Saturday, November 22, 2008

Untold Scandal /Dangerous Liasons

Untold Scandal (Seukaendeul: Joseon Namnyeo Sangyeol Ji Sa)
Set in 18th century Korea, this retelling of Dangerous Liaisons follows morality-deficient cousins Lady Cho (Lee Mi-Suk) and Cho-won (Bae Yong-Jun) as they scheme to ruin the lives of innocents. When Lady Cho asks Cho-won to bed her husband's lover-to-be (Lee So-yeong), Cho-won ups the ante and goes after an even more virtuous female. If he succeeds, Lady Cho must sleep with her cousin. But Cho-won begins to fall in love with his intended target.

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Dangerous Liasons
In this Academy Award-winning adaptation of the acclaimed stage play and novel, 18th century French aristocrats Marquise de Merteuil (Glenn Close) and Vicomte de Valmont (John Malkovich) enjoy lives of privilege and boredom. To entertain themselves, the cynical ex-lovers make a bet focusing on the virginal Cécile de Volanges (Uma Thurman) and the virtuous Madame de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer). Swoosie Kurtz and Keanu Reeves also appear.

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Priceless (Hors de Prix)

Irène (Audrey Tautou), who makes a fortune sweet-talking rich men, puts the moves on klutzy Jean (Gad Elmaleh), unaware that he's just a hotel bartender. But by the time she realizes her mistake, Jean is smitten with her. Letting men down easy has never been Irène's strong suit, but she finds a way to mend Jean's broken heart that ensures he'll never have to mix cocktails again. Vernon Dobtcheff co-stars in this wacky French farce.

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Perfume

Born with an acute sense of smell, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw) resorts to dark deeds in creating a perfume that captures the essence of a woman in this 18th-century thriller based on Patrick Süskind's best-selling novel. The disturbing intensity mounts as Baroque-born Grenouille's obsession to create the ultimate scent moves from innovation to murderous aberration. Alan Rickman co-stars along with Dustin Hoffman as a master perfumer.

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Friday, November 21, 2008

Devil Man

A scientific exploration in search of a new energy source unleashes a group of powerful demons who begin possessing human bodies and destroying civilization. Close friends Akira (Hisato Izaki) and Ryo (Yusuke Izaki) wind up on different sides of this epic struggle. Akira's inner strength allows him to maintain his identity and fight for good, but the weaker Ryo is completely overtaken by Satan himself.

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Mister Foe

Teenage voyeur Hallam Foe (Jamie Bell) spies on his stepmother Verity (Claire Forlani) through binoculars, finding himself irresistibly attracted to her even as he becomes convinced she murdered his mother. When Hallam flees to the city and meets Kate, a woman who resembles his mother, his binocular-spying obsessions begin anew. He wins over the new girl, but when Verity and his father track him down, will the truth surface and drive Kate away?

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Thursday, November 20, 2008

THAI HORROR RIP OFF: Shutter

ชัตเตอร์ กดติดวิญญาณ
Tun (Ananda Everingham), a photographer, and his girlfriend, Jane (Natthaweeranuch Thongmee), run over a young girl after a night of drinking and decide to flee the scene. The couple is haunted by the memory of their deadly choice, and soon, they notice their photos contain strange ghostly shapes. When several of Tun's friends die in mysterious circumstances, they realize that they may be haunted by more than just bad memories.

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Shutter
This American remake of a Thai horror blockbuster follows the Shaws, a young newlywed couple who become haunted by strange shadowlike images in the photographs they develop after their involvement in a car accident. As more terrifying supernatural occurrences befall them, they begin to wonder whether the photographic ghosts are connected to the accident -- and to question whether they can survive learning the truth.

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CJ7

Dicky (Jiao Xu) yearns for the hottest new toy, a robotic dog. Instead, his poor father (Stephen Chow) presents him with a strange green ball he found in a junkyard. Turns out, the unassuming gift is actually a marooned alien endowed with unearthly powers. But is Dicky ready for the responsibility of a pet that's capable of granting his every whim? Director Chow lends his off-kilter sensibility to this fable about being careful what you wish for.

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Legend of the Shadowless Sword (Muyeong Geom)

When an invading army conquers the ancient Korean capital of Balhae, beautiful swordswoman Yeon So-ha (So-yi Yoon) sets out to help the kingdom's prince (Seo-jin Lee) return from exile and reclaim his rightful throne. But with assassins and criminals hot on their trail, only by unsheathing their lethal blades can they defeat their enemies and return the prince to power. Director Young-jun Kim's martial arts thriller also features Hyeon-jun Shin.

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Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Legend of the Black Scorpion (The Banquet/Ye Yan)

After murdering his brother the emperor, taking over the throne and marrying the recently widowed Empress Wan (Ziyi Zhang), Li (You Ge) dispatches a group of assassins to kill Prince Wu Luan (Daniel Wu). Having survived the attack, Wu Luan sets out to avenge his father's death. Teaming with the empress, Wu Luan plans to strike during a lavish banquet Li is throwing for his ministers. This stunning Chinese film is based on Shakespeare's "Hamlet."

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The Fall

Set in the 1920s, director Tarsem Singh's visually lush drama stars Lee Pace as paralyzed movie stuntman Roy Walker, who bonds with an imaginative 5-year-old named Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) as they convalesce together in a Los Angeles infirmary. To coax the girl into procuring the cache of morphine he wants from the hospital pharmacy, the suicidal Roy regales Alexandria with an elaborate fantasy about larger-than-life heroes.

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Son of Rambow

Forbidden to watch TV or go to the movies by his ultrareligious parents, young Will (Bill Milner) gets a hold of a camera, and his mind blossoms in this nostalgic comedy from the team behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Set in 1980s Britain, the film tells the tale of the friendship that blossoms between Will and class bully Lee (Will Poulter) when the latter recruits Will to help him make a home movie inspired by Rambo: First Blood.

