Ko Da-fu (Charlie Chin) the leader of a five-strong Hong Kong hit squad finds his team wiped out and himself injured and on the run from a group of blade-wielding, roller-skating assassins. Ko’s investigations lead him to the Wa-hing triad and as a former member Ko suspects he’s being set up as the fall guy in a spot of inter-gang … Read the rest
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Intruder (Tsang Kan-Cheung, Hong Kong, 1997)
Strangling a Hong Kong prostitute for her passport Chinese mainlander Yan (Wu Chien-Lien) tricks her way into the territory, seduces and traps a taxi driver (Lai Yiu-Cheung) in his home and settles down to await the arrival of her sinister criminal husband (Moses Chan Yo). But when the taxi driver’s mother arrives with the man’s daughter, Yan kills again. Meanwhile … Read the rest
Metro Manila (Sean Ellis, UK/Philippines, 2013)
Oscar (Jake Macapagal), his pretty wife Mai (Althea Vega), their nine year old daughter Angel (Erin Panlilio) and baby boy (Iasha Aceio) arrive in Metro Manila in the hope of a better life. When Oscar lucks into a job as security guard in an armoured van and Mai lands a job as hostess in a bar things begin to look … Read the rest
Maborosi (Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan, 1995)
Yumiko (Makiko Esumi), a happily married 20-year old woman with a 3-month old baby boy suddenly loses her husband when he is struck by a train one night while walking home along the tracks. Was it an accident or suicide? Nobody knows but after eventually remarrying and relocating with her young son from Osaka to a small fishing port in … Read the rest
Dangerous Encounters Of The First Kind, Director’s Cut (Tsui Hark, Hong Kong, 1980)
Just for fun three bespectacled geeks set off a small bomb in a crowded cinema. Rumbled by a psychotic female teen named Pearl (Chen Chi Lin) the lads find themselves blackmailed into helping the girl pull off a series of audacious robberies while Pearl’s estranged father (Lieh Lo) turns out to be the detective investigating the bombing. When the boys … Read the rest
Time And Tide (Tsui Hark, Hong Kong, 2000)
Young bodyguard Tyler (Nicholas Tse) and former mercenary Jack (Wu Bai) become friends, then enemies, then friends again in order to protect the heavily pregnant women they love – Ah Hui (Candy Lo) and Ah Jo (Cathy Tsui) – from a gang of South American killers known as the Angels. When Jack kills their leader under the noses of Tyler … Read the rest
Peony Lanterns (Satsuo Yamamoto, Japan, 1968)
Schoolteacher Shinzaburo (Kojiro Hongo) meets a beautiful courtesan named Otsuyu (Miyoko Akaza) and her maid Oyone (Michiko Otsuka), during the summer Obon festival. Obon is the one week in the year when the spirits from the netherworld are allowed into this one and sure enough Otsuyu and Oyone turn out to be ghosts. Servant Banzou (Ko Nishimura) and a local … Read the rest
Pitfall (Hiroshi Teshigahara, Japan, 1962)
A miner (Hisashi Igawa) is murdered by a man in a white suit (Kunie Tanaka) but returns as an understandably upset ghost determined to find out why. His search leads him to his identical double, Otsuka (also played by Igawa), who’s the union chief of a local mine embroiled in a row with a rival union headed by Toyama (Sen … Read the rest
Blue Christmas (Kihachi Okamoto, Japan, 1978)
After Professor Hyodo makes claims about UFO’s and aliens he disappears and TV reporter Minami (Tatsuya Nakadai) is assigned to investigate. Minami’s search turns up rumours of people whose blood has turned blue after exposure to UFO’s and their forcible incarceration and vivisection in secret US detention camps. But Minami’s attempts to reveal the truth face a global conspiracy by … Read the rest
Silence (Masahiro Shinoda, Japan, 1971)
In 17th century Japan two Jesuit priests from Portugal Rodrigo and Garrpe (David Lampson and Don Kenny) attempt to spread the gospel but the country has turned against Christianity and both they and their Japanese converts face torture and death at the hands of Magistrate Inoue (Tetsuro Tanba) and his men, even as they search for their mentor Ferreira who … Read the rest
