Asian Drama

Jung Woo goes from being a successful, popular pilot to being unemployed one morning. However, he succeeds in getting a new job after accidentally taking on a newly laundered identity.

(Source: HanCinema)

Tags: Starting Over, Pilot Male Lead, Job Seeking, Unemployed Male Lead, Popular Male Lead, Fake Identity, Mistaken Identity, Stolen Identity, Double Identity (Vote or add tags)

Episodes: 1

Duration: 1 hr. 51 min.

Country: South Korea

Aired: Jul 31, 2024

Content Rating: Not Yet Rated

In the early days of the Republic, legendary martial artist Ye Ruzhou suffers a severe injury, losing her memory and winding up in the impoverished alley of Minfu Lane. By a twist of fate, she crosses paths with the carefree Chen Awang, and the two fall for each other. When local tyrant Zheng Juehou intensifies his hold over the neighborhood, Ye Ruzhou rises to defend her new community. Her actions, however, draw unforeseen danger, and together with Chen Awang, she faces the challenge to protect Minfu Lane’s hard-won peace.

A fatigued man wakes up at a bar with a bartender who will forever change his life as he gets to know more about her. Three criminals have somewhat accomplished their task of kidnapping their target, but their overall mission seems to go nowhere in the end. In the late 1970s, a mysterious woman runs a bar where a deadly situation will affect the lives of everyone. Two killers are looking for their faceless victim, who shows up at a diner every day at 6 o'clock sharp. Four incredibly talented Korean filmmakers, four intriguing cinematic visions, four astounding stories revolving around murderers for hire. (Source: fantasiafestival.com) ~~ Adapted from the short story "The Killers" by Ernest Hemingway. ~~ Release dates: Jul 24, 2024 (Festival) || Oct 23, 2024 (Cinema)

Duration: 1 hr. 59 min.

Content Rating: 18+ Restricted (violence & profanity)

The story follows a young man who has been single for a year after his boyfriend suddenly disappeared without a formal breakup. One night, while scrolling through a dating app, he encounters someone who looks strikingly similar to his ex. After a spontaneous hookup, he discovers that this new acquaintance is actually his ex’s twin brother. As he navigates this unexpected twist, he finds himself drawn into a complicated web of emotions. Will he end up choosing between the two brothers, or will he find himself entangled with both?

Duration: 11 min.

Content Rating: Not Yet Rated

In 1970s Hong Kong, rapacious landlords try to evict 72 tenants but sworn brothers Ha Kung and Shek Kin help the group of 72 defeat the landlord and landlady and coincidentally rescue Pinky from a planned forced marriage. When both sworn brothers fall for Pinky and propose to her, she flips a coin heads or tails, they both cheated during the toss but Ha wins her hand in marriage.

The sworn brothers become sworn enemies and Sheks hatred fuels intense rivalry against Ha in business dealings ranging from the manufacture of plastic flowers to the selling of stinky bean curd. Even after 40 years they continue to clash and in 2010 they are in keen competition selling electronics appliances in Sai Yeung Choi Street, Mongkok, the busiest street in the city and still home to the 72 tenants.

This film used the 1973 Shaw Brothers film, The House of 72 Tenants as the blueprint. However, this story is a new creation, of which only some roles identical. This is the first film to introduce the new 2010 Shaw opening theme with a shortened version of the original fanfare.

Sui Dynasty, the Central Plains drought. Only Luo village near the number of days due to water blessed, autumn crops gratifying. While the villagers secretly pleased when, unexpectedly, brigands ground squirrel boasted to ditch looted during the harvest of the process.

Gi Cheol begins work as a contract gym teacher at a high school in a quiet countryside village. He feels weird because a female high school student went missing, but nobody in the village seems to care. Only Yoo Jin, who is the missing girl's friend, is sure that her friend has been kidnapped. Yoo Jin and GiCheol work together to find the missing girl, but Gi Cheol learns that traces of the missing girl are disappearing.

Itt was raped by Day because Itt was the mastermind behind the plan that hurt Day’s younger brother Night. This plan was to trick Night into falling in love with Itt’sfriend, Gear who then raped him. Day discovered the plan after it happened and took his revenge by raping Itt and videotaping the rape as blackmail material. Whenever Itt said something that Day didn’t like, he would verbally and physically beat and abuse him. Day used this videotape to blackmail Itt, and forced him to come and live with him. They started to grow feelings for each other despite the extreme situation. Especially Itt who wanted Day to make his feelings clear. So he ran away with the help of Night. After this Day went crazy when he found out and realized how much he really liked Itt despite what he did to him.

