My cinematic memory of South Korean actor Lee Byung-hun was in macho action movies like JSA and A Bittersweet Life, so Once in a Summer appeals because I am curious to know how he would do in an out and out soppy romance, released in time this month for Valentine's Day. And the verdict is yes, it will hit the right spots with the romantics out there, but even as I rolled my eyes at the formula employed for a romance, I was won over by its hard hitting ending, and moments as described in one of my favourite songs

The Earth receives an influx of X refugees, who were deported from their home planet due to a dispute. Countries on Earth agonize over how to deal with the influx of these interplanetary immigrants. The U.S. government announced that they would accept X refugees, and the Japanese government announced that they would also accept X refugees.

The X refugees transform their appearance into human beings and live among ordinary humans. Residents in the host countries are unable to distinguish X refugees by appearance, and they have no idea if any of them live among them. People become anxious, confused, and afraid of the X refugees, and they try to find the refugees who may live among them.

Sasa Kentaro is a weekly magazine journalist. For a story, he hides his identity as a journalist and approaches Kashiwagi Ryoko, who is suspected of being an X refugee. He gets close to her and begins to have feelings for her, but he's not certain if she is human.

(Source: AsianWiki)

Adapted from the novel "Rinjin X" (隣人X) by Pallus Ayako (パリュス　あや子).

An ex cop and his ex partner decide to follow up on investigation of a series of murders that ended their careers and shamed them, when identical murders begin again.

On the surface, About Her Brother seems very different from Yoji Yamada’s samurai masterpieces that have reached the U.S. in recent years, films like Twilight Samurai and The Hidden Blade. However, consistent with those films, and with Yamada’s service as the regular director of the long-running Tora-san series, About Her Brother is, at heart, a contemplative character study with room for both wry humor and tear-jerking emotion – a gentle portrait of fundamentally decent people under stress. The film follows Ginko, a widowed Tokyo pharmacist dealing with her daughter’s marriage and her ne’er-do-well younger brother Tetsuro, whose drunken antics and stubborn refusal to grow up cause her no end of trouble. The title may be Ototo or “younger brother” in Japanese and Yamada may have packed the cast with ringers - Tsurube Shofukutei (Dear Doctor) as Ginko and Yu Aoi (One Million Yen Girl, Hula Girls) - but the film really belongs to Sayuri Yoshinaga. As Ginko, Yoshinaga simultaneously captures affection, exasperation and embarrassment without ever sliding over the edge into caricature. Rated one of Japan's 10 Best Films of 2010.

Chen Zheng, a "mathematical genius" who works in the Bureau of Statistics, is famous for helping the police decipher the secret portrait of the robber Ding Qiang. However, the good times did not last long. Ding Qiang’s daughter Ding Ruobing avenged her father as a hacker "Goldfinger" and threatened to set up a stealth bomb.

Lee Cheon Ah, a woman who committed suicide following her daughter's death, but instead doesn't die. Hong Jong Hyun is a mysterious man who wants to commit suicide and meets Cheon Ah at a suicide site.

In 1997, architect Sung-Hyun moves into the home 'Il Mare' that his estranged father built. One day, he pulls out a letter from his mailbox. The letter is from a young woman who addresses the new occupant of the 'Il Mare' house. Sung-Hyun is surprised because he is the only person to have moved into the home. More letters arrive and in those letters her predictions are accurate. She warns about a flurry of snow on a certain day in January of 1998 and an ensuing flu virus. Eun-Joo is convinced that her letter has traveled back in time to December of 1997 and starts writing regularly to Sung-Hyun. Eun-Joo decides to ask Sung-Hyun to find her cassette recorder, which she lost at a train station. Sung-Hyun goes to the train station and gets a glimpse of Eun-Joo ...

When a mysterious virus breaks out in an isolated army camp, a lazy reservist soldier and his tough commander must work together to survive, and learn what it means to be real soldiers.