Author Archives: rarefilm

Spider Lilies / Ci qing (2007) Zero Chou, Rainie Yang, Isabella Leong, Kris Shen, Drama, Romance

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Jade (Taiwanese singer Rainie Yang) is a cute, young webcam performer who thinks that getting a tattoo will enhance her sexy performance skills. Upon venturing out to the tattoo parlor owned by half-Japanese ink-slinger Takeko (Isabella Leong), Jade recalls a crush she harbored ten years ago. Subsequently entering into a surreal cyberspace seduction that emerges through computer images, flashbacks, and lavish costumes highlighted by lime-green wigs, Takeko finds the lines between reality and fantasy blurring as Jade’s teasing slowly chips away at her fragile facade.
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15 Years and One Day / 15 años y un día (2013) Gracia Querejeta, Tito Valverde, Maribel Verdú, Arón Piper, Drama

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Fourteen-year-old Jon is increasingly acting out. He gets expelled from school and then poisons a neighbor’s dog. His mother, a widow and a struggling actress, feels overwhelmed and sends him to the Alicante coast to live with his grandfather Max, a Bosnian War veteran and a strict disciplinarian. Jon and Max clash – no TV! – but the boy starts to adapt to his new environment and make new friends. Suddenly a shocking act of violence turns Jon’s life upside down; it’s left to Max to investigate who’s responsible.
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Le violon rouge / The Red Violin (1998) François Girard, Carlo Cecchi, Jean-Luc Bideau, Christoph Koncz, Drama, Romance, Mystery

Le violon rouge (Francois Girard, 1998)
Spans 300 years in the life of one famed musical instrument that winds up in present-day Montreal on the auction block. Crafted by the Italian master Bussotti (Cecchi) in 1681, the red violin derives its unusual color from the human blood mixed into the finish. With this legacy, the violin travels to Austria, England, China, and Canada, leaving both beauty and tragedy in its wake.
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Gothika (2003) Mathieu Kassovitz, Halle Berry, Penélope Cruz, Robert Downey Jr., Horror, Mystery, Thriller

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Dr. Miranda Grey is a psychiatrist who works in a penitentiary, in the mental institution sector. She is married with Dr. Douglas Grey, the chief of department where Dr. Pete Graham also works. Chloe Sava, a patient of Dr. Miranda formerly abused by her stepfather, claims that she is frequently raped by the devil in her cell. After leaving the asylum in a stormy night, Dr. Miranda has a car accident, and when she wakes up, she is an inmate of the institution, being accused of an horrible crime and having no memory of the incident.
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The Wraith (1986) Mike Marvin, Charlie Sheen, Nick Cassavetes, Sherilyn Fenn, Action, Horror, Romance

The Wraith (1986)
Packard Walsh and his motorized gang control and terrorize an Arizona desert town where they force drivers to drag-race so they can ‘win’ their vehicles. After Walsh stabs the decent teenager Jamie Hankins to death for being intimate with a girl whom Walsh wants for himself, the mysterious Jake Kesey arrives, an extremely cool motor-biker with an invincible car. Jake befriends Jamie’s girlfriend Keri Johnson, takes Jamie’s sweet brother Billy under his wing and manages what Sheriff Loomis can not – the methodical and otherworldly elimination of Packard’s criminal gang.
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Il dio serpente / The Snake God (1970) Piero Vivarelli, Nadia Cassini, Beryl Cunningham, Sergio Tramonti, Adventure, Drama, Horror

Il dio serpente (1970)
A beautiful Italian woman is told by her black friend about the Carribean love god Jambaya who appears in the form of the snake. By the end of the movie, Cassini has decided to give herself to Jambaya while Cunningham departs with her white friend’s ex-lover, establishing a neat symmetry between their respective fantasies of exoticism.
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Strange Cargo (1940) Frank Borzage, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Ian Hunter, Drama, Romance

Strange Cargo (Frank Borzage, 1940)
Verne wants nothing more than to escape from a penal colony located off the northern coast of South America. He tries to involve Julie, a saloon girl, in his plans but she turns him in to the authorities. On Verne’s next try, he piggybacks on the escape of six other convicts and runs into Julie again in the process. One of the convicts is a spiritual figure who seems to know what will happen before anyone else. The group attempts to travel through the jungle, board a boat, and make it to the mainland.
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