1980s

Quote:
Sam Lion has led a full and successful life. As a young boy, abandoned by his mother, he was adopted by a circus family, where he developed an afinity for big cats. His career as a circus acrobat was cut short by an accident, after which he started a new life in commerce. His revolutionary cleaning products made him a wealthy man, the head of a corporate empire, but his private life was just as eventful. He marred young, had two children, his first wife died tragically, and he re-married. Now in his fifties, Sam has only one wish – to escape. Whilst crossing the ocean in a one-man dinghy, he decides to fake his own death.Read More »

A college fraternity prank goes wrong and a student ends up in the mental asylum. Three years later, it’s graduation time, and the members of the fraternity decide to have a costume party aboard a train trip to celebrate their graduation. Unknowingly to them, a killer has slipped aboard, killing them off one by one, disguised in the costumes of the victims.Read More »

Based on the mid-eighteenth century novel by Cao Xueqin, the third version (previous version was 38 episodes) of “A Dream in Red Mansions” (aka Dream of the Red Chamber) is known by many to be the ultimate and best adaptation of the story either on TV or film. It is a story about the tragic love of Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu, and the prosperity and decline of the four notable feudal ruling-class families of Jia, Shi, Wang, and Xue. Daiyu is a beautiful and talented girl, but prone to ill health. Baoyu, nonetheless, falls for her over the years and puts up with her sensitivity and ill-tempered personality. They, along with their family-favored and tactful cousin Xue Baochai, reside in the Grand View Garden. The garden was built to honor the visit of Baoyu’s sister, Imperial Consort Jia Yuanchun. Her installment marked the height of the families’ status, prosperity and power. This story also gives praise to the work and revolts of the many servants and nurses in the Grand View Garden. With its beautiful scenery, solid cast ensemble, haunting and superb music score and elegant songs, “A Dream in Red Mansions” remains one of the most beloved and popular Chinese TV-series to date.Read More »

A close-up of Berlin coal carriers from Prenzlauer Berg. No portrayal of heroic workers or progress here. Instead, bright, deeply-felt sketches of rough men and their resolute female boss.Read More »

Jeune femme à sa fenêtre lisant une lettre
1983, 45 min, super-8

“Through the window, we cannot distinguish the scene: a street, a canal, a view of Delft, perhaps a port. We are on the inside, with the light pouring in. The maps on the wall are bigger than the paintings, yet we do not know where we are. The woman stands at the window reading a letter. She loses track of location as she reads. She could be anywhere, at any random point on the map. Outside. Through the window, we cannot distinguish the scene: a street, a canal, a view of Delft, perhaps a port. We are on the inside…”(Jean-Claude Rousseau)Read More »

Synopsis:
In Zola’s Paris, an ingenue arrives at a tony bordello: she’s Nana, guileless, but quickly learning to use her erotic innocence to get what she wants. She’s an actress for a soft-core filmmaker and soon is the most popular courtesan in Paris, parlaying this into a house, bought for her by a wealthy banker. She tosses him and takes up with her neighbor, a count of impeccable rectitude, and with the count’s impressionable son. The count is soon fetching sticks like a dog and mortgaging his lands to satisfy her whims. She bankrupts him, arranges the debauching of his wife, and seduces his son on his wedding day. What else can she accomplish before she leaves Paris airborne?Read More »

A version of the famous kabuki play Yotsuya Kaidan from 1981.Read More »

Based on a mystery by Taiwanese-Japanese author Chin Shun-shin. After two elderly men in Yokohama quarrel over a Yang dynasty artifact, one of the men turns up dead with mysterious claw marks across his face. A detective takes up the case, and uncovers secrets dating back to war crimes committed during Japan’s invasion of China in WWII.Read More »

When Teresa’s husband dies she only inherits debts. In order to pay them she must assume her husband’s place as a truck driver.
She will have to avoid the moves fellow male drivers make on her, for she is still a very attractive woman. While working, she begins a steamy love affair with an experienced driver that helped her with her new job. But the debts are too big and the truck owner demands her to marry him to settle them. Things will settle at the altar, but not in the expected way!Read More »