Epic

Quote:
Following their collaborations on the international art house hits Red Sorghum and Ju Dou, director Zhang Yimou and actress Gong Li reteamed for this bigbudget fantasy. Stepping in front of the camera this time, Zhang stars as a Qin Dynasty chamberlain who makes the mistake of falling for one of the emperor’s concubines. As punishment, he is transformed into a Terracotta Warrior and awakens 3,000 years later, where he encounters an actress who is a dead ringer for the woman who captivated him so many years ago. Written by acclaimed novelist Lilian Lee and directed by Hong Kong action specialist Ching Siu-Tung (A Chinese Ghost Story), A Terracotta Warrior is a captivating combination of humor, adventure and romance. Zhang and Gong give winning performances, and their chemistry was no doubt heightened by the fact that they were also a couple offscreen at the time.Read More »

Lawrence, a lieutenant in the British Army, is asked by Colonel Brighton to moderately assess Faisal, their ally. Lawrence is impressed with Faisal and seeks his help to plan an attack on the enemy.Read More »

IMDB wrote:
To appease offended gods before going to war, a commander must sacrifice his favorite daughter to them but does so under the pretext of marrying her off.Read More »

Quote:
Based on the Chinese classic “Jin Ping Mei”. Original Japanese cut directed by Koji Wakamatsu and produced by Shochiku. Set in Song-dynasty China, Wu Song rises to fame and becomes a guard captain. He is captivated by his brother’s wife, Pan Jinlian, whose beauty also ensnares the wealthy libertine Ximen Qing. To possess her, Ximen Qing has Wu Song’s brother murdered. When the corrupt authorities refuse justice, Wu Song is imprisoned, escapes with the help of the Liangshan bandits, and joins their ranks. Ximen Qing descends further into decadence, but Wu Song eventually returns, leading an attack on the town.Read More »

1776. Poland. With his homeland partitioned and ruled by Russia, Polish nobleman and patriot Boleslas Vorowski heads a secret liberation movement. When Vorowski is wounded in battle, his mentor, the inventor Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen, constructs the Turk, a marvelous chess-playing automaton. With the handsome Polish nobleman secreted inside, the Turk vanquishes the Russians – if only on the chessboard. When Catherine the Great summons the Turk to the Russian Imperial Court for a command match, the fate of Polish independence lies in the hands of the chess player.Read More »

King Louis XI tries to unify France by all means fair or foul, which does not please his powerful rival Charles the Bold. It is against this troubled backdrop that the loves of the daughter of a wealthy bourgeois and the king’s god-daughter Jeanne Fouquet and knight Robert Cottereau unfurl in spite of all the obstacles in their way. One of these being a pack of hungry wolves trying to stop Jeanne from carrying out an important mission assigned to her by the king himself.Read More »

Benito Mussolini’s early career from his founding of the Fasci Italiani in 1919 up to the assassination of socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti in 1924 and his speech in Parliament on 3 January 1925.Read More »

During the power struggle between Caesar and Crassus, a Roman centurion, who is the lost son of Spartacus, is dispatched to Crassus’ camp to observe his movements and keep Caesar informed.

It’s considered the unofficial sequel to Spartacus and it was the last sword-and-sandal film for Steve Reeves.Read More »

The final film from Russian fantasy master Aleksandr Ptushko (ILYA MUROMETS, SAMPO), RUSLAN AND LUDMILA was a glorious and magical summation of his career: a 2-1/2 hour greatest hits package filled with the sweeping lyricism, bejeweled visual F/X and mythic storytelling that put him on par with Walt Disney, Ray Harryhausen and Mario Bava. Based on an epic fairy tale written in 1820 by Alexander Pushkin (Ptushko had previously adapted Pushkin’s THE TALE OF TSAR SALTAN, and half-jokingly said they were related), the film opens with the seemingly-joyous marriage of bogatyr (warrior) Ruslan (Valeri Kozinets) to Ludmila (Natalya Petrova), the daughter of Prince Vladimir. (Like his earlier ILYA MUROMETS, the action of the film is set during the legendary era of the Kyivan Rus’ culture that pre-dated both modern Ukraine and Russia.)Read More »