In France during World War II, a poor and illiterate man, Henri Fortin, is introduced to Victor Hugo’s classic novel Les Misérables and begins to see parallels between the book and his own life.
Tag: 1990s
Weary of her very public life in Paris, an aging courtesan takes her orphaned niece from her convent home and relocates to Monte Carlo to begin a new life. Determined to bury the past, the courtesan Madame Bluet becomes the respectable Countess de Secret, and her niece Mistral, Mademoiselle Phantome. Soon, the secretive Countess and the beautiful Mlle. Phantome are the talk of Monte Carlo. Mistral finds herself surrounded by admirers – some with less than honorable intentions, while her aunt plots a long-awaited revenge. Will Mistral’s chance for happiness be destroyed when her aunt’s plot and past are revealed?
The childhood and early adulthood of Li Tien-lu, an 84-year-old Taiwanese puppet master, comes to life using a combination of documentary technique and elegant dramatization, while the real Li functions as on-and-off-screen narrator, as the film travels from 1908 to 1945.
The European Upper Crust meets the Taiwan Underworld in this convoluted comic action thriller. Winston Cheng is a prominent businessman who has somehow managed to fall deep into debt to organized crime leaders in Taipai, to the tune of $100 million. When it becomes clear that the gangsters are tired of waiting for their money, Cheng goes underground, just as two mob enforcers are sent out to find him. Cheng’s son — who calls himself Red Fish — is the leader of a street gang; the gunmen start following Red Fish and his partners in crime — Hong Kong, Lun Lun, and Little Buddha — in hopes that the son will lead them to the father.
Joe Lieberman is attracted to Shaleen. They begin a professional relationship, which continues even after Joe develops a romantic interest in a woman named Kate, who is married.
Tragic love story about the photographer and explorer Felice Beato who travelled back to Japan in 1895 to seek his former wife O-Kiku. On the way he describes in a nostalgic letter to his brother how much he yearns for his lost love O-Kiku and how impotent he feels in an ancient Japan subject to rapid change.
Ukrainian filmmaker Kira Muratova offers a darkly comical look at everyday cruelty in these three savage tales. The first, “Boiler Room No. 6” is based on a story by Yevgeny Golubenko and takes place with in a blue-tinted boiler room where a panic-stricken resident of a communal apartment has dragged the body of his neighbor, a young woman he killed over an argument about a bar of soap. The nearly surreal “Ophelia,” the second story, centers on the vengeance of the title woman, a blonde beauty who works in a maternity hospital. The third vignette, “The Maiden and Death” follows a winsome little girl who tires of being constantly admonished by her well-meaning, but wearisome, paralyzed grandfather.
This an intensely moving story of young love set in 1918 rural Ireland. We see how three generations of the same family are shattered by the Anglo-Irish conflict. ‘Fools of Fortune’ takes place on the huge estate of the Quintons. Sheltered from the economic and political travails all around them, they are shocked into the real world when one of their workers is ritualistically murdered. Previously noncommittal, the family is thrust into the middle of the struggle. After a deadly confrontation in which most of his loved ones are killed, young Willie vows revenge and embarks on a journey of political intrigue, love and self exile.