Jane Sloan Media Librarian jsloan@rci.rutgers.edu December 2003

Research Resources: Subject Research Guides: Media Collections:
Feature Films Asia

This guide is a browsing aid to selected titles in the video/DVD collections at Rutgers Libraries. The most up-to-date, accurate, and complete information regarding the libraries' holdings is available only through IRIS, our online catalog.

The Adversary 199?

The story of a young Indian whose education was stopped by the death of his father when almost through medical school and his attempts to find a job, cope with personal and family problems, and how the political, social and economic aspects of Indian life affect him, even though he is not a committed revolutionary or politically active. He lives with his family in a crowded apartment in Calcutta.

DANA 517

Arth 199?

Inder Malhotra, a fashionable film-maker, is married to Pooja when he starts an affair with film star, Kavita. Pooja leaves him and experiences the social insecurities of a single working woman. Her dilemmas are highlighted by the parallel story of her cleaning lady who, abandoned by her husband, kills him and is arrested. Kavita, who suffers from guilt, eventually succumbs to schizophrenia and leaves Inder.

MEDIA 2-5691

Bandit Queen 1995

A dramatization of the life story of the female dacoit, Phoolan Devi. "Born of low caste in the Chambal River Valley of India, 11-year-old Phoolan is sold into marriage with a man 20 years her senior. She escapes and falls in with a pack of ruthless bandits but the male-dominated gang comes with its own set of brutal humiliations, and Phoolan must struggle to rise above a culture determined to bring her down, in a bloody coup that electrified a nation"--Container.

MEDIA 2-3300

The blue kite 1994

Told from the perspective of a young boy, Tietou, the film traces the fate of a Beijing family and their neighbors as they experience the political and social upheavals in 1950's and 1960's China.

MEDIA 2-2594

Ch`a Kuan The Teahouse 1982

Traces the fortunes of the manager of a popular Beijing teahouse who witnesses the toll a restless and war-torn populace takes on his business and his beloved teahouse.

MEDIA 2-2248

Chiburo The way home 2003

Through an elderly and old-fashioned grandmother, a spoiled seven-year-old boy learns to accept and understand the simple pleasures of nature and her lifestyle.

MEDIA 10-217

Chunhyang 2001

Mongryong marries the beautiful Chunhyang without telling his father, the Governor of Namwon. When his father is transferred to Seoul, Mongryong has to leave Chunhyang and finish his exams. Chunhyang, being the daughter of a courtesan, is also legally a courtesan. She is beaten and imprisoned when she refuses to obey the new Governor Byun, as she wishes to be faithful to her husband. After three years, Mongryong passes his exam and becomes an emissary to the King. He returns to Namwon, disguised as a beggar, just before Chunhyang is to be flogged to death at the governor's birthday celebration.

MEDIA 10-99

Devi, the goddess 1986?

The father-in-law of Daya, a ravishingly beautiful young Bengalese girl, becomes convinced that she is a reincarnation of the Hindu goddess Kali. As a result, Daya is then pressured into submitting to a worship that she is powerless to control.

MEDIA 2-1963

Dhund 199?

A love-triangle suspense film. The heroine (Aman) is married to a vicious, crippled tyrant who is killed in the beginning of the film. Aman and her secret lover (Khan) are the prime suspects. Their story is shown in flashbacks alternating with the progress of the police investigation. In the end, another man confesses to the crime: the old tyrant had raped the man's wife.

MEDIA XX(1782929.1)

Di xia qing Love unto wastes 2000

Three women from Taiwan go to Hong Kong with expectations of fame & fortune. Tragedy strikes the three when one is murdered & the other two become involved in a love triangle.

MEDIA 2-6121

Distant thunder 1974

An award-winning dramatization of World War II famine in India. As the government requisitions the civilian food supply for its armies, the common man starves. To eat he is reduced to an animal--a doctor must humble himself, a peasant turn to prostitution.

MEDIA 2-2733

Dust in the wind Lien lien feng ch`en 1989

A love story between a boy and a girl from the southern part of Taiwan. After graduating from school the two become more affectionate as they work together in Taipei. The boy eventually goes away for three years to military service and the girl marries someone else.

