East Asian Film Class

Director: Hou Hsiao Hsien 

Screenwriter: Chu Tien Wen, Wu Nien Jen 

Tells the story of a family embroiled in the tragic "White Terror" that was brought on the Taiwanese people by the Kuomintang government (KMT) after their arrival from mainland China in the late 1940s, during which thousands of Taiwanese were rounded up, shot, and/or sent to prison. The film depicts the Lin family's experiences during the White Terror. The eldest brother Wen Heung is murdered by a Shanghai mafia boss, the middle brother Wen Leung suffers a traumatic brain injury in a KMT jailhouse, and the youngest brother Wen Ching, who is both deaf and mute, hopes to flee to the mountains with his friend to fight in the anti-KMT resistance movement. By the end of the film, even the photographer, Wen Ching, has been arrested by the authorities, leaving only his wife to tell the story of the family's destruction. Wen Ching's deafness began as an expedient to disguise Tony Leung's inability to speak Taiwanese (or Japanese—the language taught in Taiwan's schools during the 51-year occupation) but wound up being an effective means to demonstrate the brutal insensitivity of Chen Yi's ROC administration.

Screenwriter &  Director: Wong Kar Wai 

Wah is a low level gangster in Hong Kong who is constantly trying to keep his trouble making friend, Fly, alive. His cousin from the country, Ngor, comes to stay with him. They fall in love Wah is left torn between his loyalty to his friend and the new life he wants.  

 Screenwriter & Director: Imamura Shohei 

Screenwriter: Ishido Toshiro 

The story of the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing, based on Masuji Ibuse's novel.  

Screenwriter & Director: Lee Chang Dong

Screenwriter: Oh Jung Mi

Jong Su, a part-time worker, bumps into Hae Mi while delivering, who used to live in the same neighborhood. Hae Mi asks him to look after her cat while she's on a trip to Africa. When Hae Mi comes back, she introduces Ben, a mysterious guy she met in Africa, to Jong Su. One day, Ben visits Jong Su's with Hae Mi and confesses his own secret hobby.

Screenwriter & Director: Shinoda Masahiro

Screenwriter: Takemitsu Toru, Tomioka Taeko

In 18th Century in Japan, the paper merchant Jihei falls in love for the courtesan Koharu but he can not afford to redeem her from her master and owner of the brothel, since he spent all his money in the place with Koharu. Jihei's wife Osan tries to keep her husband with his two children and asks Koharu to leave him. The two lovers make a pact of double suicide to escape from the rigid rules of the Japanese society of 1720 and stay together after death.  

Screenwriter & Director: Bong Joon Ho

Screenwriter: Shim Sung Bo

In 1986, in the province of Gyunggi, in South Korea, a second young and beautiful woman is found dead, raped and tied and gagged with her underwear. Detective Park Doo Man and Detective Cho Yong Koo, two brutal and stupid local detectives without any technique, investigate the murder using brutality and torturing the suspects, without any practical result. Then Detective Seo Tae Yoon from Seoul comes to the country to help the investigations and is convinced that a serial killer is killing the women. When a third woman is found dead in the same "modus-operandi", the detectives find leads of the assassin.

Screenwriter & Director: Kurosawa Akira

Screenwriter: Hashimoto Shinobu

The film opens on a woodcutter and a priest sitting beneath the Rajomon city gate to stay dry in a downpour. A commoner joins them and they tell him that they have witnessed a disturbing story, which they then begin recounting to him. The woodcutter claims he found the body of a murdered samurai three days earlier while looking for wood in the forest; upon discovering the body, he says, he fled in a panic to notify the authorities. The priest says that he saw the samurai with his wife traveling the same day the murder happened. Both men were then summoned to testify in court, where they met the captured bandit Tajomaru, who claimed responsibility for killing the samurai and raping his wife.  

Director: Mizoguchi Kenji

Screenwriter: Yoda Yoshitaka

In mediaeval Japan a compassionate governor is sent into exile. His wife and children try to join him, but are separated, and the children grow up amid suffering and oppression.

 Screenwriter & Director: Jia Zhang Ke 

"Still Life" tells the story of two people in search for their spouses in the old village of Fengjie, a small town on the Yangtze River which is slowly being destroyed by the building of the Three Gorges Dam.

Screenwriter & Director: Itami Juzo 

Goro's supermarket is not doing well; the rival "Bargains Galore" threatens his business. A chance encounter with Hanako, an energetic woman he knew in grade school, results in big retail and life changes.

Screenwriter & Director: Park Chan Wook 

Screenwriter: Jung Seo Kyung 

During 1930s Korea, in the period of Japanese occupation, Sook Hee is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress, Hideko, who lives a secluded life on a large countryside estate with her domineering Uncle Kouzuki. But the maid has a secret. She is a pickpocket recruited by a swindler posing as a Japanese Count to help him seduce the Lady to elope with him, rob her of her fortune, and lock her up in a madhouse. The plan seems to proceed according to plan until Sook Hee and Hideko discover some unexpected emotions. 

Screenwriter & Director: Hou Hsiao Hsien

Screenwriter: Chu Tien Wen

Spanning the years 1947–65, the film follows the maturation of Ah Ha as he and his family (parents, grandmother, older sister, three brothers) cope with the shock of leaving their homeland (the grandmother keeps talking about returning to the mainland to visit the ancestors). Having been only a child during the move, Ah Ha quickly acclimatizes himself to the new country, often putting him at odds with his more traditional family; he joins a street gang and has to choose between that life and taking the college entrance exam.

Director: Zhang Yi Mou 

Screenwriter: Gu Xiao Bai, Yin Li Chuan 

Set during the end of China's Cultural Revolution in a small village in Yichang City, Hubei Province, a pure love unfolds between beautiful city girl, Jing Qiu, and handsome young villager, Lao San. Jing Qiu, who lived a difficult life due to her father being labelled a "right-winger", is sent to the village at the age of 16 and meets Lao San, who has a promising future due to his father's high ranking military background. Even with the divide between their social backgrounds, romance blooms between the young couple, but will their love ever become fulfilled?