For The First Time, In One Collection, The Complete Television Phenomenon Twin Peaks: All 29 episodes of the original groundbreaking seasons All 18 parts of the Limited Event Series - the return to Twin Peaks - that captivated audiences 25 years later, written by the series co-creators and entirely directed by David Lynch A wealth of intriguing, behind-the-scenes special features So grab a cup of coffee, a slice of cherry pie, and experience the legendary mystery...again and again!
A queer romantic comedy set in vibrant, multicultural New York City, Alice Wu's irresistible feature debut breathed fresh life into the genre by combining snappy dialogue and a swooning love story with a poignant narrative about a mother and daughter coming to terms with each other. Just as Wil (Michelle Krusiec), a harried young surgical resident, begins a promising romance with the flirtatious dancer Vivian (Lynn Chen), her life is turned upside down when her more traditional Chinese mother (Joan Chen)unwed and unexpectedly pregnantmoves in with her, forcing both women to confront the generational and cultural barriers that have long troubled their relationship. Both embracing and cleverly subverting rom-com conventions, Wu delivers a bighearted ode to the Chinese American diaspora, and the liberating joy of living one's truth. United States 2004 97 minutes Colour 1.85:1 English, Mandarin Spine #1276 DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES: ¢ High-definition digital master, approved by director Alice Wu, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack ¢ Audio commentary featuring Wu ¢ New interviews with Wu and actor Joan Chen ¢ Deleted scenes with optional commentary by Wu ¢ Behind-the-scenes featurette ¢ Program featuring Wu and members of the cast at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival ¢ Trailer ¢ English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing ¢ PLUS: An essay by critic Phoebe Chen
In this pair of sharp, sprawling satires, one of Taiwan's most celebrated filmmakers, Edward Yang, captures the anything-can-happen mood of Taipei at the end of the twentieth century. Made in between his epic dramas A Brighter Summer Day and Yi Yi, A Confucian Confusion and Mahjong find Yang applying a lighter but no less masterly touch to his explorations of human relationships in an increasingly globalized, hypercapitalistic world. These intricately constructed ensemble comediesone set in a cutthroat corporate milieu, the other in a shady criminal underworldreveal the absurdity and cynicism at the heart of modern urban life.In this pair of sharp, sprawling satires, one of Taiwan's most celebrated filmmakers, Edward Yang, captures the anything-can-happen mood of Taipei at the end of the twentieth century. Made in between his epic dramas A Brighter Summer Day and Yi Yi, A Confucian Confusion and Mahjong find Yang applying a lighter but no less masterly touch to his explorations of human relationships in an increasingly globalized, hypercapitalistic world. These intricately constructed ensemble comediesone set in a cutthroat corporate milieu, the other in a shady criminal underworldreveal the absurdity and cynicism at the heart of modern urban life. Taiwan 1994 (A Confucian Confusion) 1996 (Mahjong) Colour 1.85:1 Mandarin, Taiwanese Spine #1275 A Confucian Confusion Edward Yang's first foray into comedy may have been a surprising stylistic departure, but in its richly novelistic vision of urban discontent, it is quintessential Yang. This relationship roundelay centres on a coterie of young Taipei professionals whose paths converge at an entertainment company where the boundaries between art and commerce, love and business, have become hopelessly blurred. Evoking the chaos of a city infiltrated by Western chains, logos, and attitudes, A Confucian Confusion is an incisive reflection on the role of traditional values in a materialistic, amoral society. Mahjong Edward Yang's follow-up to A Confucian Confusion is another dizzying comedy set in a globalized Taipei, but with a darker, more caustic edge. Amid a rapidly changing cityscape, the lives of a disparate group of swindlers, hustlers, gangsters, and expats collide, with a naive French teenager (Virginie Ledoyen) and a sensitive young local (Lawrence Ko) who tries to protect her caught dangerously in the middle. By turns brutal, shocking, tender, and bitingly funny, Mahjong is a dazzling vision of a multicultural Taipei where nearly every relationship has a price and newfound prosperity comes at the expense of the human soul. TWO-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES New 4K digital restorations, with 5.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks Excerpts of director Edward Yang speaking after a 1994 screening of A Confucian Confusion New interview with editor Chen Po-wen New conversation between Chinese-cultural-studies scholar Michael Berry and film critic Justin Chang Performance of Yang's 1992 play Likely Consequence PLUS: An essay by film programmer and critic Dennis Lim and a 1994 director's note on A Confucian Confusion New cover by Tori Huynh
Director Ang Lees return to Chinese cinema is an action packed and critically acclaimed epic tale of ancient China.
