The Chinese film Shanghai Triad is about a 14 year old boy named Tang Shuisheng who is recruited by his uncle Liu to work as a servant for a triad boss that is also named Tang. Prior to meeting his new boss Tang is taken to a warehouse where two rivals gangs are to make a drug deal. The drug deals goes wrong and it leaves one of the rival gang members were killed during the course of action. After being in the warehouse Tang is assigned to serve his triad bosses girlfriend Jinbao.
In the movie Jinbao makes fun of tang for being less fortunate and she calls him the term country bumpkin. Jinbao is a sassy character who is not afraid to say what she wants. As the movie progresses it is discovered that Jinbao is having a secret relationship with triad boss Tang’s second man Song. The rival triad boss Tang is Fat Yu. The two bosses gangs end up fighting in the movie leaving the young servant’s uncle dead. After this event occurred triad boss tang takes a small entourage of his people to a peasant island. On the island Jinbao becomes friends with a peasant woman named Cuihau. Tang Shusheng becomes friends with Cuihau daughter Ajiao.
She also tells the young servant that she was from where he was. She gives him silver coins and tells him to use it to buy a shop to escape the poverty On the final night of the Triad boss and his men being on the island Song comes to the island. The triad boss lets Song know that he knows that he knows about him having an affair with Jinbao and that he was trying to help rival triad bosses get rid of him so he could be the boss. Triad boss tang kills song by burying him alive.
After Song was taken away Jinbao was informed that she too would be killed for her betrayal of Tang. Tang offers her one final wish before she is killed and she asked for him not to kill Cuihau and Ajiao. He tells her that he already killed Cuihau for knowing too much and Ajiao will replace her when she is older. Before being killed the servant Tang attempts to save Jinbao but is held and beaten. The movie ends with the servant tang being hung from the sail of the Triad bosses boat and the coins that were given to him falling out of his pockets into the water. The theme of this movie is gang violence. There was a lot of violence that caused a lot of deaths in the movie. In conclusion this was not one of my favorite movies to watch in this class. Although I like violence in movies I think that this movie was kind of boring.

            Eat Drink Man Woman, directed by Ang Lee, is a film that is derived from an original script by James Schamus.  The main character, Mr. Chu (Sihung Lung), is a consummate chef who lives in Taipei Taiwan and whose fear of losing everything is beginning to happen.  This film tells a story a semi-retired Chinese master who is the chef at the Taipei Grand Hotel.  Mr. Chu has three daughters who are very different from each other and each has their own goals and ideas in life.   Oldest sister Jia-Jen (Kuei-Mei Yang) is still nursing wounds from a love that evaporated long ago, and now is a teacher to a “rowdy roomful of horny adolescent boys.” Middle sibling Jia-Chien (Chien-lien Wu) has made herself a successful career in an airline corporation, even though she would have preferred to prefer the culinary arts her father so magically practices. Finally, Jia-Ning (Yu-Wen Wang), who comes up with tuition money by working at a Wendy's in Taipei, just wants to get by and get along with everyone, at least until she grows attracted to the lonesome boyfriend of her fickle, teasing coworker.

            As the film progresses, each daughter encounters a new man and new relationships start to blossom.  Mr. Chu knows that his daughters are beginning to fall in love because they are appearing less and less for their traditional Sunday dinner. 

            The theme of this movie was somewhat easy to recognize.  The theme of romantic relationship and how they give life a meaning and are necessities, such as eating and drinking is.  The film features numerous scenes displaying the technique and artistry of gourmet Chinese cuisine. Since the family members have difficulty expressing their love for one another, the complex and complicated preparation of banquet quality dishes for their Sunday dinners serves as a “stand-in” for the spoken expression of their familial feelings.

            Another theme in the film is the theme of aging.  Chef Chu is portrayed as having lost his "one true love" (his wife), losing another, his ability to taste, and about to lose all three daughters to marriage, not to mention the usual spectra of old age.

            This movie was not as bad as I thought it would be.  It kept on having twists which in life, always occurs.  Also, the Chinese cuisines prepared by the chef were almost like a work of art.  Although Eat Drink Man Woman was remade in America as Tortilla Soup about Mexican American father (played by Edward James Olmos) and his three daughters, I liked both versions.  It shows the conflicts of members of a Chinese family which I don’t see every day, so it did open my eyes to a lot of expects of the Chinese culture.  Nominated for Best Foreign-Language Film, Ang Lee did a great job.        

