记忆望着我 | Memories Look at Me

Song Fang is the protagonist in her own soberly filmed docudrama, in which she returns from Beijing to the house of her parents in Nanjing. The film is largely set indoors, where Song shares everyday life and many memories with her parents, sister-in-law, brother and niece. Song is always on screen as they talk about relatives living and dead, about more or less successful careers, about old friends, illnesses and accidents, funerals and weddings. A young niece, Diandian, makes disarming comments that provide a lighter note. Between the conversations – that often take place around food – and rare excursions, we catch a glimpse of changing Chinese society. It is obvious that the norms and values of the older generation are being devalued, but that some deep-rooted traditions will probably continue for a very long time.

Directed by Fang Song | Starring : Yu-zhu Ye, Di-jing Song, Fang Song, Song Yuan | Presented at Locarno Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Mar del Plata Film Festival, Entrevues Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Portland Film Festival, San Francisco Film Festival

二十四城记 | 24 City

A masterful film from Jia Zhang-ke, the renowned director chronicles the dramatic closing of a once-prosperous state-owned aeronautics factory in Chengdu, a city in Southwest China, and its conversion into a sprawling luxury apartment complex. Bursting with poetry, pop songs and striking visual detail, the film weaves together unforgettable stories from three generations of workers – some real, some played by actors – into a vivid portrait of the human struggle behind China’s economic miracle.

Directed by Zhang Ke Jia | Starring : Tao Zhao, Joan Chen, Jianbin Chen, Liping Lü | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Sao Paulo Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, London Film Festival, Mar del Plata Film Festival, Torino Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Glasgow Film Festival, Cleveland Film Festival, Wisconsin Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro Film Festival, St. Louis Film Festival

吴清源 | The Go Master

The latest film from celebrated Fifth Generation director Tian Zhuangzhuang, The Go Master shines a light on the life and times of Wu Qingyuan. Better know by his Japanese name Go Seigen, Wu is considered the greatest Go player of the 20th century, his talents bringing him from his native China to a professional career in Japan when he was only a teenager. Based on Wu’s autobiography, this elegantly shot and remarkably restrained biopic follows the life of a singular figure, fascinating not only for his genius and achievements in the game of Go, but also for his unique experiences as a Chinese man in Japan during an immensely turbulent period in history. With the breakout of the Sino-Japanese War in the 1930s, Wu Qingyuan and his family are thrown into an uncomfortable and dangerous position as Chinese nationals residing in Japan. While Wu’s family returns to China, he chooses to stay behind in his adopted country to continue to pursue the game of Go. In the quiet recluse of his school, there are no politics, only the singular dedication to his art and the love for his wife Kazuko. However, the chaos of the times eventually forces him out of his enclave, throwing his life and mind into conflict. Wu joins a cult in a sober pursuit of faith and his own ongoing battle to come to terms with himself.

Directed by Zhuangzhuang Tian | Starring : Chen Chang, Sylvia Chang, Xuejian Li, Ayumi Ito, Yi Huang | Presented at New York Film Festival, Rome Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Ankara Film Festival, Shanghai Film Festival, Bangkok Film Festival, Cinemanila Film Festival

最好的时光 | Three Times

Three stories of women and men: in 1966, “A Time for Love,” a soldier searches for a young woman he met one afternoon playing pool; “A Time for Freedom,” set in a bordello in 1911, revolves around a singer’s longing to escape her surroundings; in 2005 in Taipei, “A Time for Youth” dramatizes a triangle in which a singer has an affair with a photographer while her partner suffers. In the first two stories, letters are crucial to the outcome; in the third, it’s cell-phone calls, text messages, and a computer file. Over the years between the tales, as sexual intimacy becomes more likely and words more free, communication recedes.

Directed by Hsiao-hsien Hou | Starring : Qi Shu, Chen Chang, Shi-Zheng Chen, Fang Mei, Lawrence Ko | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Taipei Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, New York Film Festival, London Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, San Francisco Film Festival, Istanbul Film Festival, Indianapolis Film Festival, Yerevan Film Festival, Helsinki Film Festival

世界 | The World

Set in World Park—a Beijing theme park featuring replicas of 106 must-see sites from 14 countries—The World is a deeply-affecting story of love, spectacle and social injustice set against a backdrop of intensifying globalisation. Here the pretty young dancer Tao lives out her dreams, performing hourly for the amusement of the tourists. Behind the glittering costumes the dancers’ lives are a finely-tuned choreography of changing personal relationships. Amid the opportunities of a rapidly-urbanising ‘new China’ where assurance is only a text-message away, hopes and dreams flourish. But disappointment stalks, and Tao realises the isolated theme park is not immune to the harsh realities of life. One of the most important films by the leading director of the China’s Sixth Generation, The World is Jia’s first film to have offical sanction from the Chinese Government.