Bernardo Bertolucci does the nearly impossible with this sweeping, grand epic that tells a very personal tale. The story is a dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the emperors of China. It follows his life from its elite beginnings in the Forbidden City, where he was crowned at age three and worshipped by half a billion people. He was later forced to abdicate and, unable to fend for himself in the outside world, became a dissolute and exploited shell of a man. He died in obscurity, living as a peasant in the People's Republic. We never really warm up to John Lone in the title role, but The Last Emperor focuses more on visuals than characterisation anyway. Filmed in the Forbidden City, it is spectacularly beautiful, filling the screen with saturated colours and exquisite detail. It won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. --Rochelle O'Gorman
Chinese disaster film based on events surrounding the 1976 earthquake in Tangshan, which took the lives of 240,000 people. In the aftermath of the devastating quake, a widowed seamstress (Xu Fan) must choose which of her brother-and-sister twins will be saved after rescuers find them pinned down by a single concrete block. She chooses her son, Fang Dan (Chen Li), unaware that her daughter Fang Deng (Jingchu Zhang) has in fact also survived the ordeal. The film then follows the divergent lives of the two siblings from this point until their eventual reunion in the Sichuan earthquake of 2008.
Bernardo Bertolucci's epic film tells the incredible story of Pu Yi who in 1908 at the age of three became ruler of nearly half of the world's population. He was the ""Son of heaven"" ""Lord of Ten Thousand Years"" and the last emperor of China. His reign was short and three years later a revolution ended three thousand years of imperial rule and a new republic was born. Allowed to remain in his palace and the enclosed walls of the Forbidden City he was unable to venture further than the city gates. Here he would stay for twelve years a prisoner protected from but also ignorant of the outside world. Eventually expelled by a republican warlord Pu Yi began an incredible journey of self discovery that would span a quarter of a century. Winner of nine Oscars The Last Emperor was one of the biggest and most ambitious productions ever undertaken. Director Bernardo Bertolucci and Producer Jeremy Thomas spent two years in negotiations before being granted the unprecedented permission to not only film in China but within the Forbidden City itself. The result was one of the most visually breathtaking and moving epics ever made.
10 months after the murder of Chen Wing Yan (Leung) the investigation is closed with the conclusion that Ming (Lau) successfully took out the Triad's mole. Relegated to a benign office job and his marriage over a new star enters the IA team in the form of the up-and-coming Superintendent Yeung whose meteoric rise mirrors that of Ming. Suspecting that Yeung is a mole like he was Ming begins to investigate the new hot-shot... Involving a complex flashback narrative binding the new
All 30 episodes of David Lynch's landmark murder mystery series. Twin Peaks (population 51,201), a sleepy everytown USA where everyone's lives intersect with everyone else's, lies just five miles from the Canadian border. The town wakes up one morning to find one of its brightest young inhabitants, beautiful Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) murdered and wrapped in plastic down by the river. Local Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean) and tearful Deputy Andy (Harry Goaz) are out of their depth with such a murder case and an FBI agent is assigned to investigate. Youthful, charismatic and somewhat otherworldy in his approach to policing, Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) arrives to try and solve the case. Cooper's appearance causes ripples in the community and in turn he discovers that Twin Peaks is a small town full of secrets.
