Yonfan
Set in Hong Kong in 1967 — a time of complex politics when it was still a British colony — No. 7 Cherry Lane revolves around a love triangle between a university student, a single mother and her teenage daughter.
Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.
A shameful period in Taiwanese history provides the backdrop for this emotional drama from writer and director Yonfan (aka Yang Fan). In 1949, in the wake of the 228 Incident (in which anti-government protesters launched a rebellion that was violently put down by authorities), Taiwan came under martial law, and through much of the 1950s brutal reprisals against suspected communists were commonplace. During the years of the "White Terror," thousand of supposed dissidents were killed, imprisoned or simply disappeared at the hands of the military police.
Photographer/filmmaker Yon Fan (Bishonen, Peony Pavilion) trains his celebrated eye on five disparate individuals in his controversial erotic drama Colour Blossoms. Teresa Cheung stars as a real estate agent drawn into a torrid - and sadomasochistic - relationship with a morose, stunningly beautiful Japanese photographer played by male model Sho. The two cavort in a luxurious apartment owned by an elegant upper-crust Japanese lady (Japanese diva Matsusaka Keiko), crossing paths with an infatuated policeman (Carl Ng), a mysterious Korean woman (Korean transsexual Ha Ri Su), and an increasingly tangled web of violence, criss-crossing passions, and lurid, unchecked desires. Prepare to immerse yourself in Yon Fan's controversial and delirious cinematic vision Colour Blossoms!
A documentary on the legacy of China’s traditional kunqu opera, BREAKING THE WILLOW tells the story of two Chinese women of different dynasty and society, and their personal link to a bejeweled Phoenix Tierra. Cui, a woman of humble background dreams her husband to gain her the Phoenix Tierra but when the dream comes true, it turns out to be too late. Hsiao Yu, a beautiful songstress from a royal decent of the past dynasty, meets the First Scholar and falls in love. The day after their wedding, the husband is called for the frontier. The fallen Princess wears the Phoenix Tierra to bid him farewell with poets.
The story takes place in a beautiful pavilion in 1930's Suzhou. Jade is a famous songstress courtesan, marrying into the noble house. She develops a dubious relationship with a female cousin of the family and also being admired secretly by her butler. LAN, the cousin, is a modern woman who wants to be independent and serves her country, but when she meets the charismatic Shing, an official from the North, all her plans go astray. These two women's love bears no fruit with their men and in the end they have only each other to lean on.
Stephen Fung and Daniel Wu play a male prostitute and policeman who fall in love with tragic consequences. Partly inspired by a notorious real-life scandal in which porn photos of Hong Kong policemen - in (and out of) uniform - were found in the home of a wealthy member of the city's elite society.
Set during the 1960s in Singapore, when Bugis Street was the centre for drag clubs and transvestite prostitution. The story centres on Lian, a young 16-year-old from Malacca, who gets a job as a recep-tionist at the Sin-Sin Hotel. It’s the home of a gaggle of drag queens, all of whom have stories of broken hearts and drunken sailors. Lian learns more about life, lipstick and eyeliner than most—mainly from Drago, a Paris-based drag queen, back in town to look after her ailing mother.
Developer Tsang Siu-Chi (Eric Tsang) and his agent (Jacky Cheung) have bought two of a group of four properties. Rival developer, Boss Hung (Sammo Hung) has secured the other two properties. Both aim to buy all four so they can knock them down and build hotels.
Miss Bowie is more or less happily raking in the cash until her life is complicated by the sudden reappearance, after 20 years, of her first (and presumably true) love. To this is added Miss Bowie's annoying teenage niece and a strange disease.
Lovable Mr. Coconut arrives in town from Hainan China where he lived with his coconuts. Here in the sophisticated urban jungles of Hong Kong. He has finally reunited with his family, as he endures Hong Kong Streets of the late 1980s, filled with stock and property gamblers, heavy mobile phones and others.
Though the title may suggest a straightforward romance, Yonfan’s artfully directed melodrama is actually a nuanced tale of friendship. The movie is firmly grounded in the realities of Hong Kong - the stock market crash of 1987 and the Sino-British negotiations over the colony's future.
In this homage to Alfred Hitchcock, a femme fatale and a photographer embark on a romantic adventure surrounding a mysterious marble.
Set in the then Portuguese colony of Macau, IMMORTAL STORY depicts the story of the love affair between a small time chanteuse and her Japanese beau. They met when both were young and pretty and again many years later when he had became a drug addict and she a fallen woman.
Rose (Maggie Cheung) and her big brother Charles (Chow Yun-fat) live a fairy-tale existence in their seaside villa. Rose is young, beautiful, and spoiled - in a word, irresistible. Disappointed in love, she moves to Paris. When Charles dies suddenly, she rushes back to Hong Kong to take ocer the family estate. Fate intervenes when she meets Ka-ming (also played by Chow Yun-fat), who is the exact image of her late brother. The two fall in love, but their romance is in the hands of a not always benevolent fate.
Yonfan’s early feature about a girl’s journey to womanhood, as she learns how to navigate the terms of relationships. Magi falls in love with a man she meets at the beach, while best friend Lily struggles with the fact that her single father has begun to show interest in another woman.
