Browse Movies : 2003 : Foreign (Page #2)

Set in a small Edo period Japanese brothel near Tokyo, this is the story of a young samurai, Fusanosuke (Hidetaka Yoshioka), who seeks refuge there in the company of a young prostitute, Oshin (Nagiko Tono), after he accidentally wounded a powerful samurai during an argument whose colleagues are now seeking to kill Fusanosuke in return. Soon falling in love with Oshin, Fusanosuke hopes to be able to cleanse her from the sins of her occupation so that she may be his wife, even as danger lurks all around the brothel.

Set in Toronto, a romantic tale which revolves around Rahul Seth, a Westernized, young dot.com millionaire, and his unconventional relationship with the beautiful and wild Sue Singh. Rahul is devastated after the untimely death of his beautiful, pop artist, blonde girlfriend Kimberly. To make matters worse, he is under extreme pressure from his family to get engaged to a good Hindu girl before his sister's upcoming wedding. Lest one forgets, according to the popular Hindu adage, 'the best cure for a broken heart is marriage'. Desperate, he hires the services of the gorgeous Sue, a local escort girl, to pretend to be his fiancée during the ten days of celebration, leading up to his sister's marriage ceremony. While Rahul is the scion of a typically successful NRI family, Sue is the daughter of a humble car mechanic and--professionally speaking--is one of the highest paid escorts in Toronto. They enter into the relationship as opposites. However, during this fateful period of much song, dance and merriment, Rahul and Sue's relationship slowly transcends that of employer and employee. With her passion for life, Sue manages to break through Rahul's hardened exterior to reveal a sensitive man who is not as emotionally dead as he would like to believe. In turn, Rahul's strong personality and advice enables Sue to see her parents in a more positive light.

This documentary captures what happened in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on June 12th, 2000 when Bus 174 was highjacked by an armed young man, Sandro do Nascimento, with a dozen passengers. Nascimento threatened to kill all of the passengers, but eventuallly agreed to surrender, as TV cameras were rolling and an entire nation was glued to their screens watching the event take place. Then, a police officer decided to fire at Nascimento anyway, accidentally killing one of the female passengers instead. What followed was a revolt among the city's population, enraged at police brutality. The film intertwines the story of the standoff with biographical information about Sandro do Nascimento, including his childhood as a survivor of the "Candelaria" child mass murders in the early 1990s, and the trauma of seeing his mother stabbed to death in front of him.

After accidentally causing the death of her mother (Mariella Valentini), a young lesbian, Lenni (Regina Orioli), runs away with her auto mechanic girlfriend, Stella (Maya Sansa), with the mom's body in the trunk of their car and a gang of crazies on their tail.

Rising young artist Angelique (Audrey Tautou) lives in a candy-colored fantasy world. From the moment she flashes her smile and persuades a flower shop owner to deliver a surprise single rose to her lover Loic (Samuel Le Bihan), the world has – again – fallen under her spell. In the glorious throes of true love, Angelique is happily planning her future: a career as a painter and a future with Loic… what more could she desire? But things are rarely as they seem and Loic, a married cardiologist, has a slightly more jaded take on their affair…

Bruno Le Roux (Elie Belvaux) breaks out of the prison in which he's served 15 years of a life sentence for his membership in an armed wing of a left-wing revolutionary movement, the Popular Army. Bruno is determined to continue the fight against capitalist society, and to avenge his fallen comrades-in-arms. But most of his former associates are dead or behind bars, and the others are either unwilling or untrustworthy. He seeks help from former radical Jeanne (Catherine Frot), but she's now a mother and schoolteacher. Another former contact is local crime boss Jaquillat (Patrick Descamps). Years earlier, Bruno and Jaquillat had been allies in a bank robbery, but now Jaquillat's drug dealing is seriously constrained by the massive police presence as the manhunt for Bruno continues. It's in Jaquillat's interests to finish off Bruno. An alliance between Jaquillat and local cop Pascal Manise (Gilbert Melki) makes things even more dangerous for Bruno. Whatever ideals Bruno might once have had have been distorted by imprisonment and suffering. Bruno is now willing to kill for the most casual reasons -- he's turned into a psychopath with nothing to lose. However, he finds an unexpected ally in Agnes (Dominique Blanc), Manise's junkie wife. Bruno helps her when she is attacked by a street dealer, and, without really knowing who he is, she finds him a place to stay, in the chalet owned by her friend, Cecile (Ornella Muti).

This film tells the stories of the locals living in a resort town in northern France so renowned for its pebble-covered beach that the central character, Marie (Helene Fillieres), works at a pebble processing factory. As the town changes seasonally from being completely empty in the winter and crowded during the summer, the working class lives of the locals whose livelihoods depend upon the money spent while others have a great time on vacation go on...

After his wife leaves him, a man (Jean-Pierre Bacri) hires an unqualified but lovely suburban girl to clean his Paris apartment. The two become close as they chat while she's working, but can the lonely older guy sweep her off her feet?

Two young couples in Madrid (Alterio and Vega; Toledo and Verbeke) are searching for love and happiness, but ultimately they find only lies and heartache, as they switch lovers back and forth, and the erotic tension escalates. There's also a good deal of singing and dancing amidst all the bed swapping.

This documentary is an intimate portrayal of several months at a one-room elementary schoolhouse in a small village (Saint-Etienne Sur Usson) in rural France, where a single teacher, Georges Lopez, gives his small class of thirteen students, ages 3-10, the sort of attention that is dwindling in many other schools in France (and elsehwere), where crowded classrooms are the norm.