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Asian Cinema

Asian Cinema

Cinema has been a part of Asian cultures for more than a century. We offer a selection of films from older classic titles (King Hu's THE FATE OF LEE KHAN) to more recent family dramas by the Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda, along with films from Singapore, South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand.

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Asian Cinema
  • Farewell My Concubine

    Cheng Dieyi (Leslie Cheung) and Duan Xiaolou (Zhang Fengyi) grow up enduring the harsh training of the Peking Opera Academy, where instructors regularly beat the students to instill in them the discipline needed to master the complex physical and vocal techniques of this ancient art. As the two b...

  • Girl's Blood

    Satsuki is a karate expert with a gender identity disorder. Chinatsu is on the run from her abusive husband. Miko works part-time as an S&M queen, and Mayu is a baby face Lolita. Four women with very different life stories come together at Girl's Blood, a members-only, illegal mixed martial arts...

  • Asia-pol

    It’s not Interpol, it's Asia-pol, a law enforcement agency somewhere between the police and Her Majesty's Secret Service. Jimmy Wang Yu (One-Armed Swordsman) stars in his first major modern day role as a down and dirty secret agent battling against homicidal Japanese gold smugglers amidst femme f...

  • Before, Now & Then

    Nana (Happy Salma), the beautiful wife of a wealthy plantation owner, values her safety and material comforts but carries out a haunted existence, dreaming of her lost love who was murdered years ago during the Indonesian Revolution. Forced to confront her husband’s blatant infidelity, Nana makes...

  • Facets of Love

    Legends are born and dreams become reality in three tales centering around a Ming Dynasty brothel. Brought to life by visionary filmmaker Han Hsiang Li, Hong Kong's undisputed king of epic drama, this anthology of forbidden stories steams with erotic myths, secret trysts and romantic twists of fa...

  • Illicit Desire

    Tang Dynasty emperors and Ming Dynasty scholars along with assorted fortune tellers and Buddhist monks comprise the cast of characters in three mystical Chinese legends. Brought to life by director Han Hsiang Li, the undisputed master of the Hong Kong costume epic, this erotic anthology presents ...

  • Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan

    In her most daring role, Lily Ho plays Ainu, a beautiful girl who is abducted and sold into prostitution. Under the tutelage of the cunning madam Lady Chun (Betty Pei Ti), Ainu becomes the most desirable courtesan of the Four Seasons Spring Brothel. But she soon finds herself caught in a web of s...

  • Lust for Love of a Chinese Courtesan

    Kidnapped and forced to work in Merryland brothel, the beautiful Ai Nu (Hu Kuan-chen) at first tries to resist her captors but soon learns a seductive new path of survival, pursuing fame and fortune under the cunning tutelage of madam Lady Chun (Yu An-an).

    Director Chu Yuan returns to his erotic...

  • Return to Dust

    In rural Gaotai county, two lonely, middle-aged outcasts are pushed into an arranged marriage by their families. Ma (Wu Renlin) is a humble farmer with little to offer his timid and sickly wife, Cao (Hai Qing), except for a small abandoned house on a barren patch of land. From just a few seeds, t...

  • Warm Water Under a Red Bridge

    Brimming with magical realism, sensuality, and humor, the final film by revered filmmaker Shohei Imamura tells the story of Yosuke Sasano (Koji Yakusho), an unemployed salaryman who arrives in a remote fishing village following a rumor of hidden treasure. Instead, he meets Saeko Aizawa (Misa Shim...

  • Love's Whirlpool

    Six strangers meet at an underground sex club in Japan for a night of anonymous pleasure. While first-timers and regulars collide, each member’s attitude towards sex and satisfaction becomes challenged as their kinks and inhibitions begin to reveal more than they were initially willing to let on....

  • The Sales Girl

    When college coed Saruul takes a temporary job as a clerk in a sex shop, her poker-faced indifference makes her the perfect foil for the shop’s clientele, who range from slightly sheepish and cautiously curious to downright perverse. But it’s the shop’s flamboyant, eccentric female owner who init...

  • In the Morning of La Petite Mort

    Matsui (Yusuke Fukuchi), a homeless food delivery driver, spends his days and nights traveling from destination to destination without any place to find true solace. Longing to make a connection, he becomes infatuated with a beautiful young prostitute, Ching (Yun-Chih Wang), but her sudden disapp...

  • Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy

    An unexpected love triangle, a failed seduction, and a chance encounter with the past. Propelled by coincidence and imagination, and guided by love’s gentle current, Oscar-winning director Ryūsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car) presents an enchanting triptych that spins mundane encounters into a world ...

  • Aloners

    Jina (Gong Seung-yeon) is the top employee at a call center, but despite talking to customers all day, she has shut out the world beyond her headset; she lives alone, eats alone, sleeps alone, and her cell phone is her constant companion. When one day she's tasked with training a friendly and nai...

  • Still the Water

    On the subtropical Japanese island of Amami, sixteen-year-old Kaito (Nijiro Murakami) discovers a young woman’s body floating in the sea. His girlfriend Kyoko (Jun Yoshinaga) attempts to help him make sense of this mystery while also coming to terms with her shaman mother’s terminal illness. Toge...

  • Radiance

    Misako (Ayame Misaki) is a passionate writer of film versions for the visually impaired. At a screening, she meets Nakamori (Masatoshi Nagase), an older photographer who is slowly losing his eyesight. Misako soon discovers Nakamori’s photographs, which strangely bring her back to her past. Togeth...

  • I Am Sun Mu

    Operating under a pseudonym which means "no boundaries", North Korean defector Sun Mu doesn't just paint about his troubled life in the world’s most reclusive and repressive state – he paints images of hope. Sun Mu's work is imbued with nuance and heartbreak, political pop art that inverts the pr...

  • Vive L'Amour

    Tsai Ming-liang's sophomore feature, VIVE L'AMOUR, follows three lonely souls sharing a Taipei apartment. Beautiful realtor May Lin (Yang Kuei-mei) brings her lover Ah-jung (Chen Chao-jung) to the vacant unit, unaware that it is secretly occupied by suicidal funeral salesman Hsiao-kang (Lee Kang-...

  • Yanagawa

    Li Dong and Li Chun are brothers with completely different temperaments. Though they both live in Beijing, the two have been estranged for many years. One day, while reconnecting at a Japanese restaurant nestled within the busy streets of the city, they reminisce about their beloved childhood sw...

  • Looking for Lucky

    Struggling graduate student Zhang Guangsheng (Ding Xinhe) loses his professor’s dog and enlists his deadbeat dad (Yu Hai) to help retrieve the missing pooch before his careless mistake jeopardizes both his graduation and future career.

    The feature debut from Chinese writer/director Jiang Jiache...

  • They Say Nothings Stays the Same

    Toichi (Akira Emoto), an aging ferryman in a remote Meiji-era community, lives a peaceful, cyclical existence, given meaning by the essential role he plays in transporting people, livestock, and goods across the water, connecting villages and lives. When news arrives that a bridge is being built,...

  • Sunshine That Can Move Mountains

    Upon learning that his younger brother had an accident and has slipped into a vegetative state, Tibetan monk Tenzin Banjue leaves his monastery and embarks on the long walk back to his home village. Once there, he finds himself caught between faith and desire when his mother encourages him to sta...

  • Center Stage

    International superstar Maggie Cheung (In the Mood for Love) embodies tragic screen siren Ruan Lingyu, known as the "Greta Garbo of China," in this unconventional biopic by Hong Kong New Wave master Stanley Kwan (Rouge). Praised for her moving and emotive onscreen presence, Ruan’s private life, w...