Asian Film Festival
Let's watch these films together.
List activity
46 views
• 1 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
153 titles
- DirectorCecil B. DeMilleStarsFannie WardSessue HayakawaJack DeanA venal, spoiled stockbroker's wife impulsively embezzles $10,000 from the charity she chairs and desperately turns to a Burmese ivory trader to replace the stolen money.✔ Upon its release, the character of Hishuru Tori was described as a Japanese ivory merchant. Japanese Americans protested against the film for portraying a Japanese person as sinister. The protests were largely ignored at the time. When the film was re-released in 1918, the character of Hishuru was renamed "Haka Arakua" and described in the title cards as a "Burmese ivory king". The change of the character's name and nationality were done because Japan was an American ally at the time. Robert Birchard, author of the book Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood, surmised that the character's nationality was changed to Burmese because there were "not enough Burmese in the country to raise a credible protest."[4] Despite the changes, the film was banned in the United Kingdom and was never released in Japan.
- DirectorD.W. GriffithStarsLillian GishRichard BarthelmessDonald CrispA frail waif, abused by her brutal boxer father in London's seedy Limehouse District, is befriended by a sensitive Chinese immigrant with tragic consequences.✔
- DirectorVsevolod PudovkinStarsI. InkizhinovValéry InkijinoffA. DedintsevAfter a run-in with the law, a Mongolian man becomes a fugitive and joins the Russian Civil War.Genre: Silent Action War Drama (Soviet Union)
Starring: Valery Inkijinoff (The Indian Tomb; Chinese Adventures in China), I. Dedintsev
Directed By: Vsevolod Pudovkin (Mother; The End Of St. Petersburg)
Overview: In 1918, A young Mongolian sets out to sell a valuable silver fox pelt. When he is cheated by the Western fur trader, a fight ensues, and he flees to the hills. There he finds Russian Revolutionaries and joins up with them. - DirectorJosef von SternbergStarsMarlene DietrichClive BrookAnna May WongA notorious woman rides a train through a dangerous situation with a British captain she loved.✔
- DirectorYonggang WuStarsLingyu RuanTian JianZhizhi ZhangStreet walker by night, devoted mother by day, a woman fights to get her young son an education amid criminal and social injustice in China.
- DirectorChusheng CaiStarsLingyu RuanNaidong WangJunli ZhengOvernight, the sexy Wei Ming will become a successful novelist. But, desperate to get the money that she needs to cure her little daughter (and harassed by a rich, unscrupulous rake), she will end up eventually engage in luxury prostitution.
- DirectorYôji ChibaGinjiro SatoA boy competes in various events during the Olympic games.
- DirectorWeibang Ma-XuStarsMenghe GuPing HuShan JinChina's first horror film, this is loosely based on The Phantom of the Opera. A disfigured musical genius roams a traditional Chinese opera house, punishing those who offend him.
- DirectorSidney FranklinVictor FlemingGustav MachatýStarsPaul MuniLuise RainerWalter ConnollyAlthough married Chinese farmers Wang and O-Lan initially experience success, their lives are complicated by declining fortunes and lean times, as well as the arrival of the beautiful young Lotus."Hi, I'm Robert Osborne. You know, as much as I love color films, and have been bedazzled by the color in movies like The Red Shoes, Blood and Sand — nineteen forties, The Thief of Bagdad, Ziegfeld Follies of nineteen forty-six, I have to say there… there isn't anything more beautiful than a great black-and-white movie… to me, something about the play of light and shadow draws me into a film more than color cinematography does. Well, film historian and author Wheeler Winston Dixon agrees on that subject and he says so emphatically in this slim new book called Black and White Cinema: A Short History. It's a book that looks at black-and-white cinematography from its origins through its heyday. It's also a book that inspired our lineup of films for the next few hours — those films being some of the most beautiful black-and-white films ever made. Well, our first black-and-white film on this October Wednesday is one which earned cinematographer Karl Freund an Academy Award for his work. It's The Good Earth from MGM in nineteen thirty-seven, made eight years after Freund immigrated to Hollywood from Germany, where he learned his craft in the German film industry before World War Two broke out. Freund had already photographed dozens of films, including the landmark German film Metropolis. Well, in Hollywood, he first made waves with Universal's black-and-white horror classic Dracula. By the time he made this next film about The Good Earth, he was under contract to MGM in Hollywood, which meant he had the full power of the Tiffany of movie studios for support in telling this story. The Good Earth stars Paul Muni and Luise Rainer and is an adaptation of the novel by Pearl S. Buck — all about the struggles of family of farmers in rural China. It was one of the last movies made by MGM production chief Irving Thalberg, before his sudden death in nineteen thirty-six. Thalberg was a workaholic and poured himself into every detail of his productions and, for this film, he sent an expedition of researchers to China to search for eighteen tons of furniture, farm equipment and other authentic material. Thalberg then had a walled city built a farm near Chatsworth, California, complete with a man-made river and fields filled with real Chinese vegetables. I mean, it was a mammoth, multimillion-dollar undertaking and, thanks to Karl Freund's amazing cinematography, you'll be seeing ninety-five percent of those dollars right up there on the screen. Here's the movie, from nineteen thirty-seven… The Good Earth."
