Bleak Night / Pasookkoon (2010)
Drama
A distraught, heartbroken father makes grueling attempts to understand the forces that prompted his son to take his life.
Starring: Sung Ha Jo, Je-hoon Lee, Jun-Young Seo, Jung-Min Park
Director: Sung-Hyun Yoon
Swing Girls / Suwingu gâruzu (2004)
Comedy | Drama | Music
Get ready to swing! From the makers of 'Shall We Dance?' and 'Waterboys' comes 'Swing Girls', an inspirational zero-to-hero tale about a group of girls who find their rhythm – and then some! Tomoko (Ueno Juri) leads a group of bored girls stuck in remedial summer math class, who decide to ditch their boring teacher (Takenaka Naoto) to deliver lunches to the school brass band. But the girls' extreme laziness causes the lunches to spoil, and soon nearly the entire brass band gets sick. The remaining member is Takuo (Hiraoka Yuto), who recruits Tomoko's classmate Sekiguchi (Motokariya Yuika) into the band, even though Sekiguchi's musical talents are entirely in question. But Tomoko and the other girls soon follow, partly to get out of math class, and partly because it's their fault that the entire band got sick in the first place! But there's a catch: nobody knows how to play a wind or brass instrument, much to the dismay of Takuo, who proposes that the girls play swing band jazz – and take their act all the way to a battle-of-the-bands finale! Will the girls find a way to swing like tested jazz musicians, or will they discover that maybe math isn't so bad?
Starring: Juri Ueno, Yûta Hiraoka, Shihori Kanjiya, Yuika Motokariya, Yukari Toyoshima, Naoto Takenaka
Director: Shinobu Yaguchi
Bugmaster / Mushishi (2006)
Fantasy | Horror | Mystery
Ginko, a Mushi-shi has always been attuned to the Mushi, creatures close to life itself and able to affect and alter their surroundings. He cannot stay in one place for too long so he wanders, helping the inhabitants of rural Japan understand the Mushi around them and how to coexist peacefully.
Starring: Jô Odagiri, Nao Ômori, Yû Aoi, Lily, Makiko Kuno, Reia Moriyama, Hideyuki Inada
Director: Katsuhiro Ohtomo
Veer-Zaara / Veer Zaara (2004)
Drama | Musical | Romance
Veer Pratap Singh (Shah Rukh Khan) is an officer and pilot in the Indian Air Force who one day meets a beautiful Pakistani heiress, Zaara Hayaat Khan (Preity Zinta), as she travels to a small Indian village to scatter the ashes of one of her family's loyal servants. Veer has family in the village, and while most Indians show no affection for Pakistanis, his aunt and uncle are willing to take Zaara in for the night. It isn't long before Veer finds himself falling for her; however, Veer learns that Zaara is engaged to another man, Raza (Manoj Bajpai), a cruel and humorless Pakistani. A friend of Zaara contacts Veer and tells him that Zaara wants out of her engagement and has strong feelings for him, but when he comes to her rescue, matters take a turn for the worse and Veer winds up in jail. Twenty years later…
Starring: Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta, Rani Mukerji, Kiron Kher, Divya Dutta, Boman Irani, Anupam Kher
Director: Yash Chopra
Cold Eyes / Gam-si-ja-deul (2013)
Action | Crime
Based on the 2007 Hong Kong crime thriller Eye In The Sky, the South Korean remake closely follows the original's compelling premise of a surveillance unit tracking down a leader of an armed criminal organisation in the heart of a large city, but it's also technically superior in its use of dazzling cinematography topped with a good eye for exploiting Seoul's urban landscape along with a smartly chosen cast that arms Cold Eyes with a great deal of caliber and vibrance making it a highly accomplished thriller.
Starring: Hyo-ju Han, Woo-sung Jung, Jun-Ho Lee, Kyung-gu Sol, Simon Yam
Director: Ui-seok Jo, Byung-seo Kim
For Those We Love / Ore wa, kimi no tame ni koso shini ni iku (2007)
War
In 1943, as Japan's WWII effort falters, a vice-admiral proposes training squadrons of "volunteer" flyers to crash their armed planes into Allied warships. Story follows the lives of kamikaze pilots, as remembered by an aging Kyushu restaurateur who cherishes their memory.