Directed by Zhang Ke Jia | Starring : Tao Zhao, Taisheng Chen, Hongwei Wang, Sanming Han, Jing Dong Liang | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, New York Film Festival, London Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival, Las Palmas Film Festival, Wisconsin Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Buenos Aires Film Festival, Seattle Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro Film Festival, Reykjavik Film Festival, Sao Paulo Film Festival

十面埋伏 | House of Flying Daggers

Towards the end of the Tang dynasty, the Emperor’s rule is waning and corruption is rife, and many groups are formed in society to challenge the authorities. Out of all the groups, the most powerful is The House Of Flying Daggers. The government decides to send Feng Tian County’s top captains Leo and Jin to capture the new leader within 10 days. Leo suspects that Mei, the beautiful new dancer at the Peony Pavilion, is the daughter of the old leader, and Leo decides to send Jin disguised as a warrior called Wind to rescue Mei, and to ensnare her trust so she’ll lead them to the secret headquarters of The House Of Flying Daggers. But as Jin and Mei spend more time together, they begin to develop feelings and desire for each other. However danger is lurking from all corners, and can Jin and Mei really love each other when there are secrets being hidden from both sides?

Directed by Yimou Zhang | Starring : Ziyi Zhang, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Andy Lau, Dandan Song, Jun Guo | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Copenhagen Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, San Sebastian Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Bergen Film Festival, Vienna Film Festival, London Film Festival, AFI Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival, Dublin Film Festival, Iceland Film Festival, Cairo Film Festival, Istanbul 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

小城之春 | Springtime in a Small Town

Liyan and Yuwen live in post-war torpor, childless but with Liyan’s school-aged sister. He coughs, imagining he has tuberculosis; Yuwen embroiders; they sleep in separate rooms. A surprise visit from Liyan’s boyhood friend Zhang, a big city physician, wakes up the household. To Zhang’s amazement, he discovers his friend’s wife is his own youthful sweetheart. Possibilities abound: an affair, an arranged marriage of Zhang and Little Sister, now 16, or simply ending ennui and embracing vitality.

Directed by Zhuangzhuang Tian | Starring : Jingfan Hu, Jun Wu, Bai Qing Xin, Xiao Keng Ye, Si Si Lu | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Tromso Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Buenos Aires Film Festival, Istanbul Film Festival, Hawaii 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

你那边几点 | What Time Is It Over There?

From acclaimed director Tsai Ming-Liang comes the quirky story of Hsiao Kang who sell watches in the street of Taipei for a living. A few Days after his father’s Death, he meet Shiang-Chyi, a young woman who leave for Paris the very next day. She persuades him to sell her his own watch, which has two dials, so that she can keep taipei time as well as local time, on her upcoming trip.Troubled y the behavior of this mother who prays constantly for the return of her late husband’s spirit, Hsiao Kang Take refuge in the memory of his brief encounter with Shiang-Chyi, In an effort to bridge the miles between them, he run around setting all the watches and clock in Taipei to Paris time. Meanwhile, in Paris, Shiang-Chyi confronts events that seem to be mysteriously connected with Hsiao Kang.

Directed by Ming-liang Tsai | Starring : Kang-sheng Lee, Shiang-chyi Chen, Yi-Ching Lu, Tien Miao, Cecilia Yip | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Jerusalem Film Festival, Brisbane Film Festival, Edinburgh Film Festival, Montreal Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, Jakarta Film Festival, Tokyo Film Festival, AFI Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival, Bangkok Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Buenos Aires Film Festival, Singapore Film Festival, Cinemanila Film Festival, Febio Film Festival

