Long feng dian / Adventure of the King (2010)

Emperor Zhu Zhengde (Richie Jen) flees the palace after his mother picks an unappealing bride for him to marry. The emperor disguises himself as a commoner and attempts to live his life as one. Unfortunately, the emperor has always lived a pampered life and the emperor soon loses his money and his memory. The owner (Barbie Hsu) of an inn takes pity on this man and takes him in. Meanwhile, the emperor's evil uncle scours the land looking for the emperor and planning to take his throne ...

DVD5 | NTSC 16:9 | 01:48:52 | 4.35 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Chinese
Subtitles: English, Chinese
Genre: Comedy, Romance

Director: Shu-Kai Chung
Cast: Richie Jen, Barbie Hsu, Changjiang Pan
Country: China, Hong Kong
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Robert Kramer Work volume 04: Guns (1980), Naissance (1981), La peur (1983) DVD9

Following a series of films questioning commitment and politics in America and culminating with Milestones 1975, and a 1977 documentary on Lisbon's Carnation Revolution, Scenes from the Class Struggle in Portugal, Robert Kramer moved to France with his family. The first film he made there was Guns, an intricate feature which echoed the paranoid films of 1970's Hollywood. With Guns, Kramer continues his exploration of the militant psyche, while at the same time experimenting with different forms of narration.

"There are two distinct strands of reality in Guns. One deals with
the world at large. Tony (Patrick Bauchau), a journalist, speaks of 'a nonsensical story'. We no longer have any way to penetrate this wider world. The other strand concerns our intimate and personal experiences, as represented by Margot (Juliet Berto), who has decided to dedicate herself to caring for her dying mother. This strand comprises everything that results from her decision. I used the decline of Margo's mother as a means of discussing certain things." (Robert Kramer)

Director: Robert Kramer
Cast: Patrick Bauchau, Juliet Berto, Peggy Frankston
Country: France

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David Cronenberg’s Crash (1996) Blu-Ray Turbine, 2 x DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

In this bracing adaptation of J.G. Ballard's pathologically phantasmagorical novel, television producer James Ballard (James Spader) and his wife, Catherine (Deborah Kara Unger), light the gloom of their empty relationship with frank accounts of their extramarital conquests. They're desperately in need of a new thrill.

Their lives are transformed when James is involved in a car accident that leaves him bruised and broken and the male passenger in the other car dead. But the other, surviving driver, Dr. Helen Remington (Holly Hunter), gets all revved up over this horrible collision. After leaving the hospital, James and Helen climb into his mangled car and discover a new kind of auto-eroticism.

Suddenly, a whole world is opened for James and the sexually experimental Catherine: a subculture of car-crash survivors who seek to reexperience the mortality they so narrowly escaped by purposefully getting into more accidents and having sexual liaisons with fellow survivors...

Director: David Cronenberg
Cast: James Spader, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas, Rosanna Arquette, Peter MacNeill
Country: Canada
Genre: Drama
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An American Trilogy – 3 films by Cyril Morin: The Activist (2014), NY84 (2016), Hacker’s Game (2015) 2 x Blu-Ray

"An American Trilogy" is a compilation of three independent movies directed and written by Cyril Morin, showing three "American tragedies" over the last 40 years.

THE ACTIVIST - A riveting political thriller set during the Wounded Knee protest in 1973. Two Native American activists are arrested and held in custody in a small sheriff's office in the middle of nowhere. Why are they secretly kept there when the events make national news? When a lawyer is assigned to the case, she will realize there is more to investigate than it seems...

NY84 - Three young artists and lovers, Kate, Anton, and Keith, live carefree in the New York art scene of the early 1980s. They party, photograph, paint, sing, and play their way through the clubs and lofts of Alphabet City. The party ends in 1984 when Anton and Keith contract a mysterious illness known as the gay cancer. What follows is an intimate glimpse into their creative and emotional lives as the trio loses their youth and innocence.

HACKER'S GAME - A modern, relevant, and suspenseful techno thriller. Soyan is a hacker hired by a high profile cyber security firm running covert activities for international clients. Loise is a cyber detective. Soyan and Loise embark on an intense but dangerous romance after Soyan s boss ask him to protect the same arms dealer that Loise is determined to capture. Will Soyan and Loise leave their virtual world and risk everything for true love?
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9 Songs (2004) DVD9 Sony Pictures, Blu-Ray Optimum Releasing

What is a relationship, what is love between two people, and why isn't it allowed to show to people in love having sex? Those were the questions which led Michael Winterbottom to '9 Songs', a love story told from a sexual point of view by two people making love.