Starring: Satoshi Tokushige, Yôsuke Kubozuka, Michitaka Tsutsui, Keiko Kishi, Mikako Tabe, Yasuyuki Maekawa, Tomoya Nakamura, Dai Watanabe
Director: Taku Shinjo
Murderer / Saat yan faan (2009)
Crime | Drama | Mystery
A Hong Kong-set mystery centered on a detective who has been framed for a series of gruesome murders.
Starring: Aaron Kwok, Chun-Ning Chang, Siu-Fai Cheung, Kuan Tai Chen, Kar Lok Chin, You-Nam Wong, Josie Ho
Director: Chow Hin Yeung
Only specific members can view this post! Check the TIPS4U page to find more details.
The Rooftop / Tian tai ai qing (2013)
Action | Comedy | Drama | Musical | Thriller
Gao and his friends are the happiest kids in the city of Galilee. Living on the rooftops of this bustling metropolis*sometimes life can be tough*but they still churn out songs all day*and dance under the stars at night. But when Gao meets his dream girl*a billboard beauty named Sian*fate takes him on a wild ride through the high and low parts of the town he loves
Starring: Jay Chou, Alan Ko, Eric Tsang, Fan Xu, Xueqi Wang, Hsin Ai Lee, Kenny Bee
Director: Jay Chou
The Raccoon War / Pom Poko / Heisei tanuki gassen ponpoko (1994)
Animation | Comedy | Drama | Fantasy
Faced with the destruction of their habitat due to the growth of Tokyo, a group of tanuki try to defend their homes. They decide to use their transforming talents to try to hold back the new development. Two of them, especially skilled at transforming, are sent to Shikoku to enlist the help of three sages. Meanwhile, the rest of them do their best to disrupt the construction site, at first causing accidents, and then actually haunting the site. However, the humans are very persistent, and soon the tanuki are forced to use more and more extreme measures to save their home.
Starring: Shinchô Kokontei, Makoto Nonomura, Yuriko Ishida, Norihei Miki, Nijiko Kiyokawa, Shigeru Izumiya, Gannosuke Ashiya
Director: Isao Takahata
Bhaag Milkha Bhaag / B.M.B / Run Milkha Run (2013)
Biography | Drama | History | Sport
The true story of the "Flying Sikh" – world champion runner and Olympian 'Milkha Singh' — who overcame the massacre of his family, civil war during the India-Pakistan partition, and homelessness to become one of India's most iconic athletes.
Starring: Farhan Akhtar, Sonam Kapoor, Pavan Malhotra, Art Malik
Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
Singam 2 (2013)
Action | Thriller
Picking up the storyline from where Singam ended, Duraisingam (Suriya) has gone undercover after meeting the Home Minister and is working as an NCC officer in a school in Thoothukudi. Sathya (Hansika Motwani) is a student who falls for Duraisingam though he is waiting to marry Kavya (Anushka Shetty), his love interest from the previous film. Susai (Santhanam), a local who works in the same school shows Duraisingam parts of Thoothukudi and also tells him about the rouge elements dominating the area helping him in his surveillance. Bhai (Mukesh Rishi) and Thangaraj, are two criminals who control the area.How Singam handles Bhai and Thangaraj to capture the International convict Danny forms the crux of the story.
Starring: Suriya, Anushka Shetty, Hansika Motwani, Vivek, Santhanam, Radha Ravi
Director: Hari
Hospitality Department / Kenchô omotenashi ka (2013)
Comedy
Set within the hospitality division of the Koichi Prefecuture, employees attempt to find new ideas to promote tourism in the region. The hospitality division in Koichi Prefecture can't promote the beautiful nature in the area due to a strict rule by the prefecture government. Popular writer and Koichi area native Kyosuke Yoshikado (Kengo Kora) is appointed as a special envoy for tourism in the area. He then receives a recommendation to meet Seien, a former employee of Koichi Prefecture, who once hatched an unusual idea to promote tourism. Seien pushed forward a project to import pandas into the area, but lost his job because of that project. Meanwhile, hospitality division employees Fumitaka (Ryo Nishikido) and Taki (Maki Horikita) visits the tourist house which is run by Seien and his daughter (Megumi Seki). When they arrive, the daughter throws a bucket of water at them, still angry for the way her father was dismissed from his job. From there, a plan for the hospitality division is born.