站台 | Platform

Platform, Jia Zhang-ke’s second feature, established Jia as a major player in world cinema, and “might be the greatest film to come out of Mainland China” (Jonathan Rosenbaum). Set in Jia’s native Fenyang in Shanxi Province, the film offers an epic social history of China in radical cultural and economic transformation from Maoism to market capitalism. This transition is charted through the trials and tribulations of a troupe of young performers who, in the years between 1979 and 1989, themselves transform from the Fenyang Peasant Cultural Group, performing rousing propaganda songs, into the All Star Rock and Breakdance Electronic Revue, playing cheesy ’80s synth pop. Jia’s narrative approach is episodic and elliptical; his visual style rigorous, distanced, and observant. “One of the richest films of the past decade …It’s Pop Art as history… Jia has a strong visual style (based on long fixed-camera ensemble takes) and a powerful set of concerns” (J. Hoberman). “Jia presents a startling precise definition of globalization” (Richard Brody).

Directed by Zhang Ke Jia | Starring : Tao Zhao, Hongwei Wang, Jing Dong Liang, Sanming Han, Bo Wang | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, London Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Nantes Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Fribourg Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Buenos Aires Film Festival, Singapore Film Festival, Melbourne Film Festival, Brisbane Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival, Seattle 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

卧虎藏龙 | Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

The fate of two women, both capable fighters, intertwine during the Ching Dynasty. One of them tries passionately to break free from the constraint society has placed upon her, even if it means giving up her aristocratic privileges for a life of crime and passion. The other, in her lifelong pursuit of justice and honor, only too late discovers the consequences of unfulfilled love. Their two destinies will lead them to a violent and astonishing showdown, in which each will make a surprising, climactic choice.

Directed by Ang Lee | Starring : Yun-Fat Chow, Michelle Yeoh, Ziyi Zhang, Chen Chang, Pei-pei Cheng | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, San Sebastian Film Festival, Reykjavik Film Festival, London Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Austin Film Festival, Flanders Film Festival, Vienna Film Festival, Bergen Film Festival, Tokyo Film Festival, Hawaii Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, AFI Film Festival, Istanbul Film Festival

一一 | Yi yi: A One and a Two

With the runaway international acclaim of this film, Taiwanese director Edward Yang could no longer be called Asian cinema’s best-kept secret. Yi Yi swiftly follows a middle-class family in Taipei over the course of one year, beginning with a wedding and ending with a funeral. Whether chronicling middle-aged father NJ’s tenuous flirtations with an old flame or precocious young son Yang-Yang’s attempts at capturing reality with his beloved camera, Yang imbues every gorgeous frame with a deft, humane clarity. Warm, sprawling, and dazzling, this intimate epic is one of the undisputed masterworks of the new century.

Directed by Edward Yang | Starring : Nien-Jen Wu, Elaine Jin, Kelly Lee, Jonathan Chang, Issei Ogata | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Munich Film Festival, Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Sarajevo Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival,  Toronto Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, Bergen Film Festival, Valladolid Film Festival, Tokyo Film Festival, London Film Festival, Oslo Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Fribourg Film Festival, Singapore Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival, Cinemanila Film Festival

海上花 | Flowers of Shanghai

After a long line of films interrogating Taiwan’s past and present, Hou Hsiao-hsien turned to 19th-century China, adapting Han Bangqing’s late Qing novel on the upscale brothels of Shanghai’s foreign concessions. Denied permission to shoot in the city itself, Hou made his film entirely in a studio — befitting the cloistered, microcosmic world of the courtesans and their patrons — and reduced the novel’s sprawling cast to a handful of central characters. Cantonese civil servant Wang has hit a rough patch with long-term companion Crimson and looks to her younger rival Laelia; haughty Emerald (Michelle Reis) connives with Luo to buy out her contract; and up-and-coming Jade resists experienced elder courtesan Pearl, and has a liason with the naive Zhu Shuren. These relationships — governed by strict codes of money and power — are conveyed in appropriately sensual yet rigorous style: carefully choreographed camerawork by Lee Ping-bin, a minimal editing scheme (37 shots, each bracketed by fades), and haunting leitmotifs from composer Hanno Yoshihiro.

