Shohei Imamura's DR. AKAGI is set in Japan, only months before the events that lead to the end of World War II. The film tells the story of a local physician who becomes obsessed with the idea of fighting an epidemic of hepatitis in his seaside town near Hiroshima. Dr. Akagi is a unique film about germs, sex and the atomic bomb with the kind of dark sensibility that became Imamura's trademark. This brand-new DVD features an exclusive photo gallery and the film's original theatrical trailer.
Tian Zhuangzhuang's THE BLUE KITE centers on the life of a Chinese family living from the early 1950s to the Cultural revolution of 1966. THE BLUE KITE was named as one of the 10 best films of 1994 by THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE and THE VILLAGE VOICE, but the film was banned and forbidden to be shown in China.
Banned in China, where the director remained under close government scrutiny after shooting this film, THE BLUE KITE is one of the most acclaimed and controversial films to come from China during the 1990s.
THE BLUE KITE tells the story of a Beijing family - and their relatives and friends - from the perspective of the young boy Tietou (Xiaoman Chen). As the film follows the boy's life, it also presents a nuanced and compelling representation of life in China under the political and social upheavals of the 1950s during the rectification movement and '60s covering the ways in which the Cultural Revolution changed the face of the country.
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