The story of Farewell to My Concubine is itself very dramatic. Lillian Lee is rumoured to have written the original screenplay in the late 1970s, which was made into a two-part television series on RTHK by Alex Law under the name King Chau and Lady Yu. Lee then adapted the story into a novel in 1985, which later inspired a feature film, scripted again by Lee and directed by Fifth Generation mainstay Chen Kaige, going on to become an international sensation that won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globe Awards among other accolades. What's more, the Peking opera of the same title featured prominently in the novel, the TV programme and the film was itself adapted from a Kun opera, which was in turn based on the historical chronicle Basic Annals of Xiang Yu, from Records of the Grand Historian.


The story of Farewell to My Concubine is itself very dramatic. Lillian Lee is rumoured to have written the original screenplay in the late 1970s, which was made into a two-part television series on RTHK by Alex Law under the name King Chau and Lady Yu. Lee then adapted the story into a novel in 1985, which later inspired a feature film, scripted again by Lee and directed by Fifth Generation mainstay Chen Kaige, going on to become an international sensation that won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globe Awards among other accolades. What's more, the Peking opera of the same title featured prominently in the novel, the TV programme and the film was itself adapted from a Kun opera, which was in turn based on the historical chronicle Basic Annals of Xiang Yu, from Records of the Grand Historian.
1981-01-01
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7.9Based on a novel by the same name written by Gu Hua, a melodrama about the life and travails of a young woman who lives through the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution.
6.3Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of King Henry VIII, is named regent while the tyrant battles abroad. When the king returns, increasingly ill and paranoid, Katherine finds herself fighting for her own survival.
7.5The story of a family embroiled in the "White Terror," the Kuomintang government's anti-communist political repression that was wrought on the Taiwanese people from 1947-1987.
6.1A young man is plunged into a life of subterfuge, deceit and mistaken identity in pursuit of a femme fatale whose heart is never quite within his grasp.
6.2Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria clashes with his father, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, over implementing progressive policies for their country. Rudolf soon feels he is a man born at the wrong time in a country that doesn't realize the need for social reform. The Prince of Wales, later to become Britain's King Edward VII, provides comic relief. Rudolf finds refuge from a loveless marriage with Princess Stéphanie by taking a mistress, Baroness Maria Vetsera. Their untimely demise at Mayerling, the imperial family's hunting lodge, is cloaked in mystery.
6.9At the tense 1938 Munich Conference, former friends who now work for opposing governments become reluctant spies racing to expose a Nazi secret.
6.4In this story-within-a-story, Anna is an actress starring opposite Mike in a period piece about the forbidden love between their respective characters, Sarah and Charles. Both actors are involved in serious relationships, but the passionate nature of the script leads to an off-camera love affair as well. While attempting to maintain their composure and professionalism, Anna and Mike struggle to come to terms with their infidelity.
6.8A chronicle of the Cristeros War (1926-1929), which was touched off by a rebellion against the Mexican government's attempt to secularize the country.
5.9At an isolated frontier outpost, a colonial magistrate suffers a crisis of conscience when an army colonel arrives looking to interrogate the locals about an impending uprising, using cruel tactics that horrify the magistrate.
6.7Anthology of short films directed by several different directors.
6.9The story of Margaret Humphreys, a social worker from Nottingham, who uncovers one of the most significant social scandals in recent times – the forced migration of children from the United Kingdom to Australia and other Commonwealth countries. Almost singlehandedly, Margaret reunited thousands of families, brought authorities to account and worldwide attention to an extraordinary miscarriage of justice.
5.9In 1857, at the height of his fame and fortune, novelist and social critic Charles Dickens meets and falls in love with teenage stage actress Nelly Ternan. As she becomes the focus of his heart and mind, as well as his muse, painful secrecy is the price both must pay.
7.0The true story of fraudulent Washington, D.C. journalist Stephen Glass, who rose to meteoric heights as a young writer in his 20s, becoming a staff writer at The New Republic for three years. Looking for a short cut to fame, Glass concocted sources, quotes and even entire stories, but his deception did not go unnoticed forever, and eventually, his world came crumbling down.
7.2As the only legitimate heir of England's King William, teenage Victoria gets caught up in the political machinations of her own family. Victoria's mother wants her to sign a regency order, while her Belgian uncle schemes to arrange a marriage between the future monarch and Prince Albert, the man who will become the love of her life.
6.8The story of Vera Atkins, a crafty spy recruiter, and two of the first women she selects for Churchill's "secret army": Virginia Hall, a daring American undaunted by a disability and Noor Inayat Khan, a pacifist. These civilian women form an unlikely sisterhood while entangled in dangerous missions to turn the tide of the war.
6.0In post-World War II America, a woman, rebuilding her life in the suburbs with her husband, kidnaps her neighbor and seeks vengeance for the heinous war crimes she believes he committed against her.
6.9Queen Victoria strikes up an unlikely friendship with a young Indian clerk named Abdul Karim.
6.4Follow the launch of Lamborghini’s career as a manufacturer of tractors, a creator of military vehicles during World War II, and the designer of Lamborghini cars, which he launched in 1963 as the high-end sports car company Automobili Lamborghini.
6.7Young women toiling in a factory are exposed to hazardous material which takes a disastrous toll on their health.
1.0The post-war guilt and horrific secrets of Nazi Germany serve as a backdrop to a disturbing mind game between a young anatomist and a prostitute in a small hotel room the first Christmas following the war.
