actor Waise Lee. The highly acclaimed film received several nominations in the Hong Kong Film Awards, and won Best Original Screenplay at the 27th Golden Horse Awards for Wu Nien-jen’s script. Shot in China, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, and the UK, the film is a sweeping tale of love and understanding between a daughter and her mother. After the World War II ended, Japanese girl Aiko married a Chinese military officer against the wish of her family, but her husband soon moved to Hong Kong, leaving her alone in China. Aiko’s relationship with her elder daughter Hueyin had been estranged, until they visited her hometown in Japan together for the first time, when Hueyin finally understood what it felt like to be an exile in a strange land.

Directed by Ann Hui | Starring : Maggie Cheung, Hsiao-fen Lu, Waise Lee, Feng Tien, Kentarô Kaji | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival

旺角卡门 | As Tears Go By

A stylish triumph for genre fans and film fans alike, As Tears Go By more than lives up to its billing as the first film from celebrated director Wong Kar Wai. Andy Lau is Ha Tau, a small-time triad leader whose responsibility for the pathological Fly threatens to be his downfall. While Ha Tau struggles with his troubles on the streets, he finds solace in a surprising intimacy to his cousin, Ah Ngor. Their tender interludes give Ha Tau a welcome respite from his violent life, but not for long. Fly grows more and more self-destructive, and soon Ha Tau can no longer avoid the brutal calling of the triad underworld. Mixing stylish MTV-style filmmaking with potent triad melodrama, As Tears Go By is an exemplary genre film, and an intriguing beginning to Wong Kar-Wai’s celebrated filmography

Directed by Kar Wai Wong | Starring : Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung, Jacky Cheung, Alex Man, Ronald Wong | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival