Yimou Zhang

Desperate to marry, the unemployed bachelor Zhao lies about being a wealthy hotel owner to his demanding fiancée, compelling him to create elaborate schemes, including running a makeshift "Happy Times Hut" in an abandoned bus. The deception deepens when his fiancée asks him to employ her blind stepdaughter, Wu Ying, whom she mistreats. Zhao and his friends construct a fake massage parlor in a dilapidated warehouse, with the men posing as customers to give Wu Ying a purpose and salary. Despite the entire scenario being a lie, a genuine and profoundly touching bond develops between the lonely man and the trusting girl, forming a bittersweet exploration of kindness, deception, and the universal search for happiness amid modern China's economic uncertainty.

The time: two thousand years ago. The place: the violent dawn of the Qin dynasty. The story: the soon-to-be First Emperor of China is on the brink of conquering a war-torn land. Three opponents are determined to assassinate him and one loyal subject stands in their way. (Miramax)

Set in 859 AD during the waning days of the Tang Dynasty, two government captains, Leo and Jin, devise a scheme to locate the headquarters of a powerful rebel group known as the House of Flying Daggers. They arrest Mei, a beautiful blind dancer suspected of being the rebel leader's daughter, and send Jin undercover to "rescue" her, hoping she will lead him to the rebel base. However, as Jin and Mei journey across the stunning Chinese landscape, their fabricated romance turns real, complicating Jin's duty. The plan quickly unravels into a devastating web of secrets, hidden identities, and triple-crosses, culminating in a tragic, snowbound duel driven by duty, obsession, and the devastating consequences of a love triangle.

In a remote mountain village, the teacher must leave for a month, and the mayor can find only a 13-year old girl, Wei Minzhi, to substitute. The teacher leaves one stick of chalk for each day and promises her an extra 10 yuan if there's not one less student when he returns. Within days, poverty forces the class troublemaker, Zhang Huike, to leave for the city to work. Minzhi, possessed of a stubborn streak, determines to bring him back... (imdb)

The story of a Chinese man who works in the city, far from the village where he was born. When his father dies he comes home for the funeral and spends three days with his mother, thinking back to the period in which his parents met and fell in love. (Sony Pictures Classics)

A woman married to the brutal and infertile owner of a dye mill in rural China conceives a boy with her husband's nephew but is forced to raise her son as her husband's heir without revealing his parentage in this circular tragedy. (imdb)

In 1920s China, a young educated woman is forced to become the Fourth Mistress to a wealthy, unseen lord, moving into his vast compound. Her life and status are governed by a brutal ritual: every night, the red lanterns are lit at the house of the wife the master chooses to visit, fueling a desperate and jealous competition among the women. She attempts to gain an advantage through deception, faking a pregnancy to secure favor, but her scheming leads to devastating betrayals, the death of a rival, and her own descent into madness, ensuring the oppressive, cyclical system remains unbroken as a new wife arrives.

A heavily pregnant peasant woman named Qiu Ju is driven by a tenacious quest for justice after the head of her rural village insults and physically assaults her husband. Refusing to accept simple monetary compensation, Qiu Ju travels repeatedly, moving from her small village to the county town and eventually to the big city, appealing to ever-higher levels of the Chinese bureaucracy to secure a formal apology.

A decades-spanning epic tracing the tumultuous lives of Fugui and his wife, Jiazhen, as their personal fortunes are repeatedly devastated by the grand political upheavals of 20th-century China. Starting as a wealthy gambler who loses his family's fortune, Fugui and Jiazhen are stripped of their wealth and status, forcing them to survive as shadow puppet performers through the Chinese Civil War, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution, clinging to their family and the simple, resolute desire "to live" amidst constant tragedy.

An emotionally distant, elderly Japanese fisherman, Gou-ichi Takata, travels to remote Yunnan, China, in a desperate attempt to reconcile with his estranged, terminally ill son. His mission is to film a renowned performer of the traditional Nuo opera for his son's unfinished documentary. Confronted by language barriers and bureaucracy, Gou-ichi's initial quest to film the imprisoned singer evolves into a personal journey when he tries to reunite the performer with his own young, long-lost son, ultimately discovering what it means to be a compassionate father.