- DirectorKenji MizoguchiStarsShôtarô HanayagiKôkichi TakadaRyôtarô KawanamiThe adopted son of a legendary actor, and an aspiring star himself, turns to his infant brother's wet nurse for support and affection - only for her to give up everything for her beloved's glory.
- DirectorJohn CromwellStarsIrene DunneRex HarrisonLinda DarnellIn 1862, a young Englishwoman becomes royal tutor in Siam and befriends the King.✔
- DirectorOrson WellesStarsRita HayworthOrson WellesEverett SloaneFascinated by gorgeous Mrs. Bannister, seaman Michael O'Hara joins a bizarre yachting cruise, and ends up mired in a complex murder plot.
- DirectorMu FeiStarsChaoming CuiWei LiYu ShiA lonely housewife finds her monotonous life altered when her childhood sweetheart returns to town.
- DirectorAkira KurosawaStarsToshirô MifuneMachiko KyôMasayuki MoriThe rape of a bride and the murder of her samurai husband are recalled from the perspectives of a bandit, the bride, the samurai's ghost and a woodcutter.✔
- DirectorJosef von SternbergMel FerrerNicholas RayStarsRobert MitchumJane RussellWilliam BendixNick Cochran, an American in exile in Macao, has a chance to restore his name by helping capture an international crime lord. Undercover, can he mislead the bad guys and still woo the attractive singer/petty crook, Julie Benson?
- DirectorAkira KurosawaStarsTakashi ShimuraNobuo KanekoShin'ichi HimoriA bureaucrat tries to find meaning in his life after he discovers he has terminal cancer.
- DirectorYasujirô OzuStarsChishû RyûChieko HigashiyamaSô YamamuraAn old couple visit their children and grandchildren in the city, but receive little attention.
- DirectorKenji MizoguchiStarsMasayuki MoriMachiko KyôKinuyo TanakaA tale of ambition, family, love, and war set in the midst of the Japanese Civil Wars of the sixteenth century.
- DirectorLuchino ViscontiStarsFarley GrangerAlida ValliMassimo GirottiAn Italian Countess is allied with Nationalists during the Italian-Austrian war of unification. However, she risks betraying their cause when she falls in love with an Austrian lieutenant.
- DirectorAkira KurosawaStarsToshirô MifuneTakashi ShimuraKeiko TsushimaFarmers from a village exploited by bandits hire a veteran samurai for protection, who gathers six other samurai to join him.✔
- DirectorKenji MizoguchiStarsKinuyo TanakaYoshiaki HanayagiKyôko KagawaIn medieval Japan, a compassionate governor is sent into exile. His wife and children try to join him, but are separated, and the children grow up amid suffering and oppression.
- DirectorIshirô HondaStarsTakashi ShimuraAkihiko HirataAkira TakaradaAfter a dinosaur-like beast - awoken from undersea hibernation by atom bomb testing - ravages Tokyo, a scientist must decide if his similarly dangerous weapon should be used to destroy it.
- DirectorSatyajit RayStarsKanu BannerjeeKaruna BannerjeeSubir BanerjeeImpoverished priest Harihar Ray, dreaming of a better life for himself and his family, leaves his rural Bengal village in search of work.