Asian Drama

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.

Saeba Ryo is a "sweeper" in the city of Tokyo. He works as a trouble shooter, cleaning the streets of vermin, and helping out desperate people. Sometimes he's a bodyguard, sometimes he's an assassin, whatever Ryo does he does it well. In fact, his only flaw is his hormones - he loves the ladies and sometimes turns into an idiot when he's near them. Thankfully he's got people like his partner Kaori Makimura to keep him in check.

(Source: Mangaupdates)

Adapted from the manga series "City Hunter" (シティーハンター) by Hojo Tsukasa (北条司).

Duration: 1 hr. 42 min.

Ratings: 8.1

After suffering from serial paranormal events, a wealthy family living in LA summons a young rising shaman duo Hwa Rim and Bong Gil to save the newborn of the family. Once they arrive, Hwa Rim senses a dark shadow of their ancestor has latched on the family in a so-called 'Grave Calling'.

In order to exhume the grave and relieve the ancestor, Hwa Rim seeks help from top-notch geomancer Sang Deok and mortician Yeong Geun. To their dismay, the four find the grave at a shady location in a remote village in Korea. Unaware of the consequences, the exhumation is carried out, unleashing a malevolent force buried underneath.

(Source: showbox.co.kr)

Duration: 2 hr. 13 min.

Content Rating: 15+ - Teens 15 or older

Mizushima Satoru is a designer, who prefers traditional things like handmade items and handwritten works. One day, he happens to meet a mysterious woman, Miharu Miyuki, at the cafe named Piano. She seems to have similar values to him and he is attracted to her. Mizushima Satoru asks for her cellphone number, but she doesn’t own a cellphone. They make a promise to meet at the cafe every Thursday. Since then, Mizushima Satoru & Miharu Miyuki meet every Thursday and their relationship develops romantically. Mizushima Satoru decides to propose her, but, on the day he is going to propose her, Miharu Miyuki doesn’t show up at the cafe.

(Source: AsianWiki)

Adapted from the novel "Analog" (アナログ) by Beat Takeshi (ビートたけし).

Duration: 2 hr. 0 min.

Content Rating: G - All Ages

Ratings: 8.2

Shama is a fictional place in northwestern China. Legend has it robbers hide many treasures there. To improve the life of the villagers, Tang Gaopeng, the town head, decides to promote Shama as a robber-themed resort. He collects some old items from the villagers and takes them to an antique TV show. To his surprise, the show does not attract any tourists; however it does attract a group of illegal dealers.

In a fast growing city of East China, migrants have been arriving and living for a dream of a better life. But what they find there is little opportunities and poor living conditions that push people, even couples, into violent...

In the middle of a white winter, a group of young men visits the countryside in Japan to shoot a music video. However, the house that they have rented is haunted by several ghosts. There`s a pair of mother and child ghosts with pale faces. Then there`s the mysterious Thai woman who floats around sadly, looking neither alive nor dead. She just might be the legendary spirit from the Japanese folklore - Snow Woman.

Doris always wanted to have her own coffee-house. With the help of her sister, Joise, she opened "Doris's Cafe". After the first day of business, however, there are few customers for the coffee house and the coffee house becomes cluttered with many useless gifts brought by friends and former colleges. Later, when customers start to ask about purchasing some of the items, Joise suggested a bartering system for the store. Business goes up as people linger to decide what to exchange. Later, customers began to share their personal stories with Doris in the coffee house as well.

Durring the Tang Dynasty, a kung-fu tournament was held once every 18 years with the winner declared the leader of the land until the next competition. But a tournament with such high stakes brings out the best, and worst, in the various competitors and leaders.

The Wild Blade of Strangers (2024)

This enticing period melodrama depicts a long-suffering woman's relationship with her brilliant but self-destructive writer husband in postwar Tokyo. Based on a semi-autobiographical 1947 novel by Osamu Dazai, the story centers less on the womanizing, heavy-drinking, suicidal hero than on...

I was fortunate enough to attend the International Premiere of "Life Can Be So Wonderful" at the Miami Film Festival this year. At the premiere Director Osamu Minorikawa presented a question and answer session after the movie to explain his creative process behind the film. He described his movie as turning pages through the lives of five wandering Japanese people. It is perhaps better to address this movie as five different movies, presented in a way that was incredibly different and fresh to me--movie poetry. Each of the five movie poems followed the mundane life of a person living in Japan. The first, a nude model, is a woman who is tangled in the beauty of modeling for art, its connotations, and her desire to be a muse of art. The poem incorporated a weave of images that captured different visual aspects of her story--interview-like images of the woman talking on a couch, lush plants outside the subway station that she passed everyday, and other flashes of scenes that portrayed her thoughts. While there was an absence of plot throughout the majority of the poems, which I can only guess will irk many of those who do not appreciate the essence of poetry, the movie served a different purpose: catering to the visual and auditory senses, Osamu Minorikawa accomplished with film what Ezra Pound managed to do through words. Many of the images will remain to haunt me, others were completely temporary, but it was the sensitivity of the film that really carried it to a different level. While many will disagree with its slow unraveling beauty in a culture of instant gratification and reason, personally, I found this film to be a breath of fresh air and an astounding journey. Not eligible to be branched in the category of Academy Award dramas, the film is of a different genre. The only way to describe the five movie poems of "Life Can Be So Wonderful" would be to compare it to watching the beauty of waves on a beach-- it enables you to see the wonder in life.