The Peony Pavilion

A daughter seeks to restore the reputation of her disgraced father, a wronged college professor. With help of a professional student, she must overcome an ambitious sorority bitch and corrupt college dean.

A movie fan escapes from a labour camp during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and strikes up a relationship with a homeless female vagabond.

A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.

A polyptych of interconnected stories in different time-zones, shifting between a Yunnan village, a campus, and the Gobi Desert.

Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.

Ah-Ching and his friends have just finished school in their island fishing village, and now spend most of their time drinking and fighting. Three of them decide to go to the port city of Kaohsiung to look for work. They find an apartment through relatives, and Ah-Ching is attracted to the girlfriend of a neighbor. There they face the harsh realities of the big city.

May is worried about her mother and father, whose marriage is on the rocks, and she yearns to return to the woods where her grandfather lives. One day, May befriends a boy as lonely as she is. When reality catches up, they run away to a beautiful world that belongs only to them.

Struggling to provide her daughters with a safe, happy home, Sandra decides to build one - from scratch. Using all her ingenuity to make her ambitious dream a reality, Sandra draws together a community to lend a helping hand to build her house and ultimately recover her own sense of self.

A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.

A street vendor with a grim home-life forges a connection with a young woman on her way to Paris.