Asian Drama

Post-war Japan is at its lowest point when a new crisis emerges in the form of a giant monster baptized in the horrific power of the atomic bomb.

(Source: IMDb)

Aruo, the dragon girl from the East China Sea, is determined to find her beloved, and comes to the mortal Wang Sheng at all costs. However, the fox demon Xiaoman wants to get the most precious spiritual leaf from the dragon girl, and designs to break Wang Sheng's heart. Aruo has no choice but to use Lingye made up for Wang Sheng's heart, so the two women started a "heart-stealing" contest with Wang Sheng as the center.

Facing an unacceptable reality, a teacher is trying to reclaim relationships with his family, students and former friends. Reassessing his past, he contemplates how to go on with his life.

When the world is hit with a naturally occuring virus that spreads among all living things, humans begin to turn into insatiable zombies. In a blink, the world as we know it collapses. Furthermore, the few remaining survivors are unable to use the available food resources. They therefore develop a new crop to support themselves. Survivors depend on one profession, their only hope; someone in this profession must brave the dangers to send and recieve food and packages of necessities. These people are called Riders.

Summer vacation has emptied a Japanese boys' school of all but three boys: the junior Norio & the seniors Kazuhiko & Naoto. They have no families to return to for the summer, so they spend their days in the empty school. A darkness hangs over the three however: the suicide, three months earlier, of classmate Yu. Norio blames Kazuhiko for Yu's death, because it was well-known that Yu loved Kazuhiko; so Kazuhiko is cruel to Norio, and yet has bad dreams. This uneasy arrangement is exacerbated by the arrival of Kaoru, a student early for the fall - who looks exactly like Yu.

Based on the hit anime of the same name, "Honey and Clover" deals with five college art students. While the premise may sound simple, it's quite the opposite; the characters struggle through school, work, and love. All within the confines of a university, "Honey and Clover" showcases the journey that everyone must take from being a young adult and following the long and challenging road to becoming a full fledged adult.First off, the cast is wonderfully presented. Their likeliness to their anime counterparts is great and for the most part (albeit hair color) spot on. The mannerisms of the cast also reflected the anime greatly and fans of the anime will certainly enjoy this aspect of the film. Another great aspect of the film is definitely the cinematography. Since this film's environment is mostly held at or around an art school, you would expect for most part, as viewer, to be stimulated visually, right? Indeed this is the case with "Honey and Clover". The film accurately displays the happenings of an art school, from the constant unfinished student projects scattered about, to the multiple classes that art students participate in, it is faithfully recreated here.The musical score by famous composer Yoko Kanno is wonderfully implemented into the movie too. I for one have taken notice that Kanno is starting to produce more film scores, and she has done great job so far. With her most recent contributions to Su-ki-da and Kamikaze Girls, her slow transition from anime composition to film composition can only be seen as a good thing. I hope to see her contribute more to the realm of films in the future. Putting music aside though, "Honey and Clover" does run into some slight problems… Based on an anime series, one can truly see the tremendous amount of time and effort it would take to condense 26 episodes into roughly a two hour film. What happens in most cases when this occurs in other adaptations is that entire story arcs, characters, and original endings are left out. "Honey and Clover" suffers from the all these. While significantly better in many regards than most anime to film conversions, the story of "Honey and Clover" is just too character driven for a film. Maybe a Japanese TV drama would perhaps work well, but due to the time constraints of a film, it doesn't provide the adequate depth that the anime series does. This leaves viewers who aren't fans of the anime or manga sometimes clueless as to what is happening on screen. Some characters relationships might be questionable for those viewers who haven't seen the anime or read the manga. Some characters just pop in with little to no background and the viewer is expected to already know who they are, what their purpose is, and what their relationship is to plot. By the end of the film, all we are left is with a cast we don't really care for (even if you have seen the anime/read the manga). This hurts a film that otherwise is a moderately accurate retelling of a rather well crafted anime series.With all but one minor quibble (a major one if you haven't seen the series or read the manga), "Honey and Clover" is one of the better anime adaptations out there. While fans of the anime will definitely enjoy this film, non-fans will probably be asking themselves why certain characters do this or that, unknowing to the fact that their questions are clearly explained in anime. In the end though, I recommend this film for fans, but I have to say pass if you haven't seen anything that has to do with 'Honey and Clover".

A woman looks for both revenge and redemption after spending 13 years in prison in this offbeat thriller from South Korea. Lee Geum-ja (Lee Yeong-ae) was in her early twenties when she was found guilty of kidnapping and killing a young boy, and though she confessed to the crime under duress, while behind bars she dreamed of one day being able to clear her name -- and even the score with the people who railroaded her, including the police officer who brought her in (Nam Il-woo) and Mr. Baek (Choi Min-Sik), a teacher who wronged her in a number of ways. Lee Geun-ja teams up with a number of friends she made during her time in lock-up, including Woo So-yeong (Kim Bu-seon), a thief with a gunsmith for a husband; Oh Su-heui (Ra Mi-ran), who was saved from assault at the hands fellow inmates by Lee; and Preacher Jeon (Kim Byeong-ok), an eccentric man of the cloth who was struck by her gentle nature in jail. As Preacher Jeon helps Lee seek salvation for all she had to do while in prison, her other friends stand by her side as she gets even with her rivals and searches for the daughter she was forced to leave behind when she was convicted.

Kiriko (Aoi Morikawa) is pretty girl, working at an office. She also bing eats and then makes herself vomit. The male workers like her, but female workers hate her. Kiriko believes the only that matters for woman is being cute. Kiriko has Yuto, who works at a bar. The relationship between Kiriko and Yuto is more than friends, but less than a romantic relationship.

High school student Kyosuke Shikijo (Ryohei Suzuki) is the most talented member of the school's martial arts of the fist club. His late father was detective and Kyosuke share his father's strong sense of justice. Kyosuke also has a secret. Kyosuke likes to wear female underwear and transforms himself into the alter ego "Pervert Mask," wearing female underwear and gaining superhuman powers. This unusual interest also comes from his parents, with his father a masochist and his mother a sadist. By chance, Kyosuke gets the underwear of female high school student Aiko Himeno's (Fumika Shimizu). With her underwear, he gains various pervert techniques and attempts to protect Aiko from a dirty and heinous teacher (Ken Yasuda).

Set in a seaside town, the film consists of three parts that tell the story of three different women, all named Anne and all played by French actress Isabelle Huppert.

Nene Raju Nene Mantri is the story of Radha Jogendra and the love of his life, Radha. His whole world revolves around her and he can go to any lengths to make her happy. But what happens when such profound...