An old leper who owned a remote sorghum winery dies. Jiu'er, the wife bought by the leper, and her lover, identified only as "my Grandpa" by the narrator, take over the winery and set up an idealized quasi-matriarchal community headed by Jiu'er (imdb)

During China's Tang dynasty the emperor has taken the princess of a neighboring province as wife. She has borne him two sons and raised his eldest. Now his control over his dominion is complete, including the royal family itself. (imdb)

Set over a tumultuous seven days in 1930s Shanghai, the story is seen through the eyes of Shuisheng, a naive 14-year-old boy from the countryside who is brought to the city to serve as an attendant to Xiao Jinbao, the glamorous but volatile mistress and nightclub singer of a powerful Triad boss. Shuisheng witnesses the opulence, betrayal, and violence of the criminal underworld firsthand. After a gang attack forces the boss and his entourage to retreat to a secluded island, Shuisheng stumbles upon a conspiracy involving Jinbao and the boss's right-hand man, leading to a brutal power shift and a shocking, tragic fate for those caught in the Triad's merciless hierarchy.

China, the 1990s. A young bookseller is in love with a woman. The woman is now with another guy, a rich man. The rich man sends his people to beat the bookseller. In the fight, the laptop computer from a man looking at the scene gets broken. Who will pay for the computer? The bookseller wants revenge. Will it be useful? The bookseller and the laptop owner are from different ages and classes. They are two different points of view, two different Chinas. How will they fight for justice? (imdb)

The owner of a Chinese noodle shop's scheme to murder his adulterous wife and her lover goes awry.

Romance sparks between a young woman and a young man from different economic backgrounds during China's Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and '70s. (imdb)

A Westerner finds refuge with a group of women in a church during Japan's raid of Nanking in 1937. Posing as a priest, he attempts to lead the women to safety. (imdb)

Set against the end of China's Cultural Revolution, a devoted professor, Lu Yanshi, is finally released from a labor camp after decades of imprisonment and returns home, only to find his beloved wife, Feng Wanyu, suffers from trauma-induced amnesia. Though she patiently awaits the "return" of her husband, she no longer recognizes the man standing before her. Lu dedicates himself to remaining near her, devising tender strategies—such as reading his own past letters aloud as a mysterious, kindly stranger—in a heartbreaking effort to reawaken her memory and resurrect their lost life together.

European mercenaries searching for black powder become embroiled in the defense of the Great Wall of China against a horde of monstrous creatures

In a kingdom engaged in a political and martial struggle, a gravely injured military Commander devises a complex, treasonous plan involving his wife and a peasant look-alike known only as "The Shadow." Trained from a young age to deceive the court, the Shadow must now impersonate the Commander to challenge a rival general to a duel, setting the stage for a spectacular battle in the pouring rain that conceals a deadly power struggle for control of the kingdom.

The film follows a commercial airliner on a routine flight between Taipei and Seoul that is hijacked and taken to mainland China by the fictional Taiwan Revolutionary Army Front. Communist authorities cannot seize the plane because of the presence of an important business figure on the flight, and agree to cooperate discreetly with Taiwanese authorities to defuse an already tense situation. (themoviedb)

In the puppet state of Manchukuo in the 1930s, four Communist party special agents, afterreturning to China, embark on a secret mission. Sold out by a traitor, the team find themselves surrounded by threats on all sides.

A movie fan in a remote farmland strikes a relationship with a homeless female vagabond. (imdb)

The tragic story of a Tang Dynasty imperial consort who was the favorite of the Emperor Xuanzong.

The story of sharpshooter Zhang Taofang, a young army recruit who at age 22 sets a record during the Korean War by reportedly killing or wounding 214 American soldiers with 435 shots in just 32 days. (imdb)

Set in the Southern Song Dynasty, a few years after the execution of General Yue Fei, the entire story unfolds within the labyrinthine fortress of the powerful Prime Minister Qin Hui. When a visiting Jin diplomat is assassinated and a secret letter vanishes just before a crucial meeting, a cunning soldier, Zhang Da, and his Deputy Commander, Sun Jun, are given a two-hour deadline to find the killer and the letter or face execution. As they frantically interrogate personnel, they unravel a multi-layered political conspiracy and a plot that culminates in a powerful act of national remembrance centered on a famous patriotic poem.

A series of injustices make a lawyer question what in essence is wrongdoing, and where is the power of the law.

An urban crime drama film which will cover topics from anti-corruption to anti-crime. (imdb)