Asian Drama

Post-war Japan is at its lowest point when a new crisis emerges in the form of a giant monster baptized in the horrific power of the atomic bomb.

(Source: IMDb)

Aruo, the dragon girl from the East China Sea, is determined to find her beloved, and comes to the mortal Wang Sheng at all costs. However, the fox demon Xiaoman wants to get the most precious spiritual leaf from the dragon girl, and designs to break Wang Sheng's heart. Aruo has no choice but to use Lingye made up for Wang Sheng's heart, so the two women started a "heart-stealing" contest with Wang Sheng as the center.

Facing an unacceptable reality, a teacher is trying to reclaim relationships with his family, students and former friends. Reassessing his past, he contemplates how to go on with his life.

When the world is hit with a naturally occuring virus that spreads among all living things, humans begin to turn into insatiable zombies. In a blink, the world as we know it collapses. Furthermore, the few remaining survivors are unable to use the available food resources. They therefore develop a new crop to support themselves. Survivors depend on one profession, their only hope; someone in this profession must brave the dangers to send and recieve food and packages of necessities. These people are called Riders.

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 rebellious young woman with cerebral palsy leaves her home in India to study in New York, unexpectedly falls in love, and embarks on an exhilarating journey of self-discovery.

Unemployed youth Zhou Ao and internet writer Jiang Ziwei were changed faces in an adventure and became assistants of the future intelligent high-tech robot OMG. In order to complete the task, they helped female celebrities and debtors change faces under the guidance of robots, so as to collect the life experiences of different types of face changers, and also helped them find their original intentions.

A rich tycoon daughter from China, Runan, is being targeted by a group of human traffickers. While Runan is in Malaysia, her father has assigned Hong Peng, an ex-military from China to be her bodyguard. Soon they crossed path with...

1969, Korea... Ten-year old Young-rae lives alone with his mother in the countryside. Life is difficult for them and his mother is forced to sell illegally imported cosmetics on the street. But Young-rae is plucky and can stand up to anything including defending his mother — anything except when other kids call him names for being "fatherless." So when he hears that the father he had only dreamed of is alive and living in Seoul, he makes it his life goal to get to city and find him. The only way to get there, however, is a long and expensive train ride. To raise money, Young-rae starts to sell ice cream bars. As his goal nears, will his dream come true?

Sun Hee from the Department of Film stops by the school one day to get a letter of recommendation from Professor Choi to leave to the US. She expects him to write her a nice one since he took favor to her. She runs into two men from the past she's never met in a long time; Moon Soo, a recently turned movie director and senior director Jae Bak.

They give each other so called 'advice in life'. The men try to clear her from their heads as they don't know what she's thinking but these words of 'advice seem to be moving from people to people. This life 'advice' seems to be slipping away, leaving no trust and Sun Hee's attitude towards the men seem like they have nothing to do with her.

Sun Hee gets her letter of recommendation from the professor and has four days before she leaves but the men still wander around her.

A large corporation led by Mick, a megalomaniac CEO, announces to the world a miraculous microchip that will benefit mankind. The press conference is interrupted by Enoch, a former associate, working with a resistance group determined to stop Mick from executing his real plan, which is to control the world by implanting his microchip in people. Feeling threatened, Mick enlists the help of Xiao Yu, an elite assassin he had captured and imprisoned many years ago.

When Xiao Yu refuses to help him, Mick kidnaps his wife and daughter to pressure him. To save his family, Xiao Yu is forced to accept a mission to recover three pieces of source code that were stolen by the resistance and return them to Mick to complete his plan. During the mission, Xiao Yu meets Ye Yan, a reporter investigating the shadowy corporation. The fate of mankind rests in their hands.

With a mother and father that are actors, and a rockstar brother, anyone would expect Sena Izumi to eventually enter showbiz himself. However, aside from a commercial for a wedding magazine when he was a child, Izumi has never been in the spotlight; instead, he aims to become a manga artist. But a decade after the shoot, the magazine calls for a 10th anniversary ad, requesting the original child actors for the project. This reunites Izumi with Ryouma Ichijou, now a popular actor who, much to Izumi's shock, has been in love with him ever since their first meeting! However, due to Izumi's feminine appearance, and unisex name, Ryouma believed the boy to be a girl and continues to do so to this day. Izumi's troubles are only just beginning. Based on the hit comedy romance manga Love Stage!! It began serialization in the July 2010. Seven tankōbon volumes was published from May 27, 2011 to November 1, 2016. An anime television series adaptation produced by J.C.Staff aired in 2014.