The Legend of Purple Hairpin (1959)

Farewell My Concubine

Two boys meet at an opera training school in Peking in 1924. Their resulting friendship will span nearly 70 years and endure some of the most troublesome times in China's history.

The Grand Substitution

With China under control of a weak Emperor, two officials compete to steer the future destiny of the land. Chiu believes the people are the future of China, while the diabolical Tu wishes to grind the people beneath an iron heel. Tu decides to take out Chiu's family, but one lone infant escapes.

Kill A Criminal in His Marriage Ceremony

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Bamboo Theatre

This film is a portrait of unique cultural space for Spirits, Gods and People. While permanent theatres are commonly built in most cosmopolitan modern cities, Hong Kong preserves a unique theatrical architecture, a Chinese tradition that has lasted more than a century - Bamboo Theatre.

Three Charming Smiles

Tang Bohu is smitten by the stunning beauty of Qiuxiang, the maid of Grand Tutor Hua, during his visit to a monastery in Suzhou. Stalking the maid, Tang's affections are finally reciprocated with three charming smiles. To approach the fair maid, Tang seeks work in the Grand Tutor residence as a study companion, and his talents win Hua's attention. As a frustrated suitor, he turns to his resourceful friend Zhu Zhishan for help.

White Powder and Neon Lights

This is the first 16mm Cantonese film in full colour, shot on 1940s state-of-the-art Technicolor film stock. Opera star Man-ha (Leung Bik-yuk) enjoys tremendous popularity during her performances in San Francisco, but drowns herself in the vices and temptations of the big city. Increasingly, she fails to show up for performances, almost causing the theatre to go bankrupt. When she sees her lover for the scoundrel that he is, she also sees the errors of her own ways and saves the theatre, restoring it to glory. Joseph Sunn Jue established the Grandview Film Company in Hong Kong during the 1930s and continued making films in the USA during wartime by collaborating with Chinese opera performers in exile there. Wong Hok-sing, an opera actor himself, directed, wrote and starred in this film. He staged a spectacular play-within-a-play at the end, not only to promote the art of Cantonese opera but also to boost solidarity among overseas Chinese through difficult times.

Demi-Haunted

Wan Fei (Joey Yung) is a promising Chinese Opera singer who is secretly in love with Ho Fung (Nicholas Tse). She plans to sing for him from the stage, but, in a tragic accident, dies mid-song. Years later, Wan Fei's ghost returns, and finds that part of her spirit has been reincarnated in the form of Chor-bat (Eason Chan). Wan Fei still longs to sing her song for her lover, and, after much humorous confusion, her dream is fulfilled.

Havana Divas

The story focus on Caridad and Georgina, who had learned the art of Cantonese Opera in Havana as a young age and performed as divas for over a decade before their lives were changed by Fidel Castro's revolution.

Fong Tong Kan & Yin Ji Ma

Jing meets Hu Yanjuan, a woman who sells medicine, and gets mocked by her. Seeking revenge, he tricks her father and switches their medicine with rocks, causing them to be stopped from selling it. Yanjuan investigates and discovers Jing's deception. Jing pretends to ask her to teach him martial arts, and she uses this opportunity to teach him a lesson.

Green Ashes

A filmmaker named Hadi is sent to Croatia to complete his research for a film. Aziz, Hadi’s friend, gives him a cassette tape, a piece of image, and a half a piece of plaque in order to find a girl named Fatima. Alongside a Farsi-speaking Bosnian woman, Hanifa, Hadi begins his quest for Fatima.

Françoise Durocher, Waitress

Fictional character played by 24 different actresses, Françoise Durocher is altogether small time waitress, hostess and barmaid. Together, according to the author, they represent the archetypical Québec waitress that everyday waits on us with a smile, despite whatever problems she faces in her personal life. First cinematographic experience of the Brassard-Tremblay tandem, this film full of ironic joy details all the nuances of the waitress living conditions.

Dead End

A man and woman meet when he pulls her out of an icy fountain that she has just jumped into. But their developing romance is marred by bad friends, money troubles and illegal sex work.