Details the successful launch and execution of the Marshall Plan - America's expansive commitment to re-build Europe at the end of the war. Walter Cronkite traces the complex and changing relationship between the United States and England and explores the dramatic shifts of the Cold War from the end of the war up to the present.
0.0In the 1920s, female workers in a factory paint fluorescent watch dials. Mollie, the newcomer, makes a mistake that forces her colleagues to work with her through the night. Deprived of the evening ball they were supposed to attend, they end up improvising their own ball in the factory…
0.0A drama of intrigue and betrayal in Stalin's Russia. Stepan grows up in an orphanage, learning to love Stalin as 'a father to all children'. He retains disturbing memories of the disappearance of his real father and, when a strange message is delivered to him, he's determined to find out the truth.
7.9A portrait of French filmmaker Michel Gondry, creator, for three decades, of an imperfect, astonishing, fascinating, damaged and poetic work.
7.5The end of Trajan's Dacian Wars (106 AD), when south western Dacia was transformed into a Roman province: Roman Dacia.
6.8The Final Days concerns itself with the final months of the Richard Nixon presidency.
5.1The film is set in the 1930s in the USSR. The film tells about one day of the construction of the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works. The heroes of the film are simple construction workers who are burning at work. Upon learning that their colleagues in Kharkov have set a record, they mobilize to break it. The entire construction site was engulfed in immense socialist competition. The teams are ready to complete the work on time at any cost. A Moscow journalist who has come to cover the scale of the great construction project is looking for the hero of his report...
5.3The 17th century rebellion in Kakheti masterminded by Bidzina Cholokashvili gets about the whole Georgia. An Imeretian youth nicknamed as Bashi-Achuk is a real exterminator of the Persians. He attacks the Persian escort and sets free the Georgian women who were supposed to be locked up in the Shah’s harem. Bashi-Achuk’s twin sisters are among the rescued captives. Abdushahil, a Persian warrior who was defeated by Bashi-Achuk in wrestling, falls in love with Mzisa, Bashi-achuk’s sister. Mzisa brings Abdushahil to the camp of the Georgian rebels. Abdushahil learns that he is a Georgian too. As a child he was kidnapped and brought up in Persia. Abdushahil’s army gives up and the Georgians win the battle.
0.0Aspiring actress Eva Duarte rises from a minor celebrity to the wife of a powerful Argentine dictator, but her all consuming fiery rage, ambition, and hatred eventually become her downfall.
0.0In 1945, a group of Australian soldiers inadvertently stumbled across Amelia Earhart's downed airplane in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. Now, a team of specialists will use the soldiers' exclusive testimony and an old patrol map to find the plane again.
7.3Island of Java, 1942, during World War II. British Major Jack Celliers arrives at a Japanese prison camp, run by the strict Captain Yonoi. Colonel John Lawrence, who has a profound knowledge of Japanese culture, and Sergeant Hara, brutal and simpleton, will witness the struggle of wills between two men from very different backgrounds who are tragically destined to clash.
7.8Akira Kurosawa's lauded feudal epic presents the tale of a petty thief who is recruited to impersonate Shingen, an aging warlord, in order to avoid attacks by competing clans. When Shingen dies, his generals reluctantly agree to have the impostor take over as the powerful ruler. He soon begins to appreciate life as Shingen, but his commitment to the role is tested when he must lead his troops into battle against the forces of a rival warlord.
0.0During the days of the California missions, Jose Garcia becomes friends with Luis Lopez, a local Robin Hood determined to redistribute among the poor the loot of the rich. Inspired by Luis, Jose sets out to rob the home of wealthy landowner Don Ortega. On the way, however, Jose gets lost in the desert and is nearly dead when he is found by Don Ortega's aristocratic cousin, Castro Arrellanes, and Castro's daughter Carmen, who take him in and nurse him back to health. Jose quickly falls in love with Carmen, and as a result, renounces his plan of robbing the rich. Then, he learns that Luis has made plans to break into Don Ortega's house.
0.0'We Fight to Be Free' vividly illustrates defining moments that made George Washington an indispensable leader. You'll see Washington take command of British forces during the French and Indian War, and later leading the Army across the icy Delaware River. Charming scenes show Washington's first encounter with the widow Martha Custis and his return home to Mount Vernon after resigning his military commission at the end of the war. Special features include George Washington Quiz and Mount Vernon Picture Gallery and bonus videos Saving Mount Vernon and a Mount Vernon overview.
0.0In late 18th-century Russia, village life is shaped by a fusion of rural superstitions, pagan beliefs and traces of Orthodox Christianity. Twin girls are violently separated when one is believed to be possessed, accused of draining the vitality of her sister. Meanwhile, a young man, branded a freak and outcast, obsessively constructs mechanical wings in a desperate attempt to fly like Icarus. Overseeing this turbulent world are Europeanised feudal lords who maintain brutal, cynical control over the peasants, exacerbating class tensions.
6.7Jimmy Gralton returns from New York and reopens his beloved community hall, only to meet opposition from the local parish.
0.0Two desperate prospectors are hoping to strike the motherlode in an abandoned Colorado mine in the 1870s. While attempting to contend with the crushing effects of isolation, greed, paranoia and the fear of the mysterious creatures that supposedly lurk in the shadows of the mine, they gradually begin to lose their grip on reality.
7.2During the Japanese colonial era, roughly 400 Korean people, who were forced onto Battleship Island 'Hashima Island' to mine for coal, attempt to escape.