DANA 509

Eat drink man woman 1995

A retired master chef and widower is worried about the future of his three unmarried daughters who are skeptical about marriage. Yet he himself surprises them with his secret love affair with a young woman many years his junior.

DANA 487

The emperor and the assassin 2000

Ying Zheng, the King of Qin, has one driving ambition: to unify China's seven kingdoms into one magnificent empire.

DANA 1608

Empire of the sun 1988

A young British boy whose unconquerable spirit soars high and free above the harsh confines of a Japanese internment camp during World War II.

MEDIA 2-1542

Erotique 1997

Let's talk about sex / directed by Lizzie Borden; produced by Christopher Wood and Vicki Herman; screenplay by Lizzie Borden and Susie Bright; story by Lizzie Borden -- Taboo parlor / written and directed by Monika Treut; produced by Monika Treut, Michael Sombetzki -- Final call / directed by Ana Maria Magalhães; produced by Nova Era Produções de Arte LTDA.; screenplay by Eloí Calage and Ana Maria Magalhães -- Wonton soup / directed by Clara Law; produced by Teddy Robin Kwan, Eddie Ling-Ching Fong; screenplay by Eddie Ling-Ching FongAn anthology of four erotic short films with a distinct female point of view.

MEDIA 2-5064

Farewell my concubine 1993

Story that spans more than 50 years in the lives of two men at the Peking Opera, friends since childhood, and the woman who comes between them. Also an absorbing drama of the period in Chinese history from the warlord era through the Cultural Revolution.

DANA. MEDIA 1692 2-2595

Fire 1998

A young woman accepts an arranged marriage into a traditional New Delhi family, but finds herself drawn to her sister-in-law. She falls in love for the first time and the fallout from their affair shakes everyone around her to the core. Banned in India, this film was the first to confront lesbianism in that country.

MEDIA 2-5246

Fires on the plain 1987

In the most powerful of all Japanese anti-war films, acts of cannibalism bring home the terrifying brutality of war. Japanese troops are in retreat in the Philippines. Supplies run out and discipline crumbles.

MEDIA 2-330

Fu-jung-chen A small town called Hibiscus 198?

Story of a couple who sells rice beancurd for a living. During the "four clean-ups" movement of 1964, they are classified as new rich peasants: their house is confiscated and the husband is driven to suicide. After the Cultural Revolution, the wife falls in love with a rightist and almost dies when giving birth to their baby.

MEDIA. 2-5069 2-5069

Genesis 1986

The story of two men who left civilization after a famine to live in a desolate land. They were later joined by a woman who had left the land of the floods after everyone including her son had died.

MEDIA 2-5441

Girl from Hunan 1992

A young girl, married to a child husband, becomes pregnant by a farm hand. The farm hand flees, but the husband's family allows the girl to raise her little boy as her husband's younger brother. On her son's wedding day, the girl is asked to sleep with her husband who has just graduated from school.

MEDIA 2-2592

A Great wall 1987

This moving and humorous story chronicles the return of Leo Fang and his American-born wife and son to his native China and provides a comical insight into the cultural clashes between traditional Chinese families and Chinese-American families.

MEDIA 2-678

Hai shang hua Flowers of Shanghai 1999?

This film is set in the elegant brothels of late nineteenth-century Shanghai, a hermetic world with its own highly ritualized codes of behavior, where "flower girls" must win, and then hold, the affection of their wealthy callers.

MEDIA 2-5439

Hai tan ti i tien That day on the beach 1983

Brought up in a strict and well-protected environment, Chia-li fought against a pre-arranged marriage, left home and married Je-wei. As Je-wei's career advances, they gradually grow apart and problems arise which Chia-li refuses to confront.

DANA 533

Hao nan hao nü 1999?

This film consists of three intermingling stories: a film within a film as well as the past and present as linked by an actress in present-day Taipei. The film in which she plays is about a couple who return to mainland China to participate in the anti-Japanese movement in the 1940s and are arrested as Communists when they return to Taiwan. Images of the film-in-progress contrast with images from the actress' own past, when she was a party girl involved with a gangster.

MEDIA 2-5437

Heat and dust 198-

A modern woman goes to India to find the truth about her mysterious Aunt Olivia who left her British husband for an Indian prince.

