Luxury Car ("Jiang cheng xia ri")

Director: Chao Wang

Starring: Yuan Tian, He Huang, Yiqung Li, Youcai Wu
Year: 2006

A country schoolteacher reaching retirement comes to Wuhan in search of his only son, whom his dying wife has requested to see one last time. He is met by his daughter Yanhong who works as an escort in a karaoke bar. Yanhong introduces him to a policeman who sympathizes with his plight and agrees to help him to find his son. The two quickly become friends, as they search for the missing son. Yanhong also presents her father to her boyfriend, the owner of the karaoke, an older man, who drives a luxury car. However when the four of them meet for dinner one night the old policeman recognizes the boyfriend as a man he arrested over ten years ago...

Comments: The film offers a glimpse in the dark side of the new China. Very nice performance by Yuan Tian (Yanhong), who infuses her character with tenderness and vulnerability..

Recommended.

The Ascent ("Voskhozhdeniye")

Director: Larissa Shepitko

Starring: Boris Plotnikov, Vladimir Gostyukhin, Anatoli Solonitsyn
Year: 1977

A band of starving Soviet partisans are wandering through the woods in Nazi-occupied territory during WWII. Two of the group are sent to a nearby village to find food only to be captured by the Nazis along with a peasant woman who tried to save them. Their subsequent interrogation and their ultimate fates reveal much about their souls.

Comments: This was Shepitko's last film before her premature death in a car accident at the age of 42. The movie was banned during the Soviet era, probably because of its heavy religious overtones. It is a Soviet version of the Passion Play, with Sotnikov (played by Boris Plotnikov) as a Jesus figure who is condemned to death by his Nazi-sympathizer interrogator (played by Solonitsyn), and Rybak as his Judas who betrays his comrades by agreeing to become a Nazi policeman in order to save his life. Aside from the incredible acting performances, the moral dilemma it raises, Shepitko's cinematography is intense from beginning to end.

Recommended.

White Night Wedding ("Brúðguminn")

Director: Baltazar Kormakur

Starring: Hilmer Guonason, Margret Vithjalmdotter
Year: 2008

On a remote island off the coast of Iceland, it is the day before his wedding as Jon (Guonason), a middle-aged professor prepares to marry one of his ex-students half his age. Jon is reticent bridegroom, having to contend with his cantankerous future mother-in-law who is obsessed over money she is owed by Jon from a failed business venture to build a golf course. Jon also must deal with his drunken best man who has lost his shoes and the memories of his failed marriage with his first wife from the same island. When the guests start arriving to the island, Jon starts getting cold feet. After a very long night of drinking and reflection, will Jon be able to make it to the church on time?

Comments: Based on Chekov's Ivanov. At times funny, bittersweet, and eccentric. The film;s setting is beautiful.

Recommended.

End of Summer ("Kohayagawa-ke no aki")

Director: Yasujiro Ozu

Starring: Ganjiro Nakamura, Setsuko Hara, Michiyo Aratma
Year: 1962

This is a very different film from Ozu's Tokyo Story. More playful, slightly less melodramatic yet just as peotic as the accepted masterpiece by Ozu. Set in Kyoto, Ganjiro Nakamura, a well known kabuki actor seen also in Floating Weeds, plays Manbei, the father of a family. Just as in many of Ozu's films, his main concern is the arrangement of his daughter's marriage. However, she is torn between appeasing her father and pursuing another man. Meanwhile, Setsuko Hara, his widowed daughter-in-law, is also encouraged to remarry a respectable gentleman but she finds that she has nothing in common with him. Through this simple premise, Ozu explores the conflict between the pressure of conformity and desire for modernisation in Japanese society. The humour of the film comes from Manbei's secret excursions to his lover's house. Nakamura's acting in these little episodes are a gem.

Comments: This is Ozu's second to last movie. Zhanna really liked it, while Steve thought is was somewhat disjointed and meandering compared to Ozu's other films. A small point in the film, the daughter of the central characters lover is a party girl who goes out with foreigners. This provide some interesting insight into the attitudes of post-war Japanese and Americans.

Recommended.

Lust, Caution ("Se, Jie")

Director: Ang Lee

Starring: Joan Chen, Wei Tang
Year: 2007

In China, during the Japanese occupation World War II, a young student named Wong Chia Chi (Chen) is recruited by her school's acting troupe who have joined the resistance against the Japanese. Wong agrees to be the central figure in the assassination of a brutal Japanese collaborator, Yee. The troupe creates an elaborate ruse in which Wong takes on the alias of a wife of a bourgeoisie to befriend Mr. Yee's wife, Yee Tai Tai. Wong eventually seduces Yee in order to kill him but becomes emotionally entangled.

Comments: Lushly shot, very sensual, and intense. Chen and Tang have amazing on-screen chemistry. You may not like all his films, but Ang Lee knows how to make a compelling film.

Recommended.