Beginning with an explosive, six-minute montage of sex, drugs and violence, and ending with a phallus-headed battle robot taking flight, Takashi Miike's unforgettable Dead or Alive Trilogy features many of the director's most outrageous moments set alongside some of his most dramatically moving scenes. Made between 1999 and 2002, the Dead or Alive films cemented Miike's reputation overseas as one of the most provocative enfants terrible of Japanese cinema, yet also one of its most talented and innovative filmmakers. In Dead or Alive, tough gangster Ryuichi (Riki Takeuchi) and his ethnically Chinese gang make a play to take over the drug trade in Tokyo's Shinjuku district by massacring the competition. But he meets his match in detective Jojima (Show Aikawa), who will do everything to stop them. Dead or Alive 2: Birds casts Aikawa and Takeuchi together again, but as new characters, a pair of rival yakuza assassins who turn out to be childhood friends; after a botched hit, they flee together to the island where they grew up, and decide to devote their deadly skills to a more humanitarian cause. And in Dead or Alive: Final, Takeuchi and Aikawa are catapulted into a future Yokohama ruled by multilingual gangs and cyborg soldiers, where they once again butt heads in the action-packed and cyberpunk-tinged finale to the trilogy. Each of them unique in theme and tone, the Dead or Alive films showcase Miike at the peak of his strengths, creating three very distinct movies connected only by their two popular main actors, each film a separate yet superb example of crime drama, character study, and action filmmaking. SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS: High Definition digital transfers of all three films Original uncompressed stereo audio Optional English subtitles for all three films New interview with actor Riki Takeuchi New interview with actor Sho Aikawa New interview with producer and screenwriter Toshiki Kimura New audio commentary for Dead or Alive by Miike biographer Tom Mes Archive interviews with cast and crew Archive making-of featurettes for DOA2: Birds and DOA: Final Original theatrical trailers for all three films Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Orlando Arocena
Many legends have arisen surrounding the mysterious and untimely death of martial arts king Bruce Lee. Was he murdered? Was he involved in drugs and crime? Why did he leave the cryptic message If I die find out why? Whatever the reason fellow martial arts master Bruce Li determines to find the answers. With the assistance of Lee's former mistress Suzy he penetrates the dangerous underworld of Hong Kong. Captured by the criminals Suzy uncovers firm evidence about her lover's death. Bruce is forced to confront the gangsters in a final showdown with such superb fighting skill that he earns the accolade of Bruce Lee's successor...
For The First Time, In One Collection, The Complete Television Phenomenon Twin Peaks: All 29 episodes of the original groundbreaking seasons All 18 parts of the Limited Event Series - the return to Twin Peaks - that captivated audiences 25 years later, written by the series co-creators and entirely directed by David Lynch A wealth of intriguing, behind-the-scenes special features So grab a cup of coffee, a slice of cherry pie, and experience the legendary mystery...again and again!
Martial arts matinee idol Jet Li portrays a real life turn-of-the-century Cantonese patriot, the dauntless Fong Sai-Yuk, in The Legend. This is a much more blunt and straightforward effort than Tsui Hark's flamboyant Once Upon a Time in China films, but codirectors Ann Hui (Song of the Exile) and Yuen Kwai (Yes, Madam) deliver many lively and funny sequences. The film's revelatory performance, however, comes from Josephine Siao, a Cantonese star of the 1960s in both comedies and high-flying swordplay films, who here plays Fong Sai-Yuk's martial mother. Siao disguises herself as a man to enter a martial arts competition and ends up winning both the prize and the heart of a high official's daughter--mostly because the girl has never met a hero with so much poetic sensitivity lurking just beneath the surface. Chu Kong (Sidney in John Woo's The Killer) plays Fong Sai-Yuk's father as an anti-Manchu patriot so unbendingly upright that he's a bit of a prig. As the action heats up, political stakes emerge more clearly. In the grand finale, Fong Sai-Yuk squares off against a Manchu killer played with great panache by newcomer Chiu Man-cheuk. --David Chute, Amazon.com
From the acclaimed producer of John Woo's Red Cliff and Jet Li's Warlords, comes this powerhouse biopic of the legendary Chinese philosopher, Confucius.
