Purple Butterfly (2003)
Director
Lou Ye
Main cast
Zhang Ziyi; Toru Nakamura; Li Bingbing; Feng Yuanzheng; Kin Ei
Genres
Drama, Foreign
Description
Ding Hui is a member of Purple Butterfly, a powerful resistance group in Japanese occupied Shanghai. An unexpected encounter reunites her with Itami, an ex-lover... and officer with a secret police unit tasked with dismantling Purple Butterfly.
Lou Ye
Main cast
Zhang Ziyi; Toru Nakamura; Li Bingbing; Feng Yuanzheng; Kin Ei
Genres
Drama, Foreign
Description
Ding Hui is a member of Purple Butterfly, a powerful resistance group in Japanese occupied Shanghai. An unexpected encounter reunites her with Itami, an ex-lover... and officer with a secret police unit tasked with dismantling Purple Butterfly.
Similar movies
The local disability support group visits an involuntary member, not realizing that it will bring them to a critical mass.
The film is told in three acts, beginning with a historical background of Japan's student movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, mostly using archive footage and a narrator. The second act follows the formation of the group to their mountain training camps in the southern Japanese Alps. It emphasizes the dogmatic (and eventually hypocritical) bullying of the group by Mori and Nagata, with 12 members being killed for infractions as small as improperly cleaning a gun, wearing make-up, and kissing. The third act shows the splitting up of the group after two members run off. It follows one group of five members to Karuizawa and a hostage-taking and police standoff known as the Asama-SansÅ incident.
The story of 16-year-old Riyo who journeys to Hawaii in 1918 to marry a man she has never met, except through photographs and letters they have exchanged. Hoping to escape a troubled past and to start anew, Riyo is bitterly disappointed upon her arrival: her husband is twice her age and Hawaii is not the paradise she expected. As Riyo comes to terms with her new home, she discovers a land full of hardship, struggle--and unexpected joy.
Youssef, a blind university professor, is suddenly diagnosed with a fatal disease and must undergo treatment in France. Back home, will he find the life he had before?
The film revolves around five individual characters and the events in their life, that, on the one hand, changes everything in their respective lives, which the film's title refers to, and, on the other hand, also brings together these people. It is an anthology film, that contains two parallel moving stories, which are connected by a freak accident in Chennai. A young architect, falls in love with a young beautiful pediatric doctor, runs after her and tries to convince her to marry her, while, simultaneously, a morose ex-football coach troubles a software engineer by vowing to kill his eight-year-old son. How these characters get connected and confronted through the accident forms the crux of the story.
An old man who has one interest in life, collecting butterflies, has his life changed by an eight year old girl.
How, thanks to what's known as the "Butterfly theory" (a random series of unlinked events), can a young woman and a young man meet?
Freddie is an inept bank clerk with no future. His only hobby is collecting butterflies, which gives him a feeling of power and control that is otherwise totally missing from his life. He comes into a large sum of money, and buys himself a country house. Still unable to make himself at ease socially, he starts to plan on acquiring a girl friend - in the same manner as he collects butterflies. He prepares the cellar of the house to be a collecting jar, and stalks his victim over several days.
With the name from a Garcia Lorca poem, Silence Has No Wings portrays the contemporary portrait of a Japan dazed for modern times, still breathless war nightmares. A boy catches a tropical butterfly in northern Japan, everyone thinks he is lying and in fact bought canned. We follow the butterfly's hypnotic trip through Japan. On its way, we see everything from fleeting encounters at crucial moments in the documentary clips, dream sequences, and everything in between.
Dumped by her fiance just two months before their wedding, comic strip writer Sophie hatches an elaborate plan to get her Jeff back and punish the movie star, Joanna, who seduced him away. She finds herself a partner, Gordon, an ex-lover of Joanna's. The two start on a comic adventure full of laughs and tears, aided by Sophie's two best friends, Lucy and Lily. At the eve of her success, Sophie suddenly faced of having to chose between a repentant Jeff and Gordon who has fallen for her.
Lam Yiu Kwok, a Hong Kong secondary school teacher is facing a mid-life crisis. While he has only his pride and Chinese poetry to fall back on, his peers are successful businessmen and professionals who flaunt their extravagant lifestyles at reunion dinners. After many years, Lam is still living in a modest apartment with his wife, Man Ching and two teenage sons. However financial stagnancy is not his only problem. An old flame of Man Ching (who was the couple's former schoolteacher) returns to Hong Kong and uncovers old wounds. Man Ching feels obliged to help her ex-lover. Meanwhile, Yiu Kwok faces another dilemma: Choy Lam, a precocious student, has a crush on him and the 'forbidden fruit' looks more and more tempting in the light of his wife's 'infidelity'. Will he succumb to young charms and let history repeat itself?
