Drama

The Joy Luck Club

  • Title: The Joy Luck Club
  • IMDb: link

“I tell you the story because I was raised the Chinese way. I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other people’s misery, and to eat my own bitterness. And even though I taught my daughter the opposite, still she came out the same way. Maybe it is because she was born to me and she was born a girl, and I was born to my mother and I was born a girl, all of us like stairs, one step after another, going up, going down, but always going the same way.”

Joy Luck Club

There are a handful of films that are guaranteed to always bring tears to my eyes. Based on the novel of the same name, 1993’s The Joy Luck Club centers around the lives of twenty-something Chinese-American women and the lives of their mothers, all of whom grew up in China, which are explored in flashbacks. After immigrating to America, these four women found each other and created the group playing mahjong and sharing stories for which the novel, and film, are named.

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Cat Person

  • Title: Cat Person
  • IMDb: link

Cat Person

Adapted from the short story of the same name, Cat Person stars Locke & Key‘s Emilia Jones as an overly imaginative college student working part time at a local movie theater. After a couple of awkward conversations with a regular, Margot (Jones) decides to give the older Robert (Nicholas Braun) a chance. A romance that blossoms over texts, however, runs into issues when the two spend more time together in real life.

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Shōgun – Servants of Two Masters

  • Title: Shōgun – Servants of Two Masters
  • IMDb: link

Shōgun - Servants of Two Masters

With his impeachment all but assured, Lord Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) uses John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) as a wedge to divide the lords planning on his removal by pitting the Christian and non-Christian sects against each other. During his stay in prison, Blackthorne learns a bit about the local politics from a priest (Joaquim de Almeida) coming to understand, at least in some small part, value he could provide to Toranaga whose plans not to kill the heretic have already born fruit.

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The Great Films – Lost in Translation

  • Title: Lost in Translation
  • IMDb: link

Lost in Translation

Anyone who has spent time alone in a hotel room isolated and far from home, dealt with the uncertainties of your early 20s or a emotional barrage of a mid-life crisis, or spent time with a stranger who has somehow changed your life, can appreciate at least some of the various themes writer/director Sofia Coppola explores by putting Bill Murray in Japan. Bill Murray in Japan, that’s the premise that Coppola started with. And to it she blended in the talents of a young up-and-coming actress named Scarlett Johansson. The rest, as they say, is history.

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Shōgun – Anjin

  • Title: Shōgun – Anjin
  • IMDb: link

Shōgun - Anjin

The ten episode limited series begins with a starving ship of Dutch sailors crashing into the coast of Japan. One of the only survivors of what started out as a five-ship fleet, Major John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) is interrogated in the fishing village before taken to Osaka where more drama is afoot with four of the five feudal lords looking to oust Lord Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), the most loyal to the the child heir to the empire in a move to consolidate power. The third pivotal role in the series, Lady Toda Mariko (Anna Sawai), has the smallest role in the opener really on part of a sequence involving the honor and attempted suicide of another woman, but more about her character will be expanded as the mini-series continues.

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