It is never too late to fall in love for the first time. Writer-director Alice Wu's debut film is a heartwarming and heartbreaking romantic comedy about family tradition and changing times. Michelle Krusiec gives an outstanding performance as Wilhelmina a doctor in a Manhattan hospital who returns to Flushing's Chinatown every Friday night to participate in her extended family's weekly dance mixer. While her mother (Joan Chen) and the other women try to set her up with elig
The latest film by visionary director Tsai Ming-liang (Goodbye Dragon Inn) links together a series of sumptuously composed, tableau-like scenes, often without words. Stray Dogs tells the deeply affecting story of a father and his two young sons barely surviving on the margins of Taipei society. Can they fix their broken family? Extras: Journey to the West + interview with Tsai Ming-Liang
Explosive prequel to last year's Hong Kong hit about an undercover cop and triad mole in the police force.
Drunken Master is a film that, following Snake in the Eagle's Shadow (1978) (made with the same ensemble cast and director Yuen Woo Ping), consolidated Jackie Chan's position as the new Hong Kong kung fu action star of the late 1970s. Set in the late 19th century, Chan plays the great Chinese hero Wong Fei Hung as a loveable young rogue who is always getting into fights or embarrassing his family. Eventually his father decides the only way to make a man of Chan is to send him for training with an old drunken drifter played by Yuen Siu Tien. Just as they did in Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, the pair make a fine double-act, though this time there is much surreal entertainment to be had from the older man teaching the younger the fine art of drunken kung fu. Learning to fight like the Eight Drunken Gods before the final confrontation with Hwang Jang Lee causes Chan considerable problems, though Yuen Siu Tien simply fights better the more he drinks. Yuen Siu Tien would reprise the role in his final film, Magnificent Butcher (1979) yet with Chan he finds a perfect blend of slapstick comedy and creatively staged action which makes Drunken Master a genuine kung fu classic. On the DVD: The picture is generally strong though inevitably there is a fair amount of grain. Unfortunately the original 2.35-1 film has been reformatted to 1.77-1 widescreen TV ratio. This has been done more skilfully than usual but is still a misrepresentation of the original cinema release and does mar both the landscape photography and the fast moving action scenes. The sound is perfectly acceptable mono. Soundtrack options are the original Mandarin with English subtitles, or an English dub. Extras include the original English language theatrical trailer, Hong Kong Legends' own trailer, plus promos for further releases and a photo gallery. There is a detailed text biography and filmography of Jackie Chan, a biography of Yuen Woo Ping and a text interview with producer Ng See Yuen. Also included is a text biography of Hwang Jang Lee linked to a kicking showcase which is another short fight scene. Most of these features are identical to those on the Snake in the Eagle's Shadow DVD. --Gary S Dalkin
The explosively stylish, gripping saga of two rival moles that jolted the Hong Kong crime drama to new life is now available in one box set.The Hong Kong crime drama was jolted to new life with the release of the Infernal Affairs trilogy, a bracing, explosively stylish critical and commercial triumph that introduced a dazzling level of narrative and thematic complexity to the genre with its gripping saga of two rival moles-played by superstars TONY LEUNG CHIU-WAI (In the Mood for Love) and ANDY LAU TAK-WAH (As Tears Go By)- who navigate slippery moral choices as they move between the intersecting territories of Hong Kong's police force and its criminal underworld.Set during the uncertainty of the city-state's handover from Britain to China and steeped in Buddhist philosophy, these ingeniously crafted tales of self-deception and betrayal mirror Hong Kong's own fractured identity and the psychic schisms of life in a postcolonial purgatory.Infernal AffairsTwo