Tang (Muo) goes on a trip to Taitung to record the sounds of nature, hoping the tape may save his relationship with his girlfriend who is leaving him. What he does not know, is that she has already moved away and another girl, Yun (Kwai), has moved into that apartment. Yun is trapped in a hopeless love triangle, and troubled by all the issues she faces in life. After listening to the tape that Tang sent, she feels as if the kindness of nature is calling her, and travels to Taitung to find the mysterious man who sends her the tape. On the other hand, Tsai (Chia), a psychiatrist struggling in a failed marriage, suddenly realizes that he needs to let things go after helping a patient with extramarital affairs. He leaves everything behind and goes to Taitung to search for his ex-lover. The three young souls, with different purposes, comes to the coast and search for the meaning of their life, a journey considerably longer than any of them has taken before.
Three poetic tales of seeking the true identity. In the first story, Jing, a blind singer, falls in love with her band's tomboy accordionist Diego. In another time and place, Lily, an elderly lesbian and Yen, her gay friend, create an unexpected bond and support each other in a time of crisis. Finally, we see Diego before she joined the band, when as a teenager she came to grips with her gender identity.
A small construction team led by Potapov suddenly refuses to receive a bonus payment from their company for exceeding performance targets. The team accuses its construction company HQ with artificially reducing the targets, so they can be easily exceeded. It makes the management looks good, yet leads to frequent downtime reducing earnings for common construction workers even with fake bonuses. On a hastily organized meeting the management tries to subdue the "unruly" gang leader charging that he cannot know all details. It turned out that Potapov and his team prepared a detailed business analysis, which proved their point. Managers, who had different interests and positions, have to decide how to deal with the real problem leading to unexpected results.
From IMDB.com: Set in the late 1920s, The Luzhin Defence tells the story of a shambling, unworldly chess Grand Master who arrives in the Italian Lakes to play the match of his life and unexpectedly finds the love of his life. Discovering his prodigious talent in boyhood overshadowed by his parents' failing marriage, Luzhin's lyrical passion for chess has become his refuge and rendered the real world a phantom. Already matched up by her family to the very suitable Comte de Stassard, when Natalia meets Luzhin, she is drawn to the erratic genius and offers him a glimpse outside of his chess obsession. But it is a world he is not equipped to deal with and his two worlds collide to tragic effect.
In the elegant world of artists and musicians, Gertrud ends her marriage to Gustav and takes a lover, the composer Erland Jansson. When he also fails to live up to her idealistic standards, she leaves him and imposes on herself a kind of exile of the heart. In flashbacks and in conversations laced with memories, we also learn of her affair with Gabriel, who still wishes she would go off with him, and we learn of her adolescence, with its early expression of her isolating ideal of absolute love. Written by
This gripping historical drama recounts the story of Armenian-born Missak Manouchian (Simon Abkarian), a woodworker and political activist who led an immigrant laborer division of the Parisian Resistance on 30 operations against the Nazis in 1943. The Nazis branded the group an Army of Crime, an anti-immigrant propaganda stunt that backfired as the team's members became martyrs for the Resistance. Virginie Ledoyen co-stars as Manouchian's wife.
Edwardian England. A precocious girl from a poor background with aspirations to being a novelist finds herself swept to fame and fortune when her tasteless romances hit the best seller lists. Her life changes in unexpected ways when she encounters an aristocratic brother and sister, both of whom have cultural ambitions, and both of whom fall in love with her.
A Gypsy family travels the French roads during the Second World War, followed by Little Claude, a young boy seeking a new family after his parents "left and never returned". Upon reaching a town where they traditionally stop for a few months and work in vineyards, they learn that a new law forbids them from being nomadic. Theodore, the town's mayor, and Miss Lundi, the schoolteacher, protect and help the Gypsies. Despite this, They are arrested and placed in an internment camp. Theodore manages to rescue them and gives them a piece of property where they must settle. But the Gypsies' deeply ingrained thirst for freedom makes this sedentary lifestyle difficult to bear. After Theodore and Miss Lundi are arrested for resistance, the Gypsies decide they must get back on the move in order to remain free.
Yoshitaro Nomuraâs 1975 film of Seicho Matsumotoâs immensely popular detective story tells the tale of two detectives, Imanishi (Tetsuro Tamba) and Yoshimura (Kensaku Morita), tasked with tracking down the murderer of an old man, found bludgeoned to death in a rail yard.