The Heritage

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Maravilla

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The Final Journey

A former German Army officer, accompanied by his granddaughter, journeys to the Ukraine to find the woman he once loved.

The Sex Addict

When a PhD student decides to document a real life sex addict for her dissertation in sex psychology, she becomes much more than a curious observer.

Princess Cyd

High school athlete Cyd Loughlin lives alone with her depressive father in South Carolina, perpetually longing to get away from it all. When her aunt, famous novelist Miranda Ruth, agrees to host her for a few weeks during the summer, Cyd jumps at the opportunity. While there, she falls for a girl in the neighborhood, even as she and her aunt gently challenge each other in the realms of sex and spirit.

Let Misik Sing

Through a mosaic of memories, this documentary celebrates music star Vladimír Mišík and highlights one of the great explorations left in his life.

Finnegan Begin Again

A schoolteacher in her early 40s, involved in a dead-end love affair with a married mortician, drifts into a relationship with an aging newspaperman.

Elektra

Strauss's opera adapted to the screen by Gotz Friedrich.

Across the River

A junkman who lives along New York's East River saves a woman from an attacker, then lets her stay with him.

Love at Twenty

Love at Twenty unites five directors from five different countries to present their different perspectives on what love really is at the age of 20. The episodes are united with the score of Georges Delerue and still photos of Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Gain the World

The whole city is after Gwap when he sells drugs to the wrong person, and a bounty is put on his head.

A Gift of Murder

When a high school junior is forced to transfer to a new school after her mom is admitted to rehab, she quickly rubs the reigning mean girl the wrong way. The teen’s aunt and uncle offer to throw a sweet sixteen party to help her adjust, but the jealous queen bee will stop at nothing to destroy her plans, including murder. The teen’s mom must redeem herself and help save the party, but more importantly her relationship with her daughter.

My Father's Garden

A young Kurdish mujahid, regrets his decision to join the jihadist movement. He is torn between his father's expectations and the mujahideen leader and ends up a victim of his own internal turmoil.

Luka

Year 1917. Young doctor Valentin Voyno-Yasenetskyj with his wife and four children moved to Tashkent, beset by civil war and intervention. Voyno-Yasenetskyj became head physician in the city hospital. He not only saves hundreds of patients every day, operating under the bullets of the permanent street battles, fighting for his life and life of his beloved wife, dying of TB. In the midst of persecution, he as alone with four children on the outskirts of the former empire, so he decides to become a priest. And since then, he never altered neither scalpel, nor cross, he goes with them through all their hard exiles and arduous life, treating both: body and soul.

The Cossack Whip

Feodor Turov, chief of the Russian Czar's secret police, orders his Cossacks to attack a village he believes to be infested with rebels. The Cossacks attack the village and massacre almost everyone, and the young Katerina is whipped to death. Before escaping to England, her sister Darya swears to avenge her sister's death. Years later--now one of the world's most famous prima ballerinas--she returns to Russia. Turov falls in love with her and manages to secure a meeting. She coyly asks him to take her to see a prison first. As it turns out, what he has planned for her is nothing compared to what she has planned for him.

Riders of the Night

Another of a successful string of Metro features directed by the vastly underrated John H. Collins, Riders of the Night was set in Kentucky hill country. Collins' wifeViola Dana stars as Sally Castleton, a country girl in love with a brooding and idealistic aristocrat. When her sweetheart joins a night-riding vigilante organization, Sally is temporarily dismayed but resolves to hide the man from the authorities.

Borrowed Time

A weathered Sheriff returns to the remains of an accident he has spent a lifetime trying to forget. With each step forward, the memories come flooding back. Faced with his mistake once again, he must find the strength to carry on.

White Lightning

The Red Devils, a professional ice hockey team, owned by Jack Monohan, is in the midst of a long losing streak, due to bribes being accepted from gamblers by the star player. When the team is joined by cocky Mike Connors, a boyhood friend of Jack's, they begin to regain their former winning ways.

Kalyanaraman

Kalyanam, the naive son of a rich man, is duped and murdered by his estate manager who seeks to take over the property. However, Kalyanam's twin brother learns the truth and returns for revenge.