Easily one of the most important directors of 1970s Taiwan cinema, Tsun-Shou Sung daringly tells the story of adultery by a young mother. In the unusual scenario, a young boy witnesses his mother’s cheating ways and, after the death of his sick father, grows to despise her. When he’s adopted by another family, the road to reconciliation proves achingly difficult.
Tag Archives: Mandarin
Never Gone (2016) Zhou Tuo Ru, Kris Wu, Yifei Liu, Shijia Jin, Drama, Romance
The story started in high school. Su Yunjin (Liu Yifei) is a struggling transfer student from a regional town, while rich heir Cheng Zheng (Kris Wu) is the star student who sits behind her. He fell in love with her and started to pursue her all the way through college, even though they studied and lived in different cities. Cheng Zheng was ultimately successful in pursuing Su Yunjin, who willed herself to follow her heart for once, even though she knew there would be many obstacles in their way. Soon, they were basking in happiness, and subsequently moved in together after university. However, reality caught up with them two years after graduation. Their vastly different personalities and disparate family background meant their relationship was unequal from the very beginning – their unspoken expectations of each other and all the misunderstandings that came with a mundane lifestyle caused them to part ways with each other.[3] A few years later, both of them establish successful careers, and end up living in the same neighborhood, thus meeting and getting entangled in each other’s lives again. They both try to move on with different relationships, but are unsuccessful. When Su Yunjin loses her mother to cancer, Cheng Zheng is the only one to comfort her, causing the former to rekindle their relationship.
Youth Never Returns / Ji ran qing chun liu bu zhu (2015) Meng Tian, Han Chang, Joe Chen, Xiaofan Lin, Romance
Youth Never Returns is a 2015 Chinese romantic comedy film directed by Tian Meng and produced by Manfred Wong, and starring Hans Zhang and Joe Chen. The film is an adaptation of Gu Wei’s novel of the same name.
Brothers (2016) Peter Ho, War, Action, Drama
The film centers on the relationship between two brothers who used to have a bond for life but it is ripped apart through a civil war in 1936.
Huang tu di / Yellow Earth (1984) Kaige Chen, Xueqi Wang, Bai Xue, Quiang Liu, Drama, Music
‘Yellow Earth’ focuses on the story of a communist soldier who is sent to the countryside to collect folk songs for the Communist Revolution. There he stays with a peasant family and learns that the happy songs he was sent to collect do not exist; the songs he finds are about hardship and suffering. He returns to the army, but promises to come back for the young girl, Cuiqiao, who has been spell-bound by his talk of the freedom women have under communist rule and who wants to join the Communist Army.
Farewell My Concubine (1993) Kaige Chen, Leslie Cheung, Fengyi Zhang, Li Gong, Drama, Romance, Music
In 1924, young Cheng Dieyi (Leslie Cheung) begins training at the Beijing Opera House at the same time as Duan Xiaolou (Fengyi Zhang). Cheng specializes in playing female parts, often against Duan’s commanding male leads. While pretending to be in love with Duan onstage, Cheng begins to develop actual romantic feelings for his co-star, which are not reciprocated. Over the next 50 years, the two men maintain a complicated friendship as China undergoes turbulent changes.
Song hua jiang shang / Along the Sungari River (1947) Shan Jin, Drama
Unfortunate events beset a poor Chinese girl as she escapes from invading Japanese forces, narrowly avoids being raped, and seeks solace in a neighboring village.
Du bei dao / The One-Armed Swordsman (1967) Cheh Chang, Yu Wang, Chiao Chiao, Chung-Hsin Huang, Action, Drama
An evil gang attacks the Chi school of Golden Sword Kung Fu. One student sacrifices his life to save his teacher and his school, his dying wish is that his son be taken in as a student. Young Fang Kang grows up in the school and treasures his father’s broken sword and the memory of his father’s sacrifice. The other students (including the teacher’s daughter) resent him and try to drive him away. The teacher’s daughter challenges him to a fight and when he refuses she becomes enraged and recklessly chops off his arm! He retreats, broken and bloody, and is found by a young poor girl living alone who nurses him back to health. Meanwhile, the evil gang who originally attacked the Golden Sword school develops a weapon that renders the Golden Sword useless and starts killing off all of the schools students. Fang Kang eventually recovers with the girl’s help but must now face a life with only one arm. Will he be able to recover and live to defend the school as his father did?
Hunting List / Tao se zhui qi sha (1994) Yen-Ping Chu, Ray Lui, Shu-fang Lu, Vivian Hsu, Action
Chu Chi Kit returns to HK from Taiwan after many years in hiding, and immediately resumes his relationship with old flame May and rejoins his old friend Cramp in a drug operation. But times are different, and their big boss Lui now cares more about business than loyalty.