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Welcome to our foreign films page, featuring foreign movies in video and DVD format in languages from a host of countries. Note: unless stated otherwise, all videocassettes are in VHS and NTSC format, and all DVDs are for players that support Region 1 encoding (United States and Canada) and are in NTSC format. Check our DVD Compatibility FAQ for more information about region encoding, television formats, and other specifications. If you can't find what you need, please email us.
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I Don't Want to Sleep Alone Tsai Ming-liang Tsai Ming-liang's beautiful and almost nonverbal film about a love triangle in the slums of Kuala Lumpur. Rawang (Norman Atun), an immigrant squatting in a communal building, takes in a Chinese drifter named Hsiao-kang (Lee Kang-Sheng), who he finds beaten in the street. A dreamlike eroticism develops and transforms into outright romance when Chyi (Chen Shang-Chyi), a lonely waitress, enters the picture. As was the case with Goodbye Dragon Inn, the director's tendencies toward minimalism and a static camera have the effect of amplifying character dynamics and the slapstick situations that surface. Nominated for the Golden Lion and Winner of the Cinema for Peace Award at the 2006 Venice Film Festival. Also known as Hei Yan Quan. In Chinese, Mandarin, Malay and Bengali with English subtitles. Taiwan, 2006, 118 mins. DVD $44.95
Goodbye Dragon Inn Tsai Ming-liang With his minimalist masterpiece What Time is it There?, Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang paid implicit tribute to Antonioni's bleak modernism and Harold Lloyd's slapstick silents. In Goodbye Dragon Inn - an even sparser and more rigorously composed film - Ming-Liang fashions an explicit homage to the world of movies. Set in a crumbling Taipei movie palace during a screening of the 1968 martial arts classic Dragon Inn, Ming-Liang's camera follows a clubfooted theatre manager, a lonely Japanese moviegoer, and other characters to evoke a poetic valentine to a dying cinematic age. "A movie of elegant understatement and considerable formal intelligence" (J. Hoberman, Village Voice). In Mandarin and Taiwanese with English subtitles. Taiwan, 2004, 83 mins. DVD $44.95
The Hole Tsai Ming-liang Combining deadpan humor with an austere view of loneliness and a couple of unexpected musical numbers, Tsai Ming-liang crafted one of the most original films of the 1990s. Set just prior to the start of the 21st century, this vaguely futuristic story follows two residents of a quickly crumbling building who refuse to leave their homes in spite of a virus that has forced the evacuation of the area. As rain pours down relentlessly, a single man is stuck with an unfinished plumbing job and a hole in his floor. This results in a very odd relationship with the woman who lives below him. Produced for French television's 2000 Seen by... series, this was originally broadcast in a 69-minute version called Last Dance. This longer version is the director's preferred cut. "Tsai's most distilled, droll, deftly realized allegory" (J. Hoberman, Village Voice). Mandarin with English subtitles. Taiwan, 1998, 95 mins. DVD $37.95
Rebels of the Neon God Tsai Ming-liang "...a harrowing, austere, and poignant examination of urban decay, amorality, ennui, and alienation..." (Strictly Film School). The first theatrical feature from Tsai Ming-liang (What Time Is It There?, The River) concerns a disaffected Taipei youth who leaves school and becomes involved with the criminal life. A superb debut from a truly distinctive talent. Mandarin with English subtitles. Taiwan, 1992, 106 mins. DVD $44.95
What Time Is It There? Tsai Ming-liang With his distinctively quiet, deliberately paced style and moments of absurdist humor, Tsai Ming-liang explores cross-continental loneliness in one of the best-reviewed films of his career. A street vendor sells a watch to a young woman leaving for Paris. Profoundly moved by his encounter, he begins to set clocks and watches to Paris time. Meanwhile, romantic and sexual longing play into the solitary lives of the vendor, his one-time customer in France, and his mother at home in Taipei. Truffaut's classic The 400 Blows also figures into things, with Jean-Pierre Leaud making a memorable appearance. "...a rare film that actually expands and deepens in the memory when its time on screen has run out" (Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly). Mandarin, Taiwanese and French, with English subtitles. Taiwan/France, 2001, 116 mins. DVD $37.95