Amelia and Pippo are reunited after several decades to perform their old music-hall act (imitating Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers) on a TV variety show. It's both a touchingly nostalgic journey into the past, and a viciously satirical attack on television in general and Italian TV in particular, portraying it as a mindless freakshow aimed at morons.
Childhood friends reunite later in life in Spanish tuberculosis sanitorium. Pressures of death all around combine with dark secrets of their past.
Comedy drama based on the true story of two British Army dentists who in 1942, eager to see action, go AWOL and invade occupied France on their own.
In a small town still occupied by the Germans as World War II's tide is turning toward the Allies, apprentice train-watcher Milos is oblivious to the war. Instead, he is obsessed with having his first sexual experience. Despite the favors of train conductor Masa, Milos has no luck. His quest leads him to a female Resistance fighter who, in passing, recruits him to the cause. As Milos finally finds love, danger draws closer.
People in a small German village in the last valley to remain untouched by the devastating Thirty Years' War try to exist in peace with a group of soldiers occupying the valley.
Salma Zidane, a widow, lives simply from her grove of lemon trees in the West Bank's occupied territory. The Israeli defense minister and his wife move next door; the Secret Service orders the trees removed for security. The stoic Salma seeks assistance from the Palestinian Authority (useless), Israeli army (dismissive), and a young attorney, Ziad Daud, who takes the case; this older client attracts him. While the courts deliberate, the Israelis fence her trees and prohibit her from entering the grove. As the trees wither, the defense minister's wife and, separately, an Israeli journalist, look on Salma with sympathy. In this allegory, does David stand a chance against Goliath?
The film starts with the story of the younger Bala Krishna (Srimannarayana) working as a college professor. As usual the best looking girl of the college (Janaki played by Sneha Ullal) falls in love with Srimannarayana (the monkish protector of justice); reasons for that are comprehendible only by someone who had seen enough Telugu films (Bala Krishna films in particular). As the first half progresses the screenplay tells us that Janakiâs and Srimmanaraynaâs pasts are related and the flashback starts occupying the screen. The daddy Bala Krishna with Nayanatara next to him and Kota Srinivas Rao playing the bad guy in a war between good and evil about the welfare of the region is the filmâs flashback
The film follows Kaspar Hauser (Bruno S.), who lived the first seventeen years of his life chained in a tiny cellar with only a toy horse to occupy his time, devoid of all human contact except for a man who wears a black overcoat and top hat who feeds him.
Jan DÃtÄ has been released from a Czech prison just before the very end of his 15-year sentence. Settling in a town near the border, he occupies his time with rebuilding a deserted house, and recalling his past. His main wish in life was to be a millionaire. Jan begins his career as a frankfurter vendor, and slowly learns the power of money and the influence it exerts over people.
A gang of hijackers led by Ian McShane seize a British plane as it is landing in Scandinavia. Ruthless military police chief Colonel Tahlvik is assigned to rescue the plane and it's passengers. But he must also deal with the problem of the British Ambassador, whose residence has been seized by a second group of terrorists. Written by Jonathon Dabell
Determined to escape their poverty-stricken lives, four talented young women living on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil, form an all-female rap group but find their road to success is riddled with sexism, racism, and violence. One by one, they succumb to their grim realities...until they discover that out of struggle come strength, and out of strength, the courage to continue on. Written by Echo Bridge Home Entertainment
Orchestra Rehearsal (Italian: Prova d'orchestra) is a 1978 Italian film directed by Federico Fellini. It follows an Italian orchestra as the members go on strike against the conductor. The film was shown out of competition at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival. Considered by some to be underrated Orchestra Rehearsal was the last collaboration between composer Nino Rota and Fellini, due to Rota's death in 1979.
The tomboyish, outgoing Julieta is the daughter of a member of the Palmeiras soccer club board. She is constantly frustrated by what she sees as institutional bias against women in soccer. One day while watching her beloved Palmeiras, she is struck by a handsome man, Romeu, that she sees rooting for the Palmeiras' chief rivals, the Corinthians. After meeting the same man again in the middle of eye exam, Julieta and Romeu quickly become a couple. However, in order to avoid incurring the wrath of her parents, Romeu is forced to pretend to be an adoring Palmeiras fan, an increasingly difficult task for the die-hard Corinthiano.
Javi and his friend Carlos visit an old house on the outskirts of a small Spanish village. According to his brother Juan this is a haunted house and one can hear the voices of the dead. Later he is intrigued with a room which is always closed (the room where his father was found dead). He is so interested in these mysteries that he starts to investigate all the secrets of these dead people and their stories.