An elderly lady in her 60's works as a caregiver for a disabled man & raises her grandson alone. She has to endure the onset of Alzheimer's disease, through this she tries to fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming a poet.

18 year-old Ai lives the life of a mischievous teenager. She ignores her studies, putting all her passion into baking cakes that always come out burnt, lopsided, or hard as a rock. Ai cannot imagine a greater happiness than one day making the perfect pastry, until someone new walks into her life and Ai discovers some things in life are sweeter than cake.

This is Miao Miao, a shy exchange student from Japan. Yet behind Miao Miao’s modest exterior hides a master chef. Miao Miao teaches Ai the delicate art of baking and Ai introduces Miao Miao to Taipei’s ugliest snack, chicken feet. Both girls promise to make this year special. The year Miao Miao will do everything she’s not allowed to do at home.

Ai imagines this as a life where they can do whatever they want. Get a tattoo or a belly button ring. A life away from her estranged father. But for Miao Miao, this means finding her first love. The kind of love her grandmother still talks about, even after Alzheimer’s has erased all other memories.

As the year’s big baking competition nears, Miao Miao spends less time by the oven and more time in a second-hand CD shop (once, it was a cake shop where Miao Miao’s grandma first found love as a young girl). Its owner, Chen Fei, shuts out the world, using his headphones like earplugs. Miao Miao makes it her mission to uncover what past sadness has led him to hate music so much. But when Ai realizes Miao Miao is falling in love with Chen Fei, Ai discovers her feelings for Miao Miao may go deeper than she ever expected.

That summer, Miao Miao and Ai learned what it is to love. Their summer together perhaps did not last long. But life’s emotional journey is just beginning.

Mu Zi's parents' old apartment is still there. A bed, an abandoned chair, a window falling off its hinges – the remnants of a relationship that has moved on. Her father has started a new family, her mother has friends abroad; it seems like only Mu Zi cares about this place. In The Cloud in Her Room, she wanders several times through this static past.

In her palpably personal debut film, Chinese filmmaker Zheng Lu Xinyuan follows her 22-year-old protagonist as she returns to Hangzhou, where she was born, for the New Year's celebration. She arranges to meet old friends, makes some new ones and visits her parents, with whom she is mostly on friendly terms. It's like she doesn't really fit in anywhere. Mu Zi is living in limbo: like the apartment, she has stopped, caught between past and future.

Zheng Lu, who shot her film in black-and-white, underlines Mu Zi's alienation through directorial decisions that are at times daring. She combines handheld documentary footage, in which Mu Zi interviews people around her, with more distant camerawork. As a child of separated parents, born at the time of the one child policy and having grown up in a China where everything is changing at breakneck speed, Zheng Lu has made a melancholy, topical film about her generation and the society in which they are growing up. At the same time, it is a universal story about love, relationships, the impossibility of keeping these going and the loneliness this causes.

Another film (possibly the first) from Douglas Kung's My Way Film Production, that odd company who make HK films the way they used to be made 10-15 years ago, but which never actually get released in Hong Kong. The King Boxer shares a name with two early 70's martial arts films, but shares a lot more with some later vintage films of the genre. Most obvious is Fong Sai Yuk, from which large chunks of plot are lifted, but the not-particularly-observant will recognise elements from Fist Of Legend and Tai Chi Master and Sammo's Prodigal Son. Well, original story lines aren't exactly a strong feature of the kung fu genre I guess tongue.gif Chin Kar Lok stars as the headstrong young (!) son of a business man who is far more interested in learning Kung Fu than business wiles, and joins the Yiyin kung fu school despite the fact their master was just defeated by their rivals and it is going to close. The main reason he joins them is because he fancies one of the master's daughters (May Kwong), and due to a misunderstanding (that he can actually fight) the family place their hopes on him to rescue their school. The style is very reminiscent of early 90's kung fu comedy on a fairly low budget. If it had come out in 1993 it would have been lucky to rate a 5/10, but this sort of film has been tragically missing from screens for a long time, and even a mediocre entry is worth some attention. I could have done without a lot of the comedy, which only occasionally manages to be amusing. I could have done without the various romantic angles too, as they're entirely lacking in substance or emotion. What I couldn't have done without is the fight scenes, which are quite refreshing. Not classic work, but offers at least glimpses the kind of choreography and genuine physical talent that made HK cinema a world-wide phenomenon. We even get another fine villainous performance from Billy Chow, for the true early 90's vibe. If you've still got any early 90's kf films to get through, probably go with those first, but if you've already seen all that's available and have been itching for something new, by all means do pick up THE KING BOXER. It ain't great, but it doesn't have a lot of competition these days and it could have been worse smile1.gif