In 1920s China, nineteen-year-old Songlian becomes a concubine of a powerful lord and is forced to compete with his three wives for the privileges gained.
Historian Tom Holland looks at the origins of Islam and questions its history and authenticity.
One of the most acclaimed movies to come out of China last year, Feng Shui harnesses the talents of underrated actress Yan Bingyan to deliver this family drama about a woman desperate to ascend to the middle class and willing to pay any price. Powerful and emotionally tense, this is a portrait of the hidden side of the great Chinese success story.
When her husband is kicked in the groin by the village head, Qiu Ju, a peasant woman, despite her pregnancy, travels to a nearby town, and later a big city to deal with its bureaucrats and find justice.
A group of performing art troupe members each face their own trials and tribulations in Chengdu; from escaping a family scandal to dealing with unrequited love, each experiences rejection that shapes their lives.
A town in Fengjie county is gradually being demolished and flooded to make way for the Three Gorges Dam. A man and woman visit the town to locate their estranged spouses, and become witness to the societal changes.
Paris, France. Commissaire Wens follows the lead of a ruthless murderer to an unexpected place.
An old leper who owned a remote sorghum winery dies. Jiu'er, the wife bought by the leper, and her lover, identified only as "my Grandpa" by the narrator, take over the winery and set up an idealized quasi-matriarchal community headed by Jiu'er. When the Japanese invaders subject the area to their rule and cut down the sorghum to make way for a road, the community rises up and resists as the sorghum grows anew.
A psychic housewife and her husband accidentally find a kidnapped girl. But instead of informing the police, they hatch a scheme to get famous by working with the police as a psychic consultant to "find" the girl. And then, things start to go terribly wrong.
Takada, a Japanese fisherman has been estranged from his son for many years, but when the son is diagnosed with terminal cancer his daughter-in-law, Rie, summons him to the hospital. Through a series of obstacles and relationships, he is brought unexpectedly closer to both an understanding of himself and of his son.
Four friends come up with an unusual idea to make some money and have fun doing it. For a small fee, they will impersonate and act out any character role for their customers. In the course of executing this novel service, they encounter a whole spectrum of people in society, finding ways to genuinely help them boost their morale and overcome their fears, while gaining unusual and new insights into the human condition.
Half-breed Keoma returns to his border hometown after service in the Civil War and finds it under the control of Caldwell, an ex-Confederate raider, and his vicious gang of thugs. To make matters worse, Keoma's three half-brothers have joined forces with Caldwell, and make it painfully clear that his return is an unwelcome one. Determined to break Caldwell and his brothers' grip on the town, Keoma partners with his father's former ranch hand to exact violent revenge.
Follows a soldier trying to gain recognition for comrades who died in 1948, at a turning point in the civil war between the communists and the nationalist forces of the Kuomintang.
Shanghai, China, 1930. When young Shuisheng arrives from the countryside, his uncle Liushu puts him at the service of Bijou, the mistress of Laoda, supreme boss of the Tang Triad, constantly threatened by his enemies, both those he knows and those lurking in the shadows.
When Harry Levine, an aging, unsuccessful Greenwich Village writer, is fired from his job as restaurant doorman, he calls on friend and mentor Jake, ostensibly to collect a long-standing debt.
On August 12, 2015, Hasegawa proposed to Ichiko. Ichiko is moved by Hasegawa's proposal and sheds tears, but the next day, she suddenly leaves home, seemingly shocked after seeing the TV news. Where did Ichiko go? Hasegawa reports the disappearance to the police, and the detective in charge of the investigation tells an unexpected story.
A perfect housewife, who just happens to be sex-starved, struggles to keep her emotions in check when an attractive family moves in next door.
The odd-couple courtship saga continues of wealthy, middle-aged retiree Qin Fen and serious-minded young air hostess Xiaoxiao. After an amusing prelude in which Qin presides over a lavish divorce ceremony for an amicably splitting married couple, he and Xiaoxiao decide to address their own relationship barriers — her youth and beauty, his cynical, childish sense of humor — by entering into a trial marriage while on a trip to the country's tropical southeast.
When a woman who was abandoned at birth because of a genetic disorder sees a child facing the same fate, she finds herself trying to persuade their parents to reconsider and goes to extreme lengths to save the child.
A Harlem nightclub entertainer arrives on the Caribbean island of "Rinidad" to perform as the headliner in a revue at the Paradise Hotel. She quickly attracts the attention of several men.