On a calm summer day in 1991, in the bustling Lokhandwala Complex, five criminals including Maya and Dilip were counting 70 lakhs in flat no. 32 B, when 286 policemen, headed by ACP Khan, took strategic positions around their building. A gunfire ensued and the entire nation witnessed the most talked about daylight encounter lasting 6 hours that transformed suburban Mumbai into a war zone.
Set during the fading glory of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the film tells of the rise and fall of Alfred Redl (Brandauer), an ambitious young officer who proceeds up the ladder to become head of the Secret Police only to become ensnared in political deception.
Tells the story of two lovers, separated by destiny, who meet again one day. This encounter allows each to realize the truth about the lives they are living.
At the start of World War II, Cmdr. Ericson is assigned to convoy escort HMS Compass Rose with inexperienced officers and men just out of training. The winter seas make life miserable enough, but the men must also harden themselves to rescuing survivors of U-Boat attacks, while seldom able to strike back. Traumatic events afloat and ashore create a warm bond between the skipper and his first officer
Goodbye, Dragon Inn is set in the approximately ninety minutes of the last feature at an old Taipei cinema that is closing down, showing King Hu's 1967 sword-fighting classic Dragon Inn. Only a few people are present in the cinema, and a variety of subplots are developed around them. Throughout the film, the ticket woman tries to find the projectionist, searching for him in order to present him with a steamed bun. A young Japanese tourist wanders around the cinema in search of a homosexual encounter. An older man tells him that the cinema is haunted. An old man, who was one of the actors who appeared in the original Dragon Inn, watches the film with tears in his eyes. Outside the theater, he encounters an older man who had been watching the film with his grandson; this man also starred in the original film. The film is shot with almost no camera movement, most shots lasting well over thirty seconds. There are only about a dozen of lines of dialogue.
A police officer adopts the son and sole survivor of a family he has massacred while pursuing a terrorist. After some time the foster son finds out what the stepfather did.
Footpath is a Hindi crime thriller film directed by Vikram Bhatt and released in 2003. The film stars Aftab Shivdasani, Rahul Dev, Bipasha Basu and marked the debut of Emraan Hashmi. The film failed to do well at the box office. This film is inspired by the Hollywood flick State of Grace.
Arjun Singh (Aftab Shivdasani) and the Srivastav brothers, Raghu (Emraan Hashmi) and Shekhar (Rahul Dev), are neighbors in a gangster-prone area in Bombay. When Arjun's union leader father is killed, the brothers urge him to avenge his death. They get a sword and find the killers - and kill them. Arjun is the prime suspect in this homicide and the brothers get him to run to Delhi, where he begins a new life as a Real Estate Agent, Mohan Kumar Sharma
Line of Demarcation. is a 1966 film written and directed by Claude Chabrol. Its title in French is La Ligne de démarcation. It is based on upon the memoir Mémoires d'un agent secret de la France libre et La Ligne de démarcation by Gilbert Renault under his pseudonym Colonel Rémy. A small village in the Jura is split by the river Loue which creates the line of demarcation between Nazi occupied France and freedom. A French officer, Pierre (Ronet), is released by the Nazi soldiers to find his chateau converted into a German command centre. Whilst he is obliged to co-operate with the enemy, his wife Mary (Seberg) supports the resistance movement and is willing to risk her life for it. The Nazis step up their activity against the resistance, insisting that any who attempt to cross the line of demarcation will be shot. When his wife is arrested, Pierre decides to switch his allegiance.
Irish Republican Army member Fergus (Stephen Rea) forms an unexpected bond with Jody (Forest Whitaker), a kidnapped British soldier in his custody, despite the warnings of fellow IRA members Jude (Miranda Richardson) and Maguire (Adrian Dunbar). Jody makes Fergus promise he'll visit his girlfriend, Dil (Jaye Davidson), in London, and when Fergus flees to the city, he seeks her out. Hounded by his former IRA colleagues, he finds himself increasingly drawn to the enigmatic, and surprising, Dil.
1983. Tom Highway is a well-decorated career military man in the United States Marine Corps, he who has seen action in Korea and Vietnam. His current rank is Gunnery Sergeant. His experiences have led him to become an opinionated, no nonsense man, who is prone to bursts of violence, especially when he's drunk, if the situation does not suit him, regardless of the specifics or people involved. Because of these actions, he has spent his fair share of overnighters behind bars. Close to retirement, one of his last assignments, one he requested, is back at his old unit at Cherry Point, North Carolina, from where he was transferred for insubordination. He is to train a reconnaissance platoon. His superior officer, the much younger and combat inexperienced Major Malcolm Powers, sees Highway as a relic of an old styled military. Highway's commanding officer, Lieutenant Ring, the platoon leader...