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Cello (Chello Hongmijoo Ilga Salinsagan)

After barely surviving a car crash that proved fatal for her best friend, Mi-ju (Hyeon-a Seong) abandons her career as a professional cellist and retreats into a quiet life teaching music. That is, until a sinister force arrives to stir up her haunted past. Mi-ju becomes increasingly consumed by the painful memories of the accident, and everything begins to spin out of control in this nightmare of terror directed by Woo-cheol Lee.

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Saikano: The Last Love Song on this Little Planet

Shuji and Chise are two high school students that barely started a relationship with each other. Then, with no warning, a squadron of bombers from an unknown country destroy the city of Sapporo. All hope is lost when suddenly, the bombers are destroyed by a small red light floating across the sky. At this point, Shuji finds out that the one responsible for eliminating the enemy forces is Chise, who reveals herself as a cyborg engineered for mass-destruction.

View Saikano: The Last Love Song on this Little Planet Trailer

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

J-HORROR RIP OFF: One Missed Call

Chakushin Ari
Possessed cell phones predict their owners' untimely deaths in Takashi Miike's high-tech horror tale. One by one, Yumi's (Kou Shibasaki) friends receive chilling calls on their cell phones from themselves, placed a few days in the future. They listen in horror to their own bizarre deaths, which eventually occur. As Yumi frantically tries to solve the mystery, she uncovers a shocking link between herself and the murders.

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One Missed Call
Cell-phone messages describing victims' last moments on earth are the only links connecting a string of deaths in this supernatural chiller. When two of her friends die after receiving such calls, college coed Beth Raymond (Shannyn Sossamon) contacts the police, who dismiss her story -- with the exception of Det. Jack Andrews (Edward Burns). The two team up to solve the mystery, but when Beth's phone rings with an eerie refrain, is her number up?

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The Signal

When the phones, radios and TVs in the city of Terminus begin to broadcast the same strange signal, the transmission causes jealousy and hate to spew, turning once sane people into murderous lunatics. Trapped in a world gone mad, a faithless wife seeks the safety of her lover, while her affected husband hunts for her. David Bruckner, Jacob Gentry and Dan Bush each write and direct an act of this bloodthirsty horror tale.

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Brand Upon the Brain

Filmmaker Guy Maddin's intriguing homage to silent films centers on a man (Erik Steffen Maahs) who returns to his childhood home on an abandoned island and uncovers the shocking truth about his mysterious parents. Exploring the orphanage his parents ran when he was a child, Guy unearths a world of disturbing science experiments and diabolical schemes. Narrated by Isabella Rossellini, this unique film recalls some of cinema's earliest works.

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Monday, November 17, 2008

The Orphanage (El Orfanato)

With fond memories of the seaside orphanage where she was raised, Laura (Belén Rueda) persuades her husband (Fernando Cayo) to help her revamp it as a facility for disabled children. But once they move in, their son Simón (Roger Príncep) begins to exhibit dark and disturbing behavior. As Laura tries to understand Simón's increasingly malevolent actions, she becomes drawn into the house's terrifying secrets in this gothic chiller.

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Retribution (Sakebi)

While investigating the gruesome death of a woman found in a puddle with her stomach inexplicably full of seawater, Detective Yoshioka begins to wonder whether he himself is actually the killer he's been looking for. He doesn't remember committing the crime, but the murder scene is littered with his belongings -- and his fingerprints are all over the body. Kiyoshi Kurosawa directs this gritty horror tale from the producers of The Grudge.

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J-HORROR RIP OFF: The Eye

Gin Gwai
When a young girl, Mun (Angelica Lee), undergoes a corneal transplant to correct her blindness, she not only receives the gift of eyesight, but second sight as well: She can now see ghosts. To exorcise the demons tormenting her, Mun looks into the life of the person who donated the corneas and unearths a deep mystery that she becomes desperate to solve.

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The Eye
Blind violinist Sydney Wells (Jessica Alba) undergoes a corneal transplant to restore her sight. With the help of her doctor (Alessandro Nivola) and her sister Helen (Parker Posey), Sydney learns to see again. Unfortunately, the surgery leaves some creepy side effects, and Sydney's sanity soon comes into question when she starts seeing supernatural beings. This thriller is a remake of the Hong Kong spine-tingler Gin Gwai.

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Sunday, November 16, 2008

Casshern (Kasshân)

After decades of warfare, Earth has become a toxic wasteland, and the survivors are slowly dying from a terrible disease. Dr. Azuma (Yusuke Iseya) has developed a genetic treatment that might help regenerate the population, but his experiment goes horribly wrong. Inadvertently creating a race of mutants that threaten the future of mankind, Dr. Azuma must seek an unlikely ally to help defeat the monsters he's created in this sci-fi adventure.

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Teeth

When virtuous high school student Dawn (Jess Weixler) becomes the victim of a sexual assault, she discovers that she has an unexpected line of defense: a toothed vagina. But for Dawn, coming to terms with the power and dangers of her anatomical anomaly may be easier said than done. Director Mitchell Lichtenstein's provocative feminist horror flick also stars John Hensley, Hale Appleman and Josh Pais.

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Otis

After being captured and tortured by the psychopath Otis (Bostin Christopher), teen cheerleader Riley Lawson (Ashley Johnson) escapes and informs her parents (Daniel Stern and Illeana Douglas), who quickly sidestep the sluggish FBI and take matters into their own hands. But the Lawson's revenge plan hit a snag when Otis's unusual brother (Kevin Pollak) enters the picture. Jere Burns co-stars as the FBI agent assigned to the case.

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