Starring: Maki Horikita, Kengo Kôra, Ryô Nishikido, Megumi Seki
Director: Yoshishige Miyake
Unbeatable / Ji Zhan (2013)
Action | Drama | Sport
After a stint in prison for participating in underground boxing, Fai is knee-deep in debt with no solution in sight. To escape his debtors, he flees to Macau and works as a gym assistant. He meets and ends up training Si-Qi, a hot-blooded young man who enrolled in an open MMA competition with no fighting experience. After a series of wins, Si-Qi is critically injured and eliminated from the tournament. Ignited by Si-Qi's persistence and unwillingness to give up in the face of defeat, he rediscovers his will to fight and steps back in the ring against the fighter who injured his student. How far will Fai’s resurrected fighting spirit take his 48-year-old body?
Starring: Singh Hartihan Bitto, Nick Cheung, Feier Li, Ting Mei, Andy On, Eddie Peng, Fatih Ugurlu
Director: Dante Lam
Only specific members can view this post! Check the TIPS4U page to find more details.
Like Someone in Love / The End (2012)
Drama
Celebrated Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami takes the helm for this richly textured Japanese drama. Akiko (Rin Takanashi) is a young woman living and studying in Tokyo who is also moonlighting as a prostitute to make ends meet. When she meets her latest client, the shy and timid old man Takashi (Tadashi Okuno), she is surprised to find out he is merely lonely and has no interest in having sex. The two share a meal and the next morning Takashi takes Akiko to school. When an unexpected run-in with Akiko's boyfriend Noriaki (Ryo Kase) causes Takashi to lie and say he is her grandfather, it begins a relationship between the three which is based on lies but holds something much more meaningful.
Starring: Tadashi Okuno, Rin Takanashi, Ryô Kase, Denden, Reiko Mori, Kaneko Kubota
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Il Mare / Siworae (2000)
Drama | Fantasy | Romance
A man and a woman discovers that they can exchange letters through time via a particular mailbox, forming a bond separated by a span of two years.
Starring: Jung-Jae Lee, Gianna Jun
Director: Hyun-seung Lee
Oki's Movie / Ok-hui-ui yeonghwa (2010)
Comedy | Drama
A love story between a middle aged professor, a young female student who prepares a movie and a student/filmmaker who drinks too much.
Starring: Yu-mi Jeong, Seon-gyun Lee, Seong-kun Mun
Director: Sang-soo Hong
Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors / Oh! Soo-jung (2000)
Comedy | Drama | Romance
A young man arrives at a hotel for an assignation; she calls to say she's not coming. He is Jae-hoon, she is Soo-jung; they've met through Young-soo, an independent filmmaker. Soo-jung writes for Young-soo; Jae-hoon may finance his film project. From varying points of view in two long parallel flashbacks, we see what precedes the hotel date. Details differ, and each account includes events missing from the other. Characters are quiet and self-contained, then animated; victims apologize. Each character frequently asks, "Really?" What has really happened? Is one account more accurate? Is a kiss the most enjoyable and promising human contact? Connections are tenuous and fragile.
Starring: Eun-ju Lee, Seong-kun Mun
Director: Sang-soo Hong
Long Arm of the Law II / Saang gong kei bing II (1987)
Action | Crime | Thriller
Three cops are sent into Hong Kong posing as illegal immegrants. Their mission is to infiltrate the Mainland Chinese criminal syndicate. With the help of a local informer, the trio manage to achieve their goals. After he is brutally murdered, they are given the chance to join a planned bank robbery. When their true identites are revealed, the three men find themselves in danger from both the outlaws and the police.
Starring: Alex Man, Elvis Tsui, Ben Lam, Yat Chor Yuen, Pauline Wong
Director: Michael Mak
Long Arm of the Law / Sheng gang qi bing (1984)
Action | Crime
An ultra-violent and ultra-gritty tale of desperate Chinese would-be jewel thieves hoping to make a quick, effortless score in Hong Kong. Naturally, things go afoul, and the gang must hide out until the heat dies down, besmirched with the blood of an undercover cop. A progenitor of sorts of both "City on Fire" and "Reservoir Dogs," but lacking the romantic melodrama of the former and the hipster staginess of the latter. Winner of Hong Kong Film Awards for both Best Film and Best Director. Spawned a franchise with three sequels.
Starring: Jing Chen, Jian Huang, Lung Jiang, Ben Lam, Wai Lam
Director: Johnny Mak
Double Agent / Ijung gancheob (2003)
Action | Thriller
A North Korean diplomat defects to the South during the Dold War, but the South Koreans have their suspicions as to whether he is an actual defector or a double agent.
Starring: Suk-kyu Han, So-young Ko, Chun Ho-jin, Jae-ho Song, Jirí Novotný
Director: Hyeon-jeong Kim
