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...

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...

Investigative filmmaker Yuko (Kumi Takiuchi) is putting together a piece about the bereaved families connected with a bullied schoolgirlʼs suicide. Determined to shed light on the truth, Yukoʼs uncompromising nature brings her in conflict with the conservative-minded management at her television ...

While vacationing with his wife at a seaside resort, Kenji, a struggling writer (Hidetoshi Nishijima, Drive My Car), becomes fascinated with a mysterious couple he notices by the pool. Later, from outside their hotel room window, he witnesses the older man (Takeshi Kitano) methodically filming th...

32-year-old Ichiko (Sakura Ando, Shoplifters) lives at home in self-indulgent grunginess with her parents and recently divorced younger sister. One morning, after a particularly heated argument, Ichiko decides to leave for good. With few options to support herself, she finds a job at a 100 yen sh...

After many years, a group of college friends reunite. They have not seen each other since the disappearance of Dondong, a girl they all secretly fancied. The circumstances of her disappearance caused the end of their friendship. A lot has remained unsaid. Until now.

An official selection at both...

When Chen's estranged wife reappears asking for a divorce, their music-loving daughter decides she will live with the parent that can provide her with a piano. After efforts to borrow money and even steal a piano fail, Chen concocts a preposterous plan – he'll make a piano from scratch! He persua...

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,...

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...

Abigail Harm (Amanda Plummer) reads books to the blind and lives alone on the outskirts of the city. Keeping her eyes turned away from everyone, she secretly watches, listens and hopes. One day, Abigail recalls an old story about a woodcutter who saves the life of a mystical deer and is granted h...

Alliance of Women Film Journalists Selection! Read an excerpt from Liz Whittemore's AWFJ review: "At the suggestion of her niece, lonely middle-aged Setsuko takes English lessons. When her plucky teacher John goes missing, Setsuko gets on a plane to California in search of love and a life-changin...

Amid the ashes of post-WWII Japan, the bittersweet sounds of American traditional country music drifted through the radio airwaves. Although intended for the U.S. occupying forces, a vast "ghost audience" of young Japanese quickly warmed to the soothing, yet foreign, sounds.

Since falling in lov...

After years of toiling in bit parts, aspiring actress Nina Wu (Wu Ke-Xi, who also co-wrote the script based on her own personal experiences) finally gets her break as the female lead in a big-budget espionage thriller. The role, which calls for nudity and explicit sex scenes, is made all the more...

Following his Cannes Jury Prize-winning drama HARMONIUM, director Koji Fukada returns with “another emotionally palpable tale of perception” (IONCINEMA). Ichiko (Mariko Tsutsui) is a private home nurse who has worked for the elderly matriarch of the Oisho family for years. Unexpectedly, her quiet...

During the Ming Dynasty, a Buddhist abbot charged with protecting the sacred scroll of Tripitaka prepares to name his successor. An aristocrat and a general arrive at his secluded mountaintop monastery promising to help in his search, but are in fact scheming to secure the scroll for themselves. ...

In the most lavish penthouses, visible only through keyholes, there exists a dangerous and erotic world. High-paid prostitutes who specialize in high-stakes games make the rounds. The richer the client, the wilder the ride. When fantasy gets too rough for one young call-girl, escaping becomes her...

In order to save his fief, expert swordman KANEMI Sanzaemon publicly assassinates his lord's favorite concubine. Instead of being beheaded, he is sentenced to solitary confinement for one year, then ordered to serve as the lord's bodyguard. This tale of honor, intrigue and deception inevitably en...

After Tsuji (Win Morisaki), a floundering toy salesman, rescues Ukiyo (Kaho Tsuchimura), a mysterious woman whose car stalls on the train tracks, she inadvertently whisks him into an epic series of misadventures involving gangsters, strange interlopers, kidnapping and other sundry crimes.

Singul...

Alliance of Women Film Journalists Selection! Read an excerpt from Margaret Barton Fumo's AWFJ review: "Cathy Yan’s 2018 film DEAD PIGS is a dazzling debut ahead of her better-known followup, the blockbuster superhero film BIRDS OF PREY (2020). DEAD PIGS premiered at Sundance, where it won a Spec...

When high-powered attorney Shigemori (Masaharu Fukuyama) takes on the defense of murder-robbery suspect Misumi (Kōji Yakusho), he does so with reluctance, knowing that the man already provided a full confession and had been previously convicted of murder thirty years earlier. But as he digs deepe...

Burmese immigrants sneak into Thailand on a well-trafficked route across the Mekong River, down quiet country roads and past bribed police checkpoints. Along this treacherous path to Bangkok, Lianqing (Wu Ke-Xi) and Guo (Kai Ko) meet, and their fates become entwined. After finding work, the coupl...

Set in Singapore during the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Ilo Ilo chronicles the day-to-day drama of the Lim family - troublesome grade-schooler Jiale and his overstressed parents, Heck and Leng. Comfortably middleclass and with another baby on the way, they hire Teresa, a Filipino immigrant, as a...

Five years after surviving the all-out war between the Sanno and Hanabishi crime families, former yakuza boss Otomo now works in South Korea for Mr. Chang, a renowned fixer whose influence extends into Japan. A relatively minor incident causes tensions to rise between Chang Enterprises and the fa...

In this wild and provocative new film by infamous shock auteur Kim Ki-Duk, a wife, overwhelmed with hatred for her adulterous husband, inflicts an unspeakable wound on their son as the family heads towards horrific destruction.

DIRECTED BY KI-DUK KIM
SOUTH KOREA | 2013 | KOREAN WITH ENGLISH S...