MEDIA 2-818

The home and the world 1986

A woman falls in love with her husband's boyhood friend and his political ideals.

MEDIA 2-1889

Hong Fen 1995

Charts the fortunes of two women who loved each other as sisters, but whose paths diverge when the Revolution brings an end to their old way of life in the brothel.

MEDIA 2-5055

Hsiang ssu nü tzu k`o tien Ormosia Inn 1987

The breeze of economic reform reaches a remote mountain town. Zhao Xinyi, Party Secretary of the commune, dismisses his wife Qiao Sanla from her position as manager of the Ormosia Inn and appoints woman accountant Zhang Guanyin in her place.

MEDIA 2-5183

Hung i shao nü Girl in red 1988

Tells the story of a 16-year-old middle school student named An Ran, who is unafraid to pursue her own way of thinking, even if it causes problems. In a world dresses in blue and grey, she wears a bright red blouse. She refuses to conform to the norms of society.

MEDIA 2-5165

Hung kao liang Red sorghum 1991?

Story told by a young boy about the forced marriage of the woman who became his grandmother first to the leprous owner of a winery, then after his death to a local ruffian who first rapes her. She becomes the head of the winery, lives with the boy's father, and the entire winery community unites in bacchanalian solidary to resist atrocities of Japanese invaders.

DANA. MEDIA 1592 2-2346

Japanese war bride 1997

A Korean War vet (Taylor) falls in love with a Japanese nurse (Yamaguchi) and brings her back to his California home as his wife. However, the neighboring farmers who still harbor anti-Japanese sentiments from World War II, try to break up their marriage.

MEDIA 2-5570

The Joy Luck Club 1993

Juxtaposes scenes from the lives of four Chinese women in pre-1949 China and the lives of their American-born daughters to show how the mothers' experiences in China and as immigrants in the United States shaped their dreams for their daughters' lives.

MEDIA 2-2611

Ju Dou 1991

A variation of "The Postman Always Rings Twice," this film, set in the 1920's, follows a mill-owner's wife and nephew, who together plot the mill-owner's murder.

DANA. MEDIA 536 2-2590

Kê t`u ch`iu hên Song of the exile 1992

A young woman returns home to attend her sister's wedding and finds herself at social and emotional odds with her mother.

DANA 513

Koyangi rul put`ak hae Take care of my cat 2002

This is a story about five Korean girls and a cat named Titi. After the high school graduation, those girls found their own paths in the society and ond day they found a lost cat, Titi.

MEDIA 10-219

Lao ching 1987?

An educated youth returns to his village and helps his family realize their dream of finding water on their land. To do so, he marries a widow and sacrifices his real love. The villagers succeed in digging a good well.

MEDIA 2-2355

The Last emperor 1988

The true story of Pu Yi, who, at the age of 3, toddled to the Imperial Dragon Throne to become China's last emperor. His life took him from emperor to playboy to prisoner to an unskilled gardener.

MEDIA 2-601

The Last picture show 1999

A bitter-sweet story of teenagers who come of age in Anarene, a fictional one-horse town in Texas. In 1951, high school seniors, Sonny and Duane, play footbball, go to the movies at the Royal Theater, hang out at the pool hall and lust after rich tease, Jacy Farrow. Following two tragic deaths and with Duane gone to Korea and Jacy to college in Dallas, Sonny is left behind but is determined to carry on, despite a telling sign of incipient communal disintegration, the closing of the Royal Theater.

MEDIA 2-5209

The Lives of a Bengal Lancer 1987

Adventure film set in India with Cooper as the leader of crack troops fighting the Afghans at the Khyber Pass.

MEDIA 2-2755

The Man who would be king 1989

Based on the classic Rudyard Kipling story about a pair of adventurers who set out for the isolated, primitive land of Kafiristan to become kings. Set in 19th century India, this epic film captures the exotic quality of Kipling's tale.

MEDIA 2-1723

MASH 2001

Highlights the outrageous antics of three skilled young surgeons drafted from civilian life and assigned to a unit of the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) during the Korean War.

DANA 1552

Mohra 1995?

Police-criminal action drama.