Directed by Hsiao-hsien Hou | Starring : Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Carina Lau, Michelle Reis, Hada Michiko, Jack Kao | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, Taipei Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Mar del Plata Film Festival, Kerala Film Festival, Auckland Film Festival, Buenos Aires Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival

春光乍泄 | Happy Together

Lai Yiu-Fai and Ho Po-Wing where in love when they arrived in Argentina from Hong-Kong. But something went wrong while they were driving south in search for adventures. One day, on the road, Ho Po-Wing walked away from his lover. Now, Lai works as doorman at a tango bar in Buenos Aires. He is trying to save enough for his air-ticket home. When Ho re-enters his life, bruised and bleeding from a beating, he gives him a bed but refuses to get back into a sexual relationship. Domesticity doesn’t suits Ho, who is soon spending nights out on the town. Lai quits his job and starts working in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant, where he befriends Zhang, a kid from Taiwan. Without realising it, Lai’s life begins to take changes. Meanwhile Ho continues to fall into pieces…

Directed by Kar Wai Wong | Starring : Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Leslie Cheung, Chen Chang, Gregory Dayton, Shirley Kwan | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Melbourne Film Festival, Montréal Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Arizona Film Festival, Singapore Film Festival, Reykjavik Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival

风月 | Temptress Moon

Zhongliang orphaned seek refuge to marry Pang sister show instrument everywhere by the brother-in-law runs and an insult to huff opium toxic waste brother-in-law, fled to Shanghai after accidentally invested greatly sects, gang leader hue seduce wealthy wife hooked and then blackmail their money “demolition white party”. Pang House the classic after death, the eldest Ruyi Li main thing, life Zhongliang back to the Pang government lure wishful cheat Pang property greatly Unexpectedly, two long time to give birth to the truth, and could not bear to deceive wishful the Zhongliang celibacy return Shanghai, and the wishful be greatly received in Shanghai, Seeing the Zhongliang engaged Chaibai Party dirty gray heart of life and death.

Directed by Kaige Chen | Starring : Leslie Cheung, Li Gong, Kevin Lin, Saifei He, Shih Chang | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival

南国再见，南国 | Goodbye, South, Goodbye

After spending much of the decade making films about Taiwan’s complex and troubled history, Hou Hsiao Hsien turns his attention to its money-obsessed present with this gangster drama. Tattooed mobster, Kao , and his quick-tempered, aptly named protégé, Flathead, along with their girlfriends, Ying and Pretzel, are desperately trying to make it big. Their master plan is open a disco in Shanghai, but that scheme seems less and less likely with each call they get from their cell phone. Corrupt mainland potentates want a king’s ransom in kickbacks while Pretzel racked up a king’s ransom of debt herself at the mahjong table, prompting her to make a half-hearted suicide attempt. To make ends meet, these would-be entrepreneurs make a stab at swindling the government over swine — selling sows when they are supposed to be the more valuable studs. They wine and dine the farmers in rural backwater Chiayi only to get cut out of the deal and kidnapped by the corrupt police. This film was dubbed of the ten best films of the 1990s by numerous critics, including Susan Sontag.

Directed by Hsiao-hsien Hou | Starring : Jack Kao, Kuei-Ying Hsu, Giong Lim, Annie Shizuka Inoh, Hsiang Hsi | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Singapore Film Festival, San Francisco Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival

麻将 | Mahjong

In this latter-day screwball farce, Yang puts a comic spin on his signature themes of globalization and urban ennui. The primary setting is a trendy night spot where Yang orchestrates the elaborate comings and goings of a raft of disparate characters, including a couple of mob enforcers, an American escort service madame, and a young Frenchwoman looking for the British entrepreneur who wooed her in London. Languages, classes and ideologies collide at a dizzying rate in this jaundiced love letter to Taipei at the close of the 20th century.

Directed by Edward Yang | Starring : Chen Chang, Virginie Ledoyen, Carrie Ng, Elaine Jin, Lawrence Ko | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Singapore Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival

堕落天使 | Fallen Angels

Originally intended to be a third story in his now classic Chungking Express, Fallen Angels has emerged as what some critics have come to consider his “quintessential work.” Set in the neon-washed underworld of present day Hong Kong, Fallen Angels intertwines two exhilarating tales of love and isolation. First, there’s the unconsummated love affair between a contract Killer and the ravishing female Agent who books his assignments and cleans up after his jobs. When the Killer decides that he must move on, he leaves her with only a coin for the jukebox and instructions to play song number 1818. Ex-convict Ho stopped speaking at the age of five after eating a date-expired can of pineapple. He lives with his father, who runs a guesthouse where the Agent is in semi-permanent residence. Ho makes a living by re-opening shops that have been closed fort he night and intimidating customers into buying goods and services from him. After an awkward romance with a girl named Cherry, Ho finds himself all the more alone… Wong Kar-Wai brings these parallel storylines together in a blitz of ultra-hip style and classic cinematic sensibilities. A poet of modern alienation, Kar-Wai’s universe is populated with characters both dark and comic, magical and existential, Fallen Angels is both a vie at revolutionary cinema and an homage to a love for movies.

