In the hands of Kenji Mizoguchi (Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff), the simple story of a man redeemed by a woman's love is no less than profound. The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum pulls the viewer into a world of pure love, intense hear.

Shiro is a bondage master of exquisite skill who takes pride in his unique form of art. But when one of his models is found strangled and bound in his trademark style, he must track the killer to his lair - and escape the vengeance of the victim's lover, the leader of the treacherous Blue Dragon Gang!.

Marco Ferreri's greatest international success, "La Grande Bouffe" scandalized audiences when it was released in 1973. Audiences were shocked by its tale of four world-weary middle-aged men (superbly portrayed by Marcello Mastroianni, Ugo Tognazzi, Michel Piccoli and Philippe Noiret) who decide to gorge themselves to death in one final orgiastic weekend full of gourmet food, call girls and a hefty, lusty schoolteacher. This blackly humorous parable of modern society's collapse won the Cannes Film Festival's International Critics Award. The New York Times called it "vulgar vaudeville on an epic scale. a mordant, chilling, hilarious dirty movie. " Nearly 30 years later, it continues to challenge audiences' sensibilities and test the limits of shockability.

After murdering a crooked lawyer to the strains of a bubblegum-pop song, stone-cold government assassin Zero Woman (played by Mai Taichira) adopts a "stray dog" of a street hustler, a combination boyfriend and pet who hides a deadly secret. Taichira is more expressive than other Zero Women, at times even cheerful, but is still ready to lose her clothes for numerous showers and sex scenes. More muddled than previous Zero Woman films, this one abruptly changes direction from the investigation of a double agent in the government to a cross-dressing serial killer. Yet this sleek, low-budget video production has its charms beyond the expected boobs and bullets: the empty, artfully austere apartments Zero Woman inhabits (an echo of the film's inspiration, La Femme Nikita), the impulsive loyalty she invests in fleeting friends, and an emotional ferocity that takes over the unusually affecting climax. More than in any other film, Zero Woman here becomes a tragic figure, trapped in a prison known as Zero Division, doomed to the life of a killer, under the thumb of a bored boss who informs her "You aren't the first and you won't be the last. " He was right: this was Taichira's only appearance as Zero Woman. -Sean Axmaker.

Mounted in high lavish style, from the opening strains to coda, The Red Violin pays homage to the careful uses of color and composition without bothering to support these qualities with any real substance. Oh, it's a class act on the surface all the way, while failing on nearly every other level to convince. The story tells the story, revealing precious little else. The 17th-century Cremonese instrument-maker Niccolo Bussotti finishes his final violin with a curious red varnish, the secret of which spans the film, yet will come as a surprise only to the very sleepy. The odd voyage of this unique violin through history is then explored from one episode to the next, from child prodigy to gypsies to Victorian virtuoso to a clandestine enclave of art lovers in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution. This is all framed by the violin's rediscovery in present day by instrument appraiser Charles Morritz (Samuel L. Jackson), for whom the perfect instrument strikes a resonant chord. The main scheme of the film, an object connecting a number of seemingly disparate stories, has been used many times, most notably in Max Ophuls's La Ronde. But while this approach is employed elsewhere to cause one scene to reverberate against another, The Red Violin is content to leave each episode thematically unconnected with any of the others. On the decorative level, the film may satisfy many viewers with its sensuous attention to tone and detail, as well as its eclectic and expertly performed score. [+]