            The Unknown Woman, directed by Giuseppe Tornatore who returns to the helm for this suspenseful thriller concerning a young Ukrainian prostitute-turned-cleaning woman named Irina (Kseniya Rappoport).  Years ago, Irina was bought into international prostitution.  Through the flashbacks throughout the movie, I can tell that Irina has been brutalized, physically, and mentally abused by her “pimp.”  Irina was forced to bearing nine children, each which was taken away from her at birth and put up for adoption.  This starts Irina’s journey to finding her youngest child, whom she believes she knows who her new family is and he plans to go in and get her back.  She is determined to find a job in an elegant apartment building doing cleaning duties in order to work her way closer to a family that resides in that building.   

hough her appearance would suggest poverty, Irina always has a good-sized wad of cash in her pocket and lives in a large apartment across the street from the loudly dysfunctional Adacher family.  She befriends the nanny of the child, Thea, in order to get in closer with the family.  When the nanny suddenly becomes injured, purposely by Irina, but she made it appear as an accident, the Adacher family offers her the job to replace the nanny, Gina.  While working for the family, Irina comes across adoption documents.  Now she is just so sure that Thea is indeed her child.  Thea’s adopted mom becomes suspicious of Irina and she fires her, despite the fact that Irina and Thea have built such a close relationship. 

            Without a job now, Irina is beaten up on her walk home by a bunch of thugs who she believed were hired by pimp, whom stalked her.  He rigs the car of Thea’s mother, and forces a car accident which results in the mother’s death.  He then tries to get Irina to take him to the place where he believed she stored all of his money.  However, during a struggle the pimp falls and is killed by hitting his head on a rock.  Meanwhile, Thea’s father moves into a new apartment and prepares a room for Irina for her to stay in however, during the police investigation of Thea’s real mother, Irina is taken into custody and arrested. 

In the end, it turns out that Thea, was not Irina’s daughter but despite their close relationship, Thea awaits Irina when she gets out of jail.  The theme of the movie is never give up hope. In the film Irena went out looking for her daughter  and didn’t stop until she found her. Although Thea was not Irena’s daughter they both find a mother daughter relationship within one another. In conclusion, this was a very good movie. On a scale of 1 to 5 I would give this movie a 4. The story in this film is truly unique from other movies that I have seen.

The Brazil movie Central Station is about a woman named Dora who takes in a 9 year old boy named Josue to help pursue looking for his father. In the film Dora is a former teacher who works at Rio de Janeiro Central Station writing letters for people who can’t read. Watching the movie you can tell that Dora does not like any of her customers. Dora doesn’t even send her customers letters out. She even went as far as throwing the letters out. Josue ends up meeting Dora because his mother send a letter to his father through Dora but she ends up dying in a car accident. 
     The boy is homeless and Dora initially tries to take him and sell him. She eventually decides to try and take Josue by his father’s house in a city called Nordeste to leave him there. Throughout the film numerous bad things happen to Dora and Josue. One example of this is in the film when Dora tries to leave Josue and he followed her but lost his sack with all their money in it on the bus. As the movie progresses you can tell that the relationship between Dora and the boy have grown. Eventually Dora and Josue end up finding Josue’s long lost half brothers Isaias and Moises. When Josue asked of where his father was they told him that he went back to Rio to look for Josue’s mom and him. The movie ends with Dora leaving for Central Station and Josue waking up too late to stop her. 
     I think that this film has a very strong and powerful message to send to people. I think that the theme of this film is to never give up hope. When some people are down in life they sometimes give up because things can be overwhelming. In the film Josue and Dora never gave up their goal on finding Josue’s dad. Although they did not find his father they were able to find Josue’s long lost brothers. In conclusion, I really enjoyed watching this foreign language film. This film has been one of my favorite films to watch in class because it teaches you a lot doing things for others than yourself. I really can’t say that I didn’t enjoy any parts of this movie because it kept me entertained from beginning to end. Although Josue did not find his father I believe that the movie had a very strong and powerful ending to make the viewer want more to watch. I would definitely recommend friends and other people to watch this film because it can teach you a lot in a short period of time.

The French film Bleu is about a woman named Julie who has to cope with the tragic lose of her husband and daughter. This is traumatizing for Julie because she was also in the accident. In the beginning of the film when Julie is in the hospital she tries to overdose on pills but is unable to do so because she could not swallow them. When Julie is release from the hospital she sales her house she had in Paris and moves away without telling anyone. Julie does this because she wants to disassociate herself from everything in her past.

Julie even throws away the unfinished musical peace of her husband who is a famous music composer. This is significant because the musical peace symbolized European Unity. In the movie Julie is suspected of composing her husbands work. Eventually Julie is forced to face her past when she runs into Oliver a friend and former assistant of her husband. Oliver is also a composer and is secretly in love with Julie. In the film Oliver makes a television announcement stating that he complete Julie’s husbands work. As the movie progresses Julie discovers that her husband was having an affair with another woman. Julie tries to make it her obligation to stop Oliver from composing her husbands work and finding her husbands mistress. 

