Margarethe von Trotta, the most audible female voice of the New German Cinema, had acted for film, written screenplays, and even codirected (The Lost Honor of Katrina Blum with her former husband Volker Schlondorff) before finally embarking on her first solo project in 1977. The Second Awakening of Christa Klages, based on the true story of a social worker who robs a bank to fund a failing day-care center, is an uncompromising work that tackles politics and social issues with a radical fervor and feminist perspective unseen in the work of her contemporaries. Tina Engel plays Christina, a militant revolutionary who becomes a fugitive hunted as much for her politics as her crime, while the young woman she held hostage tries to track her down for her own personal reasons. Von Trotta brings an impassioned intensity to Christina's voyage of self-discovery, which pulls the film through slow passages, blunt political messages, and an occasionally clumsy style, creating a dramatically powerful work that builds to a climactic epiphany at the film's mesmerizing conclusion. After this remarkable debut, von Trotta built on her work in her stylistically assured second film, Sisters, or the Balance of Happiness. Be forewarned that the poor print source results in a muddy-looking tape well below the quality of most commercial tapes. -Sean Axmaker.

Jean Renoir's love of the theatrical life was rarely more colorfully expressed than in this wry comedy, which is lit from within by the life force of Anna Magnani. The Golden Coach is set in a colonial town in South America, where a traveling troupe of actors arrives on the same boat that carried the local viceroy's overpriced gold-covered carriage. Magnani has a beau, and the viceroy and a celebrated bullfighter are quickly dazzled by her charms. Her presence soon becomes an affair of state, but Renoir leaves no doubt that he finds the affairs of the heart of primary importance. Most eloquent of all is the poignancy of Magnani's dilemma-that she is most alive when performing, that life can never equal the charge of applause and footlights. Within his proscenium frame, Renoir gears the movie to his leading lady, and hands her one of the great happy-sad final lines in cinema. -Robert Horton.

Jet Li returns as the legendary Chinese folk hero Fong Sai Yuk in this rushed-to-production 1993 sequel to The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk. The boastful and confident Fong is now a member of the Red Flower Society, a secret rebel group whose leader is the unknown brother of the Manchu Emperor. In a plot to steal back the papers that proclaim the leader's position, Fong Sai Yuk woos the Emperor's daughter Angie (Amy Kwok), who has a mischievous streak and a crush on him. Fong Sai Yuk's wife Ting Ting (Michelle Reis) and his fabulous fighting mom (Josephine Siao) don't entirely agree with the plan and step in to mediate. Notable fight scenes include a duke-out between Fong and a Japanese samurai atop floating bamboo rafts, and a rather spirited competition between Angie's would-be suitors, who race to the top of her suspended bridal sedan. Fong Sai Yuk II isn't as polished as its predecessor, but Li and Siao make a winning pair. -Shannon Gee.

Often referred to as one of the most beautiful movies ever made, this lushly photographed film established Agnes Varda (Vagabond, Cleo from 5 to 7) as one of France's most important directors. Upon its original release, Le Bonheur (which translates as "happiness") sparked controversy with the story of an amiable young carpenter who decides that he will be happiest with both a wife and a mistress. Though Francois adores his wife and children, his passion for a beautiful postal clerk leads to an adulterous affair and tragedy for his wife. Filled with warm colors, Renoir-inspired bucolic images, and Mozart music, Le Bonheur is a sensuous poem of a film that illustrates how the search for personal happiness can lead to gratification or destruction. Set in the Paris suburbs, this lovely tale of a tragic love triangle looks like an impressionist painting come to life, the delicately hued colors of the picturesque French countryside creating an impossibly idyllic existence belied by the churning drama underneath. A young carpenter with a loving wife and family falls for a pretty postmistress. To his bohemian philosophy it's perfectly natural to enter into an affair because it will only increase his happiness, but his wife is not so understanding. Agnes Varda creates a strange tension between her happy, smiling characters in their sun-drenched Eden and the melodrama and emotional conflict played out in that paradise, even transforming tragedy into an oddly happy ending, keeping her distance from her characters, neither judging nor encouraging them. The playful style echoes her New Wave compatriots with startling flashcuts, out-of-focus portraits, and silly word games played by both the characters and the director, but her aloofness creates a disconnection between the characters and their actions, as if they are not really responsible for the tragedies of their lives. Controversial at the time of its release, Le Bonheur remains one of the most visually beautiful films of the 1960s and a work that still offers a troubling but tantalizing dissonance. [+]

Richard Harris and Monica Vitti star in writer/director Michelangelo Antonioni's masterpiece. An alienated Italian wife searches for meaning in the industrial lunar landscape of Northern Italy, to no avail. Highly acclaimed as a masterpiece of visual form and the winner of the International Critics Award for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival in 1964.

A chic-surfaced Hong Kong art movie about wasted youth, a sort of Crown Colony Less Than Zero. A group of spoiled Beautiful People (models, aspiring actresses, the languid young heir to a rice fortune) interact randomly until one of them-a Taiwanese woman who clings to her peasant origins-becomes the victim of a bloody murder. At which point, enter Chow Yun-fat, as a Columbo-esque rumpled police inspector, and we're back to HK movie business as usual. (Sigh of relief here. ) An eye-opening sequence (designed to show that the veneer of urban civilization is a sorry sham) has the victim-to-be cooking her mother's yummy peasant specialty, Pig Stomach Chicken. The survivors undertake a pilgrimage to their late friend's hometown in rural Taiwan toward the end, demonstrating their own shallowness in the process; an effective if not terribly subtle sequence. This 1988 film marked the big-screen debut of one of Hong Kong's premiere art movie directors, Stanley Kwan. He went on to better things, including Rouge and Centre Stage. -David Chute.