MEDIA 2-5720

Mùi ðu ðu xanh L'odeur de la papaye verte = The scent of green papaya 1995

Set in 1950s Saigon, this film is about a young country girl who joins a family as their servant and develops an enduring but secret attachment to a friend of the eldest son.

DANA. MEDIA 485 2-2860

Nü hsing shih chieh 1991?

A story of the loves and lives of three middle-aged women. Li Ch`ing, Lü Yün and T`ao T`ien-i have been close friends since school, but all have had different experiences in their life.

MEDIA 2-5261

Nü jen taxi nü jen Woman taxi woman 199?

A female taxi driver, Chang Kai-hsiu, comes back from maternity leave and on her first day back nearly runs over a young scientist, Ch`in Yao. They soon become friends and offer each other the support and understanding each needs.

MEDIA 2-5084

Nü ren di gu shi A women's story 1989

A poignant tale of three peasant Chinese women who flee their village to taste freedom in the big city and escape the sexist oppression of rural China. After many experiences they return to their village to find life there has not changed, they have.

MEDIA 2-5440

Nü ta hsüeh sheng su she Girl students dormitory 1988

Five girls from different backgrounds, living in the same dormitory, become friends.

MEDIA 2-5157

Oasisu Oasis 2002

A love story of an ex-convict and a lady with cerebral palsy.

MEDIA 10-220

Obalt`an The aimless bullet 2002

One family's struggles with money and social upheaval of a rapidly changing society after The Korean War.

MEDIA 10-221

A Passage to India 1984

Set in India in 1928, a young English woman travels with her fiance's mother to Chandrapore to visit her fiancee who is city magistrate. Appalled at the treatment of the Indians by the British, they befriend a young Indian doctor, who oversteps the accepted boundaries between the classes by inviting the women on a picnic excursion. In a strange turn of events, the doctor is accused of attempted rape of the young English woman. What actually did happen is the central riddle of the film.

MEDIA 2-1902

Qing chin zhi ge Song of youth 1983

Lin runs away from home to escape an arranged marriage. On the verge of suicide, she is rescued by a young man whom she eventually marries. She chafes at the restrictions of married life, however, and when she meets Lu, a man involved in the student movement against the Japanese, she leaves her husband for a new life with him. Unfortunately, Lu is arrested.

MEDIA 2-5182

Raise the red lantern 1992

The 19-year-old Songlian (Gong Li) has become Fourth Wife to the wealthy Chen, and she must share her husband with his other three wives. When Songlian discovers that the other wives manipulate and cheat for their husband's favors, a battle of wills commences between the women that can only bring misfortune to all concerned.

DANA. MEDIA 520 2-2353

Satya Chitra Subah 199?

Sulabha decides to take charge of a women's rehabilitation center in a small Indian town. There she has to contend with the gross corruption and greed which further exploits and victimises the women in her care. The governors of the institution eventually make life so difficult for her that she has to resign. When she returns home, her husband informs her that he has taken a mistress. Sulabha leaves her home determined to make a life for herself.

MEDIA XX(1782960.1)

Shanghai express videorecording 1993

This film is a romance set against exotic China of the 1930s. After being jilted by Captain Donald Harvey (Clive Brooks), Lily, (Marlene Dietrich) gains a reputation as a notorious adventureress. During the Chinese Civil War, the couple meet on a train which is attacked by Chinese rebels. Lily becomes involved with a rebel leader in order to save the man she still loves.

MEDIA 2-2189

Shower 2000

Mistakenly believing his father has passed away, a bathhouse master's son returns home and soon discovers the magic of the family business and its importance to the community.

DANA 1559

Song of the exile 1991

Hueyin Cheung returns home to attend her sister's wedding but quickly finds herself at social and emotional odds with her mother.

MEDIA 2-2657

The story of Qiu Ju Qiu Ju Da Guan Si 1993

A woman's journey through the Chinese court system in a universal battle against bureacracy and indifference after her husband is kicked in the groin by a village chief.

DANA. MEDIA 1558 2-2593

T`ung nien wang shih A time to live and the time to die 1985

The film depicts a family transplanted from mainland China to Taiwan in the early 1950s. The Father dies of illness and the elder sister marries. A-ha, the protagonist, struggles to deal with adolescence.

