The film In Love We Trust portrays the potential challenges that may come with China’s One Child Policy. 

The film starts with a tour woman giving a tour of an apartment to prospective customers. There, she received a call that her daughter was seriously ill. As such, she immediately brought her daughter to a hospital where she learned that her daughter was suffering from a serious, rare cancer affecting her bones. The only way to stop the issue was to have a transplant; However, the only likely candidate to qualify for such transplant was a sibling, which the daughter didn't have. This was the start of the family issues that arose between two families.

The woman’s daughter was born from a different father than her current one, and in order to save her, she needed the new child to be from the ex-husband, not the new husband. Naturally, the new husband wasn't particularly happy about this, and neither was the wife of the ex-husband. However, both families eventually permitted for a child to be born from the ex-husband through indirect means. However, this is a particularly sticky issue for the husband, because this means that the new husband can’t have any of his own children due to the one-child policy.

When the indirect methods for having the child didn't work, the ex-husband and the wife has agreed to have sex in secrecy from their families. However, the husband learned of their act because the wife’s phone somehow accidentally called the new husband without the wife knowing; In which he overheard the conversation between the two.

While this has caused a tension between the new husband and the wife, he has ultimately accepted the wife’s act under the condition that no-one knows of this incident, and that the child and everything else in relation to the child is marked under his name.

I think that while a situation like the one that happened in the film is extremely unlikely, I think it still underscores the tensions that may be caused due to the One-Child policy; If a family has an offspring of theirs have a disease that can be cured primarily through the means of the child’s immediate family members, what is that family to do?

The movie Lan Yu discusses about the hardships LGBT people face in China (although the movie itself revolved around a gay couple. One thing I realized is that whenever a movie is set on supporting the LGBT community, they generally will revolve around a gay couple; Rarely have I seen movies going on about Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transexuals).

The movie begins in a bar, where a business guy was helping out another business guy to find him a boyfriend. Ultimately, the business guy suggested the other business guy to go out with Lan Yu. Lan Yu himself is also a gay person. One thing I was particularly surprised with was when the gay business man ended up marrying a woman. That, I wasn’t surprised about; It was necessary for him to do so in order to remove suspicions that he was a gay person. However, after he divorced with the woman, he not only was depressed, but also he said that he thought he was a man who could make a woman happy. This made me wondering, even though the film directors portrayed the business guy as a gay man, could he also have been interested in woman?

Originally, it was the business man who was tugging the strings in the relationship. This could be seen in numerous occasions in the film. The first instance was when Lan Yu caught the business man cheating. Even though, Lan Yu was upset about this, he has forgiven the business man after he went to save Lan Yu from the “incident.” Another instance was when the business man gave him a house, and promised they would be together, but then ended up marrying the woman. I think it was when the business man married the woman when the relationship between the two began to change. It was instead Lan Yu who began to have control over the relationship.  

Later, when the business man was in deep trouble with the officials, Lan Yu saved the business man by paying the officials $3 million in an attempt to bribe the officials from enprisoning the business man.

In addition to attempting to show the difficulties gay men encounter in China, I think it was also to show that they not only have to capability to be in a lasting, (somewhat) loyal relationship, but also have to capacity to be in a happy relationship just like a straight couple could have. 

The movie Shower showcases the changing of Chinese society, in which people more work centered, and pays less attention to families. Furthermore, it showcases how the urban people look down upon the traditional people.

It starts with someone going to a shower booth. I personally believe this to be the most eye opening scene, while at the same time pushing the objective of the director; that is showing the discrepancies and gaps between the fast paced urban centers and slower paced tradition neighborhood. The people goes into the booth, takes off his clothes and puts it into a basket, which he then puts into some vents. I am still uncertain of what that was suppose to do though. Perhaps wash the clothes for him or spray perfume on it to make it smell better? In any case, he goes into this room where brushes begin cleaning him as if he was a car in a car wash.

That man ends up receiving a letter from his little brother, whom is retarded, and makes that man think his father was dead. As such, he rushed back to his hometown where he realized that he misinterpreted the letter. The relationship between the father and the man seems relatively dense when compared to the little brother’s relationship to the father. 

Originally, he was planning to return back home immediately when he realized that his father was well; However, he ended up loosing his brother while he was a train station because the little brother got attracted to a yellow bicycle. The father get, naturally, upset at him, but the next day, the little brother had returned home on his own. 