In a flight over Antarctica, Matt (Kieran O'Brien), a member of the British Survey team, recalls his passionate sexual affair with Lisa (Margo Stilley). He says: "When I remember Lisa, I don't think about her clothes, or her work, where she was from, or even what she said. I think of her smell. Her taste. Her skin touching mine." They meet in a large music hall for a rock concert in London and go to bed in his apartment afterwards. Their relationship is not built on sharing intimate details of their lives or commenting on the state of the world. What they have in common is a love of loud and raucous music and sex in all its different permutations.

Director: Michael Winterbottom
Cast: Kieran O'Brien, Margo Stilley, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Country: UK
Genre: Drama, Music, Romance

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Amanece, que no es poco / Dawn Breaks, Which Is No Small Thing (1989) DVD5, Blu-Ray

One-of-a-kind Spanish surreal comedy that is so dense with gags, eccentricities, sketches, characters, fantastical absurdities and punchlines, that it is almost impossible to describe.

It tells the story of a father and son arriving to a small village lost in the mountains where their inhabitants have a quite bizarre communal life: masses are like parties and people vote in order to elect the major, priest, teacher, prostitute and adulterers. Everyone seems to be an avid reader of William Faulkner and have a deep personal view of the world. Spanish cultural stereotypes are systematically presented in amusing forms, but criticism towards the Franco's regime always lies beneath jokes and gags.

"Amanece, que no es poco" is probably one of the most interesting examples on surrealist comedy in the modern spanish history. This film could be considered as an unconventional fresco of what Spain was and still is.

Director: Jose Luis Cuerda
Cast: Jose Sazatornil, Carmen de Lirio, Francisco Martinez
Country: Spain
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy
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Newman’s Law (1974) Blu-Ray Kino Lorber

From Richard T. Heffron, the director of "Trackdown", "Futureworld", "Foolin' Around" and "I, the Jury", comes this action-packed thriller starring George Peppard ("The Groundstar Conspiracy", "P.J.") as an honest L.A. cop battling criminals and corrupt policemen in his own precinct.

Detective Vince Newman, a tough but honest cop investigating a reputed druglord named Lo Falcone (Louis Zorich). After two years of coming up short on evidence, Newman finally hits paydirt when he and his partner Garry (Roger Robinson) discover a mountain of hashish and the dead body of the nephew of Falcone's mob rival Dellanzia (Abe Vigoda) in a house owned by Falcone.

However, the too-slick district attorney (Gordon Pinsent) refuses to prosecute the case after Newman's reputation — and potential testimony — are tarnished by a frameup by Falcone's men. With no longer a job or pension to risk, Newman has little to lose by bringing Falcone to justice his way.

Director: Richard T. Heffron
Cast: George Peppard, Roger Robinson, Eugene Roche
Country: USA
Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller
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Time Limit (1957) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Kino Lorber

Major Harry Cargill (Richard Basehart) was the highest ranking American officer while being held in a North Korean prisoner of war camp. His fellow prisoners admired him and considered him unbreakable until the day he became a collaborator, spreading anti-American, pro-Communist propaganda not only in the camp but over radio broadcasts. Later, liberated from the camp, Cargill faces the possibility of court martial for treason. But first an Army investigator, Col. Edwards (Richard Widmark), must make a recommendation for or against court martial. And Edwards suspects there's more to the story than he's been told. What could possibly make a man suddenly betray his country? What pressure was applied to Cargill in the camp to cause him to break?

It's a deeply serious film not just about war but about patriotism, idealism, and the ways in which war inevitably strips soldiers of parts of their humanity.

Director: Karl Malden
Cast: Richard Widmark, Richard Basehart, Dolores Michaels, Rip Torn
Country: USA
Genre: Drama, War
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Chicago (1927), The Golden Twenties (1950) 2 x DVD and Blu-Ray Flicker Alley

Seventy-five years before it was released as an Oscar-winning musical, Chicago was a sassy silent film created by Cecil B. DeMille's production company. It boasted a brilliant turn by Phyllis Haver as the heartless Roxie and, just to make things yummier, it was secretly directed by Mr. DeMille himself!

The story should be familiar to most filmgoers. The blonde seductress Roxie Hart has been two-timing her good-natured husband Amos (Victor Varconi). Roxie is a true gold digger, and Amos's empty pockets don't turn the girl on any longer. She has been having an affair with a moneyed businessman, Rodney Casely (gravel-voiced character actor Eugene Pallette), and when Casely tries to drop her, Roxie shoots him. The district attorney (Walter Richmond) is more than ready to string the murderess up, but a reporter (T. Roy Barnes) sees a way to milk the case and sell some papers. He dubs Roxie "the Jazz Slayer" and plasters her pretty face on the front page. A celebrity is born!