Directed by Kar Wai Wong | Starring : Leon Lai, Michelle Reis, Charlie Yeung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Karen Mok | Presented at Toronto Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Oslo Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival

摇啊摇，摇到外婆桥 | Shanghai Triad

Zhang Yimou’s Shanghai Triad won the Technical Grand Prize at Cannes Film Festival in 1995, and was also nominated for the prestigious Golden Palm. Having collaborated with Zhang Yimou for a few artistically acclaimed titles including Raise the Red Lantern, Gong Li had by then made a name for herself as an actress. After Shanghai Triad, she stopped working with Zhang for more than a decade until Curse of the Golden Flower reunited them in 2006. Wonderfully colored and visually sumptuous, Shanghai Triad also received a nomination for Best Cinematography at the Oscars. Shanghai Triad, a film noir by genre, shows triad life through the eyes of a teenager, a perspective not often seen in this genre. Teenage boy Shuisheng moves from the countryside to Shanghai to stay with his uncle, who is under triad leader Tang. Tang sends Shuisheng to serve his mistress Xiao Jinbao (Gong Li). She has an affair with Song, another triad leader who plans to seize power from Tang. Shuisheng, innocent and naive, involuntarily gets involved in a power struggle which may explode at any time.

Directed by Yimou Zhang | Starring : Li Gong, Baotian Li, Wang Xiaoxiao, Xuejian Li, Chun Sun | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, New York Film Festival, London Film Festival

好男好女 | Good Men, Good Women

Unknown man bothers actress with a diary stolen from her. Ambitious film about film and life by one of today’s greatest film-makers. The story is set in present-day Taipei. Liang Ching, a young actress, is bothered by an unknown man who calls her up regularly, but doesn’t say anything. He has also stolen her diary and keeps sending her pages from it by fax. Liang Ching is busy rehearsing a role in a film about two anti-Japanese guerrillas in China in the forties. Her approach to the scenes seems increasingly influenced by her personal background, especially by the faxed diary notes. She remembers the time when she worked as a bar-girl, was addicted to drink and drugs and had a short and intense relationship with the gangster Ah Wei. As Liang Ching works through the script of the film, the identification with her film role becomes stronger, but her life is still dominated by underworld figures. Her brother-in-law – whose wife, her sister, suggests Liang Ching is having an affair with him – is involved with the construction of a factory to treat chemical waste in the Taiwanese countryside. Slowly but surely, the boundaries between the film-in-the-film, the underworld and Liang Ching’s memories of Ah Wei disappear.

Directed by Hsiao-hsien Hou | Starring : Annie Shizuka Inoh, Vicky Wei, Jack Kao, Giong Lim, Chen-Nan Tsai | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, Hawaii Film Festival, Stockholm Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Singapore Film Festival, Changchun Film Festival, Buenos Aires 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

重庆森林 | Chungking Express

The whiplash, double-pronged Chungking Express is one of the defining works of nineties cinema and the film that made Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai an instant icon. Two heartsick Hong Kong cops, both jilted by ex-lovers, cross paths at the Midnight Express take-out restaurant stand, where the ethereal pixie waitress Faye works. Anything goes in Wong’s gloriously shot and utterly unexpected charmer, which cemented the sex appeal of its gorgeous stars and forever turned canned pineapple and the Mamas and the Papas’ “California Dreamin’” into tokens of romantic longing.