MEDIA 2-5040

Tao ma tsei The Horse Thief 1991

In order to survive, a herdsman becomes a criminal, and finally atones for his sins by taking his own life.

MEDIA 2-2600

To live 1995

In a smoky gambling den in 1940's China, a drunken young man runs through his family's fortune, losing their ancestral home and all their possessions. This staggering loss proves to be their salvation, and the first step in an odyssey of survival that will take them through war and revolution love and loss, tragedy ... and triumph.

DANA. DANA MEDIA 1697 504 2-2826

Tu shen nü jen 1997?

Woman with failed marriage struggles to be equal to her male business partner. Deals with issues which concern single women.

MEDIA 2-5278

Two daughters 1996?

Post office -- SamaptiTwo stories "The Post office" and "Samapti" express the hungers, pains and joys of youth in terms of compassionate understanding and truth. The "Post office" a new postmaster is taken care of by an orphan girl. In "Samapti" a student returns home to his village to find his mother has arranged a marriage for him.

DANA 602

The United States and China : World War and Civil War, 1937-1949 1970

Describes U.S.-China relations from 1937- 1949, including Mao Tse Tung's northern peasant campaign and U.S. relations with Chiang during World War II and in the post- war period.

DOUGLASS 31

Why has Bodhi-Dharma left for the east? 1996

In a remote monastery high up in the mountains, an old master, a young monk, and an orphaned boy devote themselves to their Buddhist teachings. As the master faces death, he must lead his disciples away from their past ties to the outside world and its rapidly changing values, and point them toward their quest for enlightenment.

MEDIA 2-2838

Women from the lake of scented souls 1995

Xiang Ersao is the driving force behind her family's successful sesame oil mill. But, despite her prosperity, Xiang is profoundly unhappy. As society dictates, she must endure the drunken and abusive behavior of her husband, to whom she was sold at the age of seven and married at thirteen. When her mentally ill son asks for a wife, Xiang perpetuates her own destiny by "buying" a poor, reluctant peasant girl, Huanhuan, for him. Will Xiang recognize the parallel between her own life and Huanhuan's before it is too late?

MEDIA 2-2601

The World of Apu Apur sansar 1991

The third part of the Apu trilogy. The shy young man, Apu, is drawn into marriage out of regard for friendship and Hindu custom. He quickly realizes his love for his wife and they are blissfully happy for a year, until she dies in childbirth, leaving him the desolate father of a child.

DANA 332

Wu t`ai chieh mei Two actresses 1991

"Chunhua, a child bride, runs away from home and is taken in by a small Shaoxing opera troup. She becomes a sworn sister of Yuehong. But when they were sold to a theatre in Shanghai, Yuehong falls from grace, and Chunhua draws herself to a progressive reporter"--Container.

MEDIA 2-5095

Xiu Xiu he ta de nan ren = the sent down girl 1999

A teen-aged girl named Xiu Xiu is sent down to a remote corner of Tibet for manual labor in 1975. A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp to learn horse herding. Soon her world becomes a cage where patrons promise her escape in exchange for her sexual compromise.

MEDIA 2-5581

Yellow earth Huang T`u Ti 1993

A singer and folk song interpreter falls victim to feudal Chinese society when she is forced to marry a young boy. She suffers endless pain until she meets a folk song collector who changes her life.

MEDIA 2-2545

Yi ge dou bu neng shao Not one less 2000

A young woman is ordered to a remote, rural, Chinese village to be the substitute teacher and is told that she must keep the class intact for one month or she won't be paid. When one of her students disappears into the city to find work, she goes after him.

DANA MEDIA 1589 10-13

YMCA yagudan YMCA baseball team 2003

The time is 1905, a time when Korea was in the beginning of it's annexation by Imperial Japan. Resentment was high against the Japanese and into this era came Korea's first Baseball team. The players for the YMCA Baseball team became a national sensation and Heroes for a country suffering under Imperialism.

MEDIA 10-218

Yüeh ya erh Crescent moon 1991

A story of how Han Yüeh-jung and her mother became prostitutes under the pressure of life.

MEDIA 2-5211