"Actor: Lei Liu"

• Seven Swords | DVD | (29/05/2006) from £3.98   |  Saving you £16.01 (402.26%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Seven unlikely heroes band together to battle oppression in this epic tale from China.

• Beijing Bicycle | DVD | (18/11/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Beijing Bicycle kicks off like an updated Chinese reworking of the 1948 Italian neo-realist classic Bicycle Thieves: a worker, dependent on his bike for his job, has it stolen and doggedly sets out to get it back. But pretty soon Wang Xiaoshuai's film mutates into something more elemental: a battle of wills between peasant lad Guei, original owner of the bike, and Jian, a surly urban schoolkid who claims to have bought it second-hand. For both the bike is status: for Guei it secures him his job as a courier, while for Jian it lets him keep up with his peers and chat up the girl he fancies. Each sees himself as the rightful owner and neither will give way, so the bike swaps hands back and forth, stolen and re-stolen, as the duel waxes increasingly personal. There's a diverting subplot about a beautiful, stylishly dressed girl glimpsed by Guei who turns out be something other than she seems, but essentially the battle over the bike is the meat of the film. The fascination of Beijing Bicycle--perhaps especially for non-Chinese viewers--is its portrait of present-day Beijing as a buzzing, high-pressure, neo-capitalist boomtown, impersonal and seemingly as lawless as any Wild West frontier burg. At no point, in all the thefts and counter-thefts and mounting violence, does anyone think to call the police--everyone is left to fight his own battles. Wang, one can't help suspecting, is slipping in a hint of social criticism in this vision of an uncaring society where possessions are all that matter. On the DVD: Beijing Bicycle on disc has the original theatrical trailer (the French version, oddly enough), filmographies for the director and four of his lead actors, notes on the film by Nick Bradshaw and trailers for other Metro Tartan foreign-language DVD releases. The transfer's in the full anamorphic widescreen of the original, with good Dolby Digital sound. --Philip Kemp

• The Road Home | DVD | (16/04/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The latest film by Chinese director Zhang Yimou, The Road Home (1999) is a story of past and present. In black and white we see a young businessman return to a rural village where his father has died. His mother wants a traditional funeral, which involves carrying the coffin several miles in the depths of winter. Then, in flashback and brilliant colour, we are told the story of his parents' courtship. His father had come as the local schoolteacher and had fallen in love with his mother, a local girl. Political complications ensue and they are separated for two years, but at last reunited. This apparently simply tale is told with great insight and dazzlingly beautiful camerawork, in a style which echoes the Italian neo-realist films of the 1940s. Perhaps it doesn't have the complexity of the director's earlier film, Raise the Red Lantern (1991), which starred the luminous Gong Li, but The Road Home has her match in Zhang Ziyi, who also starred in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). On the DVD: The quality of the sound and picture (in 2.35:1 ratio) are excellent. There are no additional features except for subtitles in English and 15 other languages. --Ed Buscombe

• White Dragon | DVD | (13/03/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Its power cannot be stopped. In the vein of House of Flying Daggers this martial arts film is action-packed with stylized martial arts scenes and beautiful actors - Cecilia Cheung is something to behold! A young noblewoman falls in love with a prince of the Imperial House. By accident she acquires the martial arts skills of the White Dragon. New in her power she learns that there are definite advantages in performing ""good deeds"" as the Little White Dragon. When she

• Love Kills | DVD | (12/10/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Deceipt and treachery about inside the walls of the magnificent Heiss family mansion. Evelyn Heiss a recently widowed gold-digging trophy wife has fallen for her smooth-talking younger new age masseur Poe Finklestein. Poe is a striking hunk who massages his way first into Evelyn's affections and soon after her bed. The rest of her family are a source of constant irritation as they await with increasing anticipation the reading of the will. The eccentric Heiss family are heirs to a European dynasty with its fabulous wealth and jewels worth millions. What they hadn't counted on is the underbelly of Hollywood who have their own plans for the Heiss family fortune...