Directed by Kar Wai Wong | Starring : Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Brigitte Lin, Faye Wong, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Valerie Chow | Presented at Locarno Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, London Film Festival, Stockholm Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, San Francisco Film Festival, Buenos Aires Film Festival, Cinemanila Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival

活着 | To Live

Directed by 5th generation filmmaker Zhang Yimou; starring Gong Li. When the irresponsible Xu Fugui loses his family’s fortune during a gambling spree, he causes his loved ones incredible hardship. Fugui’s father dies from a heart attack upon hearing the news, and his pregnant wife abandons him. Unable to put bread on the table, even for himself, Fugui works as a street vender, and when his wife notices his uncustomary humility, she returns. Within a year, Fugui desires to open a shop but is unable to raise the necessary funds. Instead of money, the local loan shark gives him his old shadow puppets. Soon, Fugui masters the art of puppetry, which increases his paltry income — but also serves as propaganda for the imminent Communist Revolution.

Directed by Yimou Zhang | Starring : Li Gong, You Ge, Ben Niu, Wu Jiang, Tao Guo | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, San Sebastian Film Festival

独立时代 | A Confucian Confusion

Taipei in the 90’s, a city made up of intense human relationships, full of changes and opportunities. There are at least 500 kinds of “trendy” happenings in the streets and attaching to any one of these trends will allow one to find the value of “living”. In a matter of two and half days, a group of young people try to chase after their own dreams and desires, interact in unusual coincidences, create love and hate in ridiculous situations, cause lucly and unfortunate events. Some went to heaven, some went to hell and some happily and surprisingly discovered that they had become decent and independent people.

Directed by Edward Yang | Starring : Shiang-Chyi Chen, Shu-Chun Ni, Weiming Wang, Danny Deng, Bosen Wang | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, New York Film Festival, London Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival

蓝风筝 | The Blue Kite

Told from the perspective of a young boy, Tietou, this film traces the fate of a Beijing family and their neighbors as they experience the political and social upheavals in the 1950s and 1960s China.

Directed by Zhuangzhuang Tian | Starring : Liping Lü, Cunxin Pu, Xuejian Li, Xiaoying Song, Ping Zong | Presented at Toronto Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Tokyo Film Festival, Hawaii Film Festival

戏梦人生 | The Puppetmaster

Li Tien Lu is the world’s most famous puppet master. Born in Taïwan on the wake of World War I, he lived through the Japanese occupation, and American bombings of his country. Now eighty-four, reflects on the forces that shaped his life: “My hands breathed life into my puppet figures. I created them and directed the drama of their fates, almost as though I were God himself. But the reality is that, with someone above me pulling the strings, I, too, am a mere puppet…”

Directed by Hsiao-hsien Hou | Starring : Tianlu Li, Giong Lim, Hung Liou, Chen-Nan Tsai, Lai-Yin Yang | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Fribourg Film Festival, Istanbul Film Festival, Buenos Aires Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival

霸王别姬 | Farewell My Concubine

Farewell My Concubine is a 1993 Chinese film directed by Chen Kaige, is one of the central works of the Fifth Generation movement that brought Chinese film directors to world attention. Similar to other Fifth Generation films like To Live and The Blue Kite, Farewell My Concubine explores the effect of China’s political turmoil during the mid-20th century on the lives of individuals, families, and groups, in this case, two stars in a Peking opera troupe and the woman who comes between them. The film is an adaptation of the novel by Lilian Lee. Lilian Lee is also one of the film’s screenplay writers.

Directed by Kaige Chen | Starring : Leslie Cheung, Fengyi Zhang, Li Gong, You Ge, Wenli Jiang | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, Tokyo Film Festival, New York Film Festival

秋菊打官司 | The Story of Qiu Ju

With The Story of Qiu Ju, internationally acclaimed Chinese director Zhang Yimou shifts his attention from powerful historical dramas to contemporary life. Gong Li plays the titular heroine, an average woman in a rural village whose life is unexceptional until her husband is physically attacked by the village elder. When the elder refuses to apologize, Qiu Ju decides to seek legal action with the help of a local magistrate. Soon, her quest for simple justice balloons into a series of frustrating battles with a complicated and unproductive bureaucracy. In contrast to the rich, painterly look of his previous films, Zhang adopts an unadorned, realistic style that allows the film’s increasingly absurd situations to speak for themselves. Indeed, while the look at government gone wrong has serious underpinnings, the overall tone remains one of understated satire. As might be expected, The Story of Qiu Ju was received with greater appreciation by international critics than in its home country.

Directed by Yimou Zhang | Starring : Li Gong, Kesheng Lei, Peiqi Liu, Liuchun Yang, Zhijun Ge | Presented at Venice Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Febio Film Festival