Asian Drama

Jung-yoon was approached by a random stranger named Jun-woo, who told her she'd be dead in six hours. As she follows him for answers, she begins to question whether he's her savior or the one trying to put her in danger.

On a pretty, placid little island in the Japanese countryside, Nishikita teaches physical education at the high school he himself attended. The man is hardly an agent of change. He knows his place in the order of things and is careful not to rock the boat, perhaps even a little too much. When he receives a call from a former classmate Takagi, announcing her return, a flash of emotion strikes him. Takagi was Nishikita's best friend and unrequited first love, who had suddenly moved to Paris 10 years earlier to study. At the time, Takagi was constantly teasing him to shake him out of his torpor, and he notices that her attitude hasn't changed in the slightest when they are reunited. In fact, while in France she has only improved in the art of the retort, and Nishikita is still as bad at it as ever. He'll have to get used to it, though, as the new teacher he'll have to train is none other than the beautiful Takagi.

A mysterious woman teams up with a man whose daughter was killed and who is now seeking revenge. Together they kidnap members of an organization and torture them to find out what really happened.

Two old college pals, Asai and Jiyong, make their annual pilgrimage up a mountain in the middle of winter in honor of their friend Sayuri who disappeared there 16 years earlier. However, Jiyong seriously injures his leg in the middle of a violent blizzard. Overcome by cold and pain, he asks Asai to let him die here and save his own life. First, though, he confesses to a horrible secret that has been eating away at him. He was the one who killed Sayuri that fateful day, out of jealousy. The problem, if there is one, is that Asai finds a cabin nearby that they hadn’t seen because of the blinding storm. Once inside, the murderer's confession takes on a whole new dimension, and let's just say that the elephant in the room is more of a mammoth. To say that it's going to be a long night would be an understatement.

Ayush, a pianist, is offered an all-expenses-paid stay in York by Mr Wadia. However, when he relocates to the mansion, he is haunted by evil spirits and has to ask Rose, a psychic, for help.

Shifting between fact and fiction in a hotel situated along the Mekong River, a filmmaker rehearses a movie expressing the bonds between a vampire-like mother and daughter.

Lee Seong Han's return to cinema after a 7-year break, the story is about a teacher feels guilt over the suicide of a student and struggles to be a good teacher to those under his care.

I first saw this film at the Hong Kong International Film Festival in 1981 and have often looked for it since (without any luck). Of the 50 films I saw in those 16 days (including masterpieces by Angelopoulos, and Syberberg's Hitler, A Film From Germany), Yamada's simple story turned out to be my favorite. When it recently turned up in a 5-disk Yoji Yamada box set, I immediately ordered it. Well, the disk is very poor quality, a murky transfer with the widescreen compositions butchered by a truly wretched pan-and-scan job -- and yet the quality of the film still manages to shine through.

On its surface, there's nothing particularly remarkable about A Distant Cry From Spring. A widow struggles to maintain a small farm in a remote area of Hokkaido, fighting the elements and raising her young son. One brutally stormy night, a stranger appears at the door looking for shelter. Though wary, the widow offers him her hospitality. He leaves, but then returns in the spring and asks for work, desiring only room and board in return. What follows is the depiction of a slowly developing emotional bond set against a beautifully observed portrait of daily life on the farm, an endless round of backbreaking chores which constantly threaten to overwhelm the lonely woman.

There is nothing terribly surprising in the revelations which eventually emerge about the characters, but they are so finely drawn and their emotional lives resonate with such authenticity, that only a cold-blooded viewer could fail to be moved by the film's resolution.

Yamada is a master of emotional nuance and a brilliant observer of the small details of ordinary lives, which he obviously holds in some kind of awe, and in which he finds a kind of magic. He makes you feel for the characters without ever stooping to sentimentality or easy manipulation. His work deserves to be more widely known, and he certainly deserves better treatment from DVD distributors.

A young man tries to get away from his family's overwhelming power, but when he accidentally kills a local thug, his fate will be intricately linked to his father's. A woman, who for years has been victim of domestic violence,...

An epidemiologist turns her nationwide bird flu investigation into a chance to sample local delicacies en route, with three friends along for the ride.

Young kamikaze pilots spend their final days before a mission.

Nathan Jones, plays Barney Emerald in Somtum. He's a carefree guy, tricked by a pretty woman in Pattaya who later steals everything he owns, including his passport. Barney heads to the tourist information center to ask for help but the place was already closed. There, he meets Katen (Narawat Techarattanaprasert), an orphan street hustler. Barney is soon confronted by a gang who often harasses Katen but instead of driving the bad guy away, Barney turns out to be a wimp and too scares to throw some punches. Katen's friend Dokya (Sasisa Jindamanee), a Muay Thai fighter comes to the rescue. After the incident, Barney stays in a Buddhist temple, where he's given shelter. On a visit to Dokya's mother's somtum stall, Barney tries a taste of somtum, a traditional thai salad, out of curiosity. He feels like his mouth is burning and storms out to get some water. What he doesn't know is that when he turns red from the heat of spice, he's grained with a superpower.