It's a terrifically entertaining mix of humor and melodrama, as well as a pungent critique of trash journalism. It's a film that was thought to be lost for a long time, until an intact print was found in DeMille's archives in 2006.
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Buffet froid / Cold Cuts (1979) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Kino Lorber

Superb black comedy and a tour-de-force of the absurd. This is about morbid fears, murder and cliches, an absurd world where people break out in compulsive violence as if they were being controlled, a place where everyone is sad and afraid but when death comes along, they shrug it off. A man finds his knife in a man's stomach who claims he killed him. A police inspector is morbidly afraid of string orchestras, murdering or jailing violinists, and arguing that murderers are OK because if you put them away, you'd be contaminating the innocents in jail. And thus, the movie is endlessly surprising, moving from one absurd hilarious scene to another, including a doctor who charges money for raping a patient, a man who sets up his own murder, and high-class torture by chamber orchestra.

The best way to enjoy this very, very strange film is to let it transport you to the Wonderland where its kooky characters reside and then get comfortable in their company. If you question its intentions from the get-go or try to discover the logic that explains the madness that will unfold before your eyes, you will kill a lot of precious brain cells and grow incredibly frustrated.

Director: Bertrand Blier
Cast: Gerard Depardieu, Bernard Blier, Jean Carmet
Country: France
Genre: Comedy, Crime
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Lo sceicco bianco / The White Sheik (1952) DVD9 Criterion Collection, Blu-Ray Studiocanal

This early Federico Fellini 1952 movie, his first as writer and sole director (after jointly filming 1951's Lights of Variety), is an extremely eye-catching and highly diverting triumph.

Newlyweds Wanda (Brunella Bova) and Ivan (Leopoldo Trieste) Cavalli have just arrived for their honeymoon in Rome from their village in the countryside. The thoroughly middle-class Ivan has every minute of their stay in Rome planned out. Most of it is to be spent with his uncle, who is an employee of the Vatican, and his family. The highlight will be an audience with the Pope.

Wanda heads upstairs while Ivan is on the phone and gets a dreamy look in her eyes when she looks over the city. Before we know it, she asks to take a hot bath then sneaks out of the hotel. She is headed to the studio where her idol Fernando Rivoli (Alberto Sordi), better known as the "white sheik", works. She has written Rivoli several fan letters signed "Passionate Dolly" and he wrote back asking her to visit if she ever happened to be in Rome.

Director: Federico Fellini
Cast: Alberto Sordi, Giulietta Masina, Brunella Bovo, Leopoldo Trieste
Country: Italy
Genre: Comedy, Drama
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Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse / The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) 2 x DVD9 Criterion Collection, Blu-Ray Eureka – Masters of Cinema

A sequel to his enormously successful silent film Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler, Fritz Lang's The Testament of Dr. Mabuse reunites the director with the character that had effectively launched his career. Lang put slogans and ideas expounded by the Nazis into the mouth of a madman, warning his audience of an imminent menace, which was soon to become a reality.

With the titular character, crime lord Dr. Mabuse now locked away in an asylum, taken by madness, under the watchful eye of Professor Baum, mysterious violent crimes begin to occur around the city. The only clues left behind lead to the impossible scenario that the nefarious crime lord has been directing the crimes from his cell in the asylum.

Using the same stunning visuals that defined his silent films, like Metropolis and the earlier Mabuse film, Lang creates an astonishing vision of the morose, high tech, and eerie impending doom that would find itself banned by the Reich. Shadowy docks, empty warehouses, foggy nights, explosions, and a fantastic climax verging on the supernatural all make The Testament of Dr. Mabuse one of Lang's classics on par with his most memorable title, the Metropolis.

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Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse / The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960) Blu-Ray Eureka – Masters of Cinema

Fritz Lang's final feature brings his career full circle to the core thriller concepts he pioneered back in 1922: superstitious human nature and sinister technological advances combine to make the 20th century an Age of Terror. Lang reboots his highly cinematic Weimar-era narrative tricks for a film that heralds the beginning of a brave new world where total surveillance and mind control are at the service of paranoid conspiracies.

Police inspector Kras receives a phone call from the psychic Peter Cornelius who predicts the murder of journalist Peter Barter at the traffic lights moments before it happens. In investigating the murder, Kras discovers there have been an alarming number of suspicious deaths of high-profile people where the common factor is that all have stayed at the Luxor Hotel. Kras finds links to the late criminal mastermind Dr Mabuse and comes to believe that Mabuse is still alive...

Director: Fritz Lang
Cast: Dawn Addams, Peter van Eyck, Gert Frobe, Wolfgang Preiss
Country: West Germany, France, Italy
Genre: Crime, Mystery, Thriller
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