The latest edition of the Beautiful series, commissioned for the Hong Kong International Film Festival, which asks established and acclaimed directors from across Asia to contemplate the idea of what beauty really is in their own distinctive ways. Following on from Beautiful 2012, this selection sees Jia Zhangke (A Touch Of Sin, Mountains May Depart), Stanley Kwan (Rouge, Centre Stage), Alec Su (The Left Ear) and Hideo Nakata (Ringu, Ghost Theater) step up to the plate.
Kyōko Kagawa
Suzuka Ohgo
Cecilia Yip Tung
The latest edition of the Beautiful series, commissioned for the Hong Kong International Film Festival, which asks established and acclaimed directors from across Asia to contemplate the idea of what beauty really is in their own distinctive ways. Following on from Beautiful 2012, this selection sees Jia Zhangke (A Touch Of Sin, Mountains May Depart), Stanley Kwan (Rouge, Centre Stage), Alec Su (The Left Ear) and Hideo Nakata (Ringu, Ghost Theater) step up to the plate.
In Chengdu, China, a retired female opera singer named Master Chang takes in a trio of young tenants into her boarding home. The tenants include a rock singer and a college student who has run away from home.
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
Years after her boyfriend left her for the big city and promised to bring her there after he’s settled down, a Chinese woman sets out on a journey to be reunited with him.
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.
A woman embarks on a journey alone across the United States after fleeing from her violent husband.
A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.
When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?
After the lewd and frenetic Dance of the Seven Veils, and with the solemn pledge from the very lips of Herod himself that she could have whatever her heart desires up to half his kingdom, wanton and proud young Salomé comes before her king with an unreasonable demand. Beguiled by John the Baptist, and then scorned for the sake of his god, lascivious Salomé—encouraged by her mother, the vindictive, Herodias—commands that John be executed and his head delivered on a silver platter.