The man seemed to have regained his senses while he stayed there, that is, he remembered why he liked the hometown and stopped looking down one the neighborhood folk. On the man’s stay however, his father died, and due to his younger brother, he was forced to stay at his fathers bath and continue business as usual. 

The important thing to mention for the strained relation between the man and his father is that the father never seen the man’s wife. Not during the engagement meet-up, wedding ceremony, or any other occasion. I believe it was a huge insult to the father for the man to hide his wife from his father as such.

The movie Touch of the Light showcases the challenges and obstacles a disabled person has to go through life, and in this case, a person that is blind.

The film begins with a blind person preparing to go to Taipei in order to get a degree in music. However, the university the blind man is going to never dealt with a blind person, so they are concerned they wont be able to handle the person. However, the school isn't the only problem the blind man has to go through. Although the situation has gotten better as the film progressed, at the beginning, no-one in the class wished to be associated with him. When there was a group project, no-one wished for the blind man to be with them, and there was even a student who told him not to waste his time.

At the beginning stages, the mother helped the blind man adopt. She helped him with transversing around campus, and helped him organize things in his dorm. Furthermore, it seemed that the mother had an influence on helping the blind man’s dorm mate accept him. Although, this is just my intuition, and perhaps I am wrong. 

Later, the blind man and the dorm mate created a club together, and in the final stages, they did a group performance. One thing to note was that the blind man did not like performing in concerts. This is because when he was a child, he overheard someone say that he won a contest only because he was blind, and that the judges felt bad for him. However, it seems that both the club and his crush persuaded him to start performing in the concerts again.

One thing I would like to highlight is how the director portrayed the blind people as people who couldn't completely understand the environment around, and as a result, requires special care. For example, after becoming more familiar with his crush, he asked “What is Dancing?” And it became like a personal quest to find out what it was like to dance. There was a scene where, after receiving an explanation from his roommate of what dancing is like, he started attempting to dance in his own bed.

Shanghai Triad takes place in Shanghai in which a country boy moves over to Shanghai with his uncle and joins a gang organization.

At the beginning, the country boy was unaware of what he was getting himself into. Perhaps the first time he might have gotten a sense of what he was he was getting himself into was when he went to an empty building with his uncle, where he heard gunfire. However, it is more probable that he was confused of the environment.

Later, when he went to the gang headquarters, he was assigned to become the gang’s mistress’s servant. Afterwards, he has been directed to a hallway in which he first saw the gang leader. It was there that he learned that the gang leader only hired those with the Tang family name. I think this is particularly striking because it represents the importance that the Chinese puts on the family name, if the gang leader would only trust the people with the Tang family name. 

Later on, there has been a gunfire within the gang headquarters itself, in which the country boy’s uncle died. This is an important turn of events, because this is when the country boy starts wishing for revenge towards the opposing faction. This event has also led to a new scene, in which four gang members, including the leader, mistress, and country boy, moves over to an island where only one widowed women and her daughter lived. 

Eventually, the people starting to learn too much about the gang leader’s shady side, including the country boy. As a result, the gang leader killed the widowed woman’s loved one, the widowed woman, a man from an opposing faction, and the mistress. However he spared the country boy’s life. I think this was due to the loyalty he displayed, even when he disliked someone. For instance, even though the country boy disliked the mistress, he still remained loyal to her and even attempted to

protect her when she was about to get killed. As a result, the gang leader likely saw the boy as a potentially valuable asset.

The movie Fat, Drink, Man, Woman displayed the tradition family structure in China (Taiwan).

The family starts with the father, who also is a chef at a big restaurant, preparing a grand dinner for his three daughters. It seems that Chinese delicacies are much more different than American delicacies, as the father used frogs for one of his dishes.

During the dinner, the aura at the dinner table was very tense. This tenseness seemed to be mainly due to the family tragedy that happened, where the father’s wife died. Particularly the 2nd daughter, who seemed to be the most rebellious of all, was the perpetrator of the tenseness. Her stubbornness toward the father came around because the father forced her out of the restaurant’s kitchen and prevented her from becoming a chef, which seemed to be her childhood dream. Interestingly enough, she seemed to be the most successful of the three daughters at the same time. She also seemed to be the most liberal of all.

The oldest daughter, aged at 28-30 (I believe), is being pressured to become married because of how old she is. She claimed that she wasn't marrying because her heart was broken from her first boyfriend, but the 2nd daughter later learned that she was lying from her colleague. Nonetheless, she ultimately got married to a sports coach.

