Taiwanese drama
It is a school bus driver's last day at work. On a whim, he drives off to the seashore with the school's cook, a young teacher, and a busload of children. Facing an unhappy retirement, he seeks one great moment of happiness, which he finds on the road with the children. They encounter an aboriginal family, who invite them in for a feast, and then some young motorcycle riders, with whom they camp by the sea.
John Woo's melodramatic tragicomedy The Time You Need a Friend (1985) stands at the crucial crossroads in the director's career. Woo had been churning out innocuous comedies for more than a few years, and after establishing the "heroic bloodshed" genre, he'd never look back. But this tale of two comedians - estranged former pals who bury the hatchet for one last show together - blends the pathos and male-bonding of Woo's later dramas with the silliness and pratfalls that marked his early works. At their peak, Ku Ren and Shem Bien were an unstoppable screen comedy team, the undisputed stars of the silent era. But a major falling out has kept the duo offstage for decades. Despite the urgings of family and friends, Ku and Shem refuse to reconcile. As both men approach their twilight years, one last chance for a reunion presents itself in the form of a televised charity benefit. Ku Ren and Shem Bien struggle to come to terms with years of bitterness, and bring the house down once again.
A boy's disappointing scores on the college entrance exam bring shame down on his family.
Mrs. Chiang (segment "The Taste of Apple")
Composed of three separate stories, the film vividly portrays Taiwan during the cold war period when the country developed its economy with help from the United States.
A poor army veteran in Taiwan adopts a daughter. She grows up and leaves him to enter show business. When she becomes famous she shuns her father and friends.
After her six year old son is kidnapped, a successful fashion designer must work with a detective to clear up the terrifying mystery and get her son back.
Upon their invasion of Taiwan in 1874, the Japanese team up with a sinister tong to hold a martial arts tournament in a plot to root out and assassinate the region's top resistance fighters, thereby breaking the spirit of Chinese patriotism. Two local kung-fu masters prove more than a match for the invaders.
A mix of supernatural tone, comedic banter and nudity with musical numbers, it takes a while before this story of two scholars being courted and haunted by both, fox spirits and malicious ghosts, gets started. Do the scholars side with the fox spirits, trying to achieve immortality or are they being bewitched by it? It leads to a wild ending with a battle between humans, fox spirits and ghosts that seems more like a Halloween costume showcase than anything else.
When Master Leung tries to rob Wong I-Hsia of a precious cargo he must protect, Wong I-Hsia fights him off with the iron palm and makes his escape. Too old and weak to continue his mission, Wong I-Hsia entrusts the cargo to his eldest son Wan Fu, who wastes no time in proving his fighting skills as he slays 50 of Master Leung's men fighting off a forest ambush.