Sadhu Agashe, a police officer in Mumbai, makes a name for himself by killing criminals in sting operations instead of locking them up in prison. The film follows his method of working, gives an insight into the Mumbai Police Crime Branch, and Agashe's alleged connection with the underworld.
Twins separated at birth, Camryn and Alex meet by chance for the first time on their 21st birthday and discover they're witches with the power to save their homeland of Coventry from the evil that threatens it. But when Camryn leaves Alex to face the darkness alone, will Coventry be doomed? Or will the sisters multiply their magic by standing together?
Tomoya Kishida (Hayato Ichihara) is working as a staffer in a television studio when he hears about the death of his close friend, Aoi Sato (Juri Ueno). This sparks his recollection of the events in life they shared from meeting at a record store, shooting a short film as part of their university film club, to saying their last goodbyes. Though in love with each other, neither had the courage to confess their feelings before it was too late.
The world of a young housewife is turned upside down when she has an affair with a free-spirited blouse salesman.
Katelin Kingsford, an Olympic hopeful figure skater wants to train with a Russian figure skating coach. In order to go to go to the school that Natasha is at, Katelin gets a scholarship playing on the girls hockey team.
What happens when a generation's ultimate anti-authoritarians â punk rockers â become society's ultimate authorities â dad's? With a large chorus of Punk Rock's leading men â Blink-182's Mark Hoppus, Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea, Rise Against's Tim McIlrath â The Other F Word follows Jim Lindberg, 20-year veteran of skate punk band, Pennywise, on his hysterical and moving journey from belting his band's anthem, 'Fuck Authority', to embracing his ultimately pivotal authoritarian role in mid-life, fatherhood.
Based on the story about Guy Gabaldon, a Los Angeles Hispanic boy raised in the 1930s by a Japanese-American foster family. After Pearl Harbor, his foster family is interned at the Manzanar camp for Japanese Americans, while he enlists in the Marines, where his ability to speak Japanese becomes a vital asset. During the Battle of Saipan, he convinces 800 Japanese to surrender after their general commits suicide.
A young man with a talent for music meets an aspiring singer, Apollonia, and finds that talent alone isn't all that he needs.
Heaven Is for Real is the true story of the 4-year old son of a small-town Nebraska pastor who, during emergency surgery, slips from consciousness and enters heaven. When he awakes, he recounts his experiences on the other side.
The newly-regenerated Doctor takes on the Master on the turn of the millennium, 31 December 1999.
This is the story of the crew of a downed bomber, captured after a run over Tokyo, early in the war. Relates the hardships the men endure while in captivity, and their final humiliation: being tried and convicted as war criminals.
It's got that Purple Rain feeling through and though. And it's got The Kid, too! For the first time since Purple Rain, Prince is back as The Kid. And where he goes , there's music! With Thieves in the Temple, New Power Generation, Elephants and Flowers and more red-hot Prince tunes from the Platinum-selling Graffiti Bridge soundtrack. What time is it? Party time! Morris Day and the Time play Release It, Shake! and more. And you'll also see and hear George Clinton, Tevin Campbell, Robin Power, Mavis Staples and other hot performers, too. Graffiti Bridge is where the movie meets the music. Cross over on it now.
PURPLE HEART tells of a clean-up effort after a covert mission gone wrong. It is the story of Colonel Allen, the leader of a new, elite military unit designed for covert operations. His first mission: assassinate Saddam Hussein prior to the beginning of the 2003 Iraq War. Sgt. Oscar Padilla is the sniper chosen for the mission targeting Hussein. Unfortunately the mission is compromised; Padilla is captured and tortured by the Iraqis.
A sonagi is a brief but a heavy rain shower that starts suddenly, usually on a hot afternoon. In Hwangâs story, the rain shower symbolizes the short but heart-rending love between the boy and the girl. The story begins with the boy encountering the girl playing by the stream on his way back home. Although many of Hwangâs short stories are notable, âRain Showerâ is cited as his timeless Korean classic by Koreans. Koreans of all ages are acquainted with this story. It is famous for its poignant depiction of the Korean countryside and of innocent adolescent love. The picturesque scenes from this story stir nostalgia for many people.
It's dynamite stuff.
Patti Petalson is a promising writer, but her marriage and conventional job keep her from her dream. She longs to return to her writing, especially after running into her first love Brian Callahan, a successful crime novelist. Kate is Patti's best friend since college; she's a tough-talking schoolteacher who plays therapist to all Patti's problems, while she's got a few of her own.
© Valossa 2015–2024