of Hong Kong cinema's most iconic leading men, TONY LEUNG CHIU-WAI and ANDY LAU TAK-WAH, face off in the breath-taking thriller that revitalized the citystate's twenty-first-century film industry, launched a blockbuster franchise, and inspired Martin Scorsese's The Departed.The setup is diabolical in its simplicity: two undercover moles-a police officer (Leung) assigned to infiltrate a ruthless triad by posing as a gangster, and a gangster (Lau) who becomes a police officer in order to serve as a spy for the underworld-find themselves locked in a deadly game of cat and mouse, each racing against time to unmask the other. As the shifting loyalties, murky moral compromises, and deadly betrayals mount, Infernal Affairs raises haunting questions about what it means to live a double life, lost in a labyrinth of conflicting identities and allegiances.Infernal Affairs IIThe first of two sequels to follow in the wake of the massively successful Infernal Affairs softens the original's furious pulp punch in favour of something more sweeping, elegiac, and overtly political. Flashing back in time, Infernal Affairs II traces the tangled parallel histories that bind the trilogy's two pairs of adversaries: the young, duelling moles (here played by EDISON CHEN KOON-HEI and SHAWN YUE MAN-LOK), and the ascendant crime boss (ERIC TSANG CHI-WAI) and police inspector (ANTHONY WONG CHAU-SANG) whose respective rises reveal a shocking hidden connection.Unfolding against the political and psychological upheaval of Hong Kong's handover from Britain to China, this elegant, character-driven crime drama powerfully connects its themes of split loyalties to the city-state's own postcolonial identity crisis.Infernal Affairs IIITONY LEUNG CHIU-WAI and ANDY LAU TAK-WAH return for the cathartic conclusion of the Infernal Affairs trilogy, which layers on even more deep-cover intrigue while steering the series into increasingly complex psychological territory. Dancing back and forth in time to before and after the events of the original film, Infernal Affairs III follows triad gangster turned corrupt cop Lau Kin-ming (Lau) as he goes to dangerous lengths to avoid detection, matches wits with a devious rival in the force (LEON LAI), and finds himself haunted by the fate of his former undercover nemesis (Leung). A swirl of flashbacks, memories, and hallucinations culminates in a dreamlike merging of identities that drives home the trilogy's vision of a world in which traditional distinctions between good and evil have all but collapsed.Product FeaturesNew 4K digital restorations, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracksAudio commentaries for Infernal Affairs and Infernal Affairs II featuring codirectors Andrew Lau Wai-keung and Alan Mak and screenwriter Felix Chong Man-keungAlternate ending for Infernal AffairsNew interview with Lau and MakArchival interviews with Lau, Mak, Chong, and actors Andy Lau Tak-wah, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Anthony Wong Chau-sang, Kelly Chen Wai-lam, Edison Chen Koon-hei, Eric Tsang Chi-wai, and Chapman To Man-chakMaking-of programmesBehind-the-scenes footage, deleted scenes, and outtakesTrailersNew English subtitle translationsPLUS: An essay by film critic Justin Chang
Since bursting onto the martial arts film scene in 1973 Jackie Chan has become one of the world's most popular stars. His movies - which he acts in performs his own stunts for and often directs - have earned millions at the box office. In Fearless Hyena he plays a young man whose grandfather and teacher Master Chen escapes from the tyrannical Ching Dynasty and come to live in his village. Although Jackie wants to learn martial arts more than anything his grandfather won't permit this out of fear that the villainous Ching rulers will come after him. After seeing his grandfather murdered Jackie promises to get revenge. So he enlists the aid of Master Chen who teaches the young student kung fu. Soon the pupil has learned enough to make him invincible --even against the infamous death blows. Now Jackie sets out to avenge his grandfather's death.
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