Defying his parents, Hsiao Kang drops out of the local crammer to head for the bright lights of downtown Taipei. He falls in with Ah Tze, a pretty hood and their relationships is a confused mixture of hero-worship and rivalry that soon leads to trouble.
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Crime
After Hours (1985) Martin Scorsese, Griffin Dunne, Rosanna Arquette, Verna Bloom, Comedy, Crime, Drama
A meek word processor impulsively travels to Manhattan’s Soho District to date an attractive but apparently disturbed young woman and finds himself trapped there in a nightmarishly surreal vortex of improbable coincidences and farcical circumstances.
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Adams æbler / Adam’s Apples (2005) Anders Thomas Jensen, Ulrich Thomsen, Mads Mikkelsen, Nicolas Bro, Comedy, Crime, Drama
Ivan is a priest in a rural church known for the apples that grow on a large tree in front. He’s odd: seeing the world through rose-colored glasses, in denial about personal facts, and convinced he’s at war with Satan. The rectory is a half-way house for recently paroled convicts. Adam arrives for 12 weeks, a large, tough neo-Nazi, first baffled by Ivan’s thick-headed optimism, then angry. He vows to break Ivan’s faith. Meanwhile, in exasperation at Ivan’s insistence, Adam sets a personal goal: to bake an apple pie. All goes awry for the tree: crows, worms, lightening. The Book of Job gives Adam perverse insight, and his hooligan mates provide the resolution’s spring.
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Big Jim McLain (1952) Edward Ludwig, John Wayne, Nancy Olson, James Arness, Crime, Drama, History
House Un-American Activities Committee investigators Jim McLain and Mal Baxter come to Hawaii to track Communist Party activities. They are interested in everything from insurance fraud to the sabotage of a U.S. naval vessel.
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Oedipus orca (1977) Eriprando Visconti, Rena Niehaus, Gabriele Ferzetti, Carmen Scarpitta, Crime, Drama, Thriller, Erotic
Alice is brought back to her family after she is rescued from the men that kidnap her, but her nightmare is far from over since she continues to have constant flashbacks of her ordeal. She resents her parents because she believes they wouldn’t pay for her ransom, since that is what she heard her captors say through a wall when she was kidnapped. Coming back to normal life is not easy for her because she has to deal with her parents, her boyfriend, and mix feelings she had for one of the captors that she had sex with in order to survive.
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Dillinger (1945) Max Nosseck, Lawrence Tierney, Edmund Lowe, Anne Jeffreys, Biography, Crime, Drama
The rise of John Dillinger from petty criminal (including, unforgivably, holding up a cinema) via prison and bank robbery with his new convict associates to the accolade of Public Enemy Number One.
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The Testament of Dr. Mabuse / Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (1933) Fritz Lang, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Otto Wernicke, Gustav Diessl, Crime
After a detective is assaulted by thugs and placed in an asylum run by Professor Baum (Oscar Beregi), he observes the professor’s preoccupation with another patient, the criminal genius Dr. Mabuse the hypnotist (Rudolf Klein-Rogge). When Mabuse’s notes are found to be connected with a rash of recent crimes, Commissioner Lohmann (Otto Wernicke) must determine how Mabuse is communicating with the criminals, despite conflicting reports on the doctor’s whereabouts, and capture him for good.
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Calling Bulldog Drummond (1951) Victor Saville, Walter Pidgeon, Margaret Leighton, Robert Beatty, Crime, Mystery
All the various Bulldog Drummond movie series had run their courses by 1951; nonetheless, MGM decided to revive the property (and simultaneously liquidate some “frozen funds”) with the British-filmed Calling Bulldog Drummond. Walter Pidgeon stars as novelist Sapper’s soldier-of-fortune, here retooled as a respectable retired military officer. Summoned to London by Scotland Yard, Drummond is assigned to break up a dangerous criminal gang. He is aided by female undercover officer Helen Smith (Margaret Leighton), who turns out to be not much help at all. Trapped in a bombed-out building and surrounded by hulking henchmen, Drummond seems to have run out of luck. Some of the film’s brightest moments are provided by David Tomlinson as a traditional “silly ass” type who is lot smarter than he seems. Bernard Lee, the future “M” in the James Bond films of the 1960s, appears as a secondary villain.
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Irréversible / Irreversible (2002) Gaspar Noé, Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel, Albert Dupontel, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Romance, Thriller
Events over the course of one traumatic night in Paris unfold in reverse-chronological order as the beautiful Alex is brutally raped and beaten by a stranger in the underpass.
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48 Hrs. (1982) Walter Hill, Nick Nolte, Eddie Murphy, Annette O’Toole, Action, Comedy, Crime
Oddball cop and tough guy, Jack Cates is the only survivor of a cop shooting and in hunting down the murderer collects Reggie Hammond from jail for 48 hours. Hammond is oddly motivated to help. The killer is searching for his stash of cash. Cates and Hammond who have the Black-white, cop-crook thing to work out make surprisingly good partners as they navigate through the city looking for their suspect.
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