The youngest daughter was the least successful of the all, working at a fast food joint. Her friend, who also worked at the joint, had a boyfriend, but because she acted crudely towards him, the youngest daughter was able to break the couple up by reasoning with the boyfriend. Of course, she didn't do it out of bad will, as she initially thought the love was one-sided (where only the boyfriend loved the girlfriend). Furthermore, she ended up marrying that man, which seemed to have broken the relationship between her and the friend at the joint.

While the situation may have been tense between the father and the daughters, he seemed to have a very loving relation with his “granddaughter.” His affection for her goes so far as to he was willing to feed her entire class upon being requested for doing it by the granddaughter. I think this represents how the Chinese believe it is nice to have granddaughters, and perhaps necessary to spoil them.

The movie ended with an interesting twist, where the father decided to retire, leave his home, and marry the granddaughter’s mother and in order to forget and leave the memories of his previous love life; Most of which was met with objection from the entire family. One of the women even fainted upon hearing his news.

One important thing I must mention, is that the title of the movie seems to project the message of the movie; That is, to eat, drink, and to be coupled with opposite gender is the necessities of human life.

The movie Dragon Inn showcased the corruption that existed in ancient China.

The movie begins with showcasing the corrupt side army’s power (I believe it was call Black Army, or maybe I am getting confused with the Black Arrows Troops sect of the Black Army). The most powerful sect of the army was the Black Army Troops and was infamous for the arrows they used. After showing the power of the militia, they have killed Yang, an official who was against the militia and believed that they were going to turn on the emperor soon. Then, in order to remove all political opponents, they started targeting Yang’s underman, Chow.

Since Chow was hiding his presence from the Black Army, they have took kidnapped children to lure him out. This act has lured him out indirectly; That is, he paid some people to take the children from him (which I believe worked under the Inn’s Maiden). In the meanwhile, Chow resided in the Dragon Inn for safety. However, the Black Army troops coincidently found him/his crew there, and thus a rivalry began; Because the maiden was shady, she would only accept those whose bribe was higher.

Bribing, however, did not work as both sides kept increasing their brides. Ultimately, the Black Army and its leader came to assassinate him. Chow, his girlfriend (??), the maiden, and the goat man was took on by the leader himself. The leader, however, lost the fight and Chow manages to escape safely.

What particularly surprised me was that during the fight, somehow the Black Army leader was able to keep walking after essentially having his leg cut off. While the movie was a fantasy, the nature of it was considerably unrealistic. There were even people that could bend the trajectory of their arrows in order to kill their opponents.

The Film An Autumn’s Tale is a romantic comedy where it showcases the cultural shocks a Hong Kong woman experienced when residing in NYC.

The film begins with a woman from Hong Kong packing up to go to NYC, with her mind set on meeting her boyfriend that she didn't see for a few years. Her image of their reunion, of course, is quite rosy, only to have her expectations ruined a day after she arrived to NYC when she realized that her boyfriend (now not) had a new girl friend. Thus, this set the wheels in motion for the cousin (whom she was going to live with) to spark a romantic relationship with her. 

At first, the woman had a negative image of her cousin; After all, on the first day she met him, he was a rowdy guy pushing through the police, was noisy, had a somewhat broken, rusty car, and went on a street race on the way home. Furthermore, the place he lives is in a bad part of NYC; Loud, overnight parties, dirty, etc. But the women likely started seeing the cousin in better eyes when he helped her decorate her room. 

Later, she went got a babysitting job and a job as waitress in a restaurant, both under the same family. The husband however started having interest in her, and to protect her, the cousin and his crew beat the “dirty old man” up.

I think the main point the began to start turning the relationship between the cousin and woman into a romantic one was when they went to the beach. The cousin mentioned how he wanted to open a new restaurant facing the Atlantic Ocean. However when he couldn't come up with a good name, the woman came up with the name Sampan. Afterward, they implicitly agreed to run the restaurant together, which to me, sounds like they hinted interest in becoming boyfriend/girlfriend, and perhaps later, husband/wife.

After this incident, the cousin decided to start a party. At first, I thought he did it because it was the woman’s birthday on the day of the party, but then a scene came up where the woman goes into the guys room, and realizes that his birthday is on the day of the party. I am still unsure of the reasoning behind the party. This party was important because it started the (temporary) separation between the two. 