Julie tracks down Sandrine (her husbands mistress) and finds out that she is pregnant with his child. Finding out what her husband did to her encouraged Julie to begin a relationship with Oliver and finish her husbands late work. The two work together and end up finishing the piece. The films ends with the European piece being played and it showing the people affected by her work. I believe that the theme of this film is to never leave your past behind you. 

Although people may go through bad things in life you shouldn’t try to avoid the situation. I strongly believe that if you learn to work out your issues it will eventually make you a better person. Another theme that this movie could possibly have is to enjoy your life no matter what. In the film Julie could not enjoy her life because she was miserable. Losing a loved one is hard but people should try to remember the good memories that they had with that person. In conclusion, I really enjoyed watching this film. It was a very different film to watch because of the storyline. I also enjoyed the different music that was played throughout the film. Watching this movie made me think of what would I do if I ever lost someone close to me like Julie did.

The 2002 Spain film Talk to Her is about a man named Benigno who becomes madly in love with a woman named Alicia that is in a coma. Benigno works as a caregiver at the hospital that Alicia is being held for her coma. In the movie Benigno befriends a man named Marco whose girlfriend Lydia (famous bull fighter) is also in a coma after being gored by a bull. The difference between Benigno and Marco’s situation is Benigno falls in love with Alicia while she is in a coma without having any physical or verbal contact with her.

In the film Marco is informed by Lydia’s ex lover that she had been cheating on him months before she was in her coma. Marco departs to Jordan where he plans to write a tourist guide. Meanwhile Benigno was sent to prison for raping Alicia and getting her pregnant while in her coma. Benigno thinks that he has done nothing wrong because he feels that the love between him and Alicia are mutual.  Marco returns to Spain eight months later after discovering that Lydia dies in her coma and Benigno is in prison. Marco tries to help Benigno throughout his incarceration but all Benigno could think about is Alicia and his child. Benigno ends up dying of an overdose of pills because he wanted to put himself in a coma so that he could be with Alicia. Marco ends up moving to Benigno’s apartment where he discovers that Alicia is out of her coma.

The movie ends with Marco seeing Alicia at a dance concert and the two smiling at each other and turning to watch the concert. I believe that the theme of this movie is finding what true love really is. Although I strongly disagree with what the character Benigno did to Alicia in the movie, I believe that no one should be told who they should love or not love. This film contains a lot of new things that I have never seen in a movie. This movie was very interesting to me because it made me think outside the box. Although this movie did not have a happy ending for Benigno it made me think more critically of things. I was very curious at the end of the movie to see if the relationship between Marco and Alicia would progress into more than just seeing each other at a dance concert. Even though I like this movie it would have been interesting to see the reaction of Alicia finding out that Marco was the friend of the man got her pregnant while she was in a coma. Overall I really enjoyed this movie and I would definitely recommend others to see it.

The movie Tsotsi is about a man named David who steals a woman’s car without knowing that her baby was in the back seat. In numerous parts of the film they show flashbacks of David’s childhood. David is known by his friends and everyone in the movie as Tsotsi. Tsotsi had a very rough childhood having to deal with his very ill mother and his drunk abusive father. In the flashback it shows him running away from home and from his abusive father.
When Tsotsi took the baby he shot his mother but she survived. Tsotsi is a leader of a small gang that would kill to get the things that they want. When Tsotsi first discovers the baby he doesn’t have any idea on how to take care of him. No one knew of him having the baby not even the members of his gang. Tsotsi ends up following a young mother named Miriam with a baby strapped to her. He then forces her into her house with a gun and makes her breastfeed the kidnapped baby. Miriam did not tell on Tsotsi he threatens to kill her. As the movie progresses Tsotsi becomes more attached to the baby even though it is not his.
He even came up with the idea of robbing the house of the babies parents. Eventually Miriam convinces Tsotsi to return the baby even though he knows he will go to jail. The movie ends with Tsotsi returning the baby in the parents in the front of their home and the cops telling to  put his hands up. I believe that the theme of this movie is not let a bad situation mess up your whole life. In the film Tsotsi let his problems with his parents change him as a person. The other theme that is obvious is to not take anything that doesn’t belong to you. In the film Tsotsi took numerous things that didn’t belong to him and it ended up costing him in the long run of the movie.
Overall I really enjoyed watching this movie. This movie can teach you many life lessons on what to do and what not to do when it comes to raising a child. Although I enjoyed watching this movie I feel that the ending of the film could have been a little bit better. I feel that they should have made it so that Tsotsi could get away from the police and they would have caught him in a better way. This movie had some funny moments and it kept me entertained. Watching this movie definitely opened my eyes to international films and how good they really are. I would definitely recommend others to watch this film.