Of course, since this is a hollywood-like film, the two re-met at the same place the cousin decided to start up his restaurant, while the cousin was handling business in the restaurant. After that, they probably lived happily ever after. 

The film Not One Less is about issues of the unevenness of development throughout China. Despite China’s rapid rise as a world power, there is still a large percent of people living in poor villages, where it is hard to find jobs or funding for education. Furthermore, what is most troubling is that China may have a very big city, and only two hours away from it, you may find a very poor village.

The movie starts off with a school in a poor village bringing in a 13 year old child as a substitute for a teacher that needs to leave for a month. In exchange for substituting for a month, she only gets 50 yuan. The school seems to be in very rough condition; Very old, fragile tables, little chalk, bad flooring, etc. Furthermore, the school also seems to be having trouble keeping students in the school.

At the beginning, the substitute seemed not to do much, perhaps because she didn't know what to do or she just didn't care. All she did give the students something to copy, and then go outside and sit outside the door to make sure no-one goes out. On one of the days, while she was out, the trouble maker kid was stewing up trouble, thus forcing the substitute to come in. In the aftermath of the issue, almost all of the chalk was wasted, making the class manager upset. As can be seen, she was not very productive at the beginning.

However, after the troublemaker kid left in order to make money for his parents, she starting engaging with the entire class to bring the troublemaker back. In the process, since she had to figure out the bus fares to go to the city, she taught the students practical uses of math, and brought vigor and vitality to the environment of the class. 

When she went to the city, she had many obstacles she had to go through to get the kid back. At first, she tried to find him through the help of one of his acquaintances. When that proved to be worthless, she went over and created many flyers to have help to find him. However, the man at the train station said that would be worthless, and instead suggested to go to the t.v. station to get help. While she had to stay for more than a day to get admitted in, she was able to not only find the kid through the t.v. station, but was also able to get considerable funding from donors to rebuild the school.

I believe the ending of the movie was meant to show people two things: First, it was meant to show the difficulties villages face, and second, it was intended to message that little contributions from many people in the city can make a big differences in the lives of the villagers, and help spur development in areas that are hardly developed at all.

A Touch of Sin is a Chinese Film that is split into four different sections (and maybe one subsection) that showcases a different issue in China per section.

The first section discusses about the corruption in coal mines. Apparently, China has undergone a period where a bunch of coal mines popped out in remote villages. In this movie, in order to have the coal mines to be built, the village leader promised 40% of all profit earned to be redistributed to the villagers. However, what he said turned out to be a lie, and so he took the profit to himself. Due to the corrupt acts of the villager leader, one of the villagers (who worked in the coal mine) got upset with the leader and went berserk, killing a few villages, the coal mine manager, and the village leader himself.

The second section, I think, was about safety concerns for the regular pedestrian in China. The story starts off with a thief going over to his family’s village. They seemed quite poor, and so in order for the family to get money, the thief steals it from others. He was thinking about going to three different places (don’t know exactly why though). Later on, he leaves the village and at a factory workplace, he shoots two people and takes their purse in broad daylight. 

The third section section started with two lovers meeting up in a restaurant. She tells the man that she’ll give him six months to make up his mind over whether to choose her or his current wife. The women then goes to her workplace, and she finds the man’s wife along with a few other men and they beat her down. Later, the women once again goes to her workplace, which seems to be a place for prostitutes (although the women herself is a cleric), and after her worksheet was finished, she went up a floor to clean her clothes in a sauna. There she was bothered by a two rich men. To protect herself from getting violated, she kills them and then later confesses to the police over the phone

The last section addresses the concerns with one child policy. It begins with a guy accidentally cutting his hand because another guy was distracting him. As a result, he had to pay compensations while the other guy was healing. To avoid this, he runs away from the factory, and starts working at a high end brothel. There, he falls in love, but gets rejected by his lover. Since he cant face her any longer, he goes to work at another factory. However, since he is broke, and won’t receive another paycheck for some time, he asks money from the mother, in which she refuses to give. At this point, he’s quite stressed about the reality of life (he’s likely not used to it because he was the only child in the family, which made him a little spoiled I guess). Furthermore, the guy who cut his hand found the guy who was suppose to compensate him, adding to his stress. Ultimately, he suicided on the factory grounds. I think the combination of being spoiled as the only child and the stress he had while facing reality led to him suiciding. Also, perhaps subconsciously he felt the need to support his family, even though he was broke and was asking the money from the family.