monsieurk's - Rented List

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A story of rival clans, hidden gold and a princess in distress, 'The Hidden Fortress' is a thrilling mix of fairy story and samurai action movie.

It was Kurosawa's first film shot in the widescreen process of Tohoscope, and he exploited this to the full in the film's rich variety of landscape locations, including the slopes of Mount Fuji.

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"Topsy-Turvy" casts the spotlight upon the creative partnership of William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, responsible for such classic operettas as The Pirates of Penzance.

After ten consecutive smash hits, Gilbert and Sullivan have a flop on their hands and begin to question the very process that has afforded them a decade of success. Sullivan (Allan Corduner) thinks Gilbert's story lines have become formulaic and a creative deadlock is reached. But when Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) visits a Japanese cultural exhibition he is struck with inspiration and the pair re-unite to create 'The Mikado', a huge hit. Throughout 'Topsy-Turvy' are woven insights into the lives not only of the complex Gilbert, childlessly married to a demoted wife, and the bon-viveur, brothel-visiting Sullivan and his American mistress, but also the working actors, actresses, chorus, musicians and costumiers of the Savoy Theatre, and of D'Oyly carte and his team.

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Davy Chou's 'Return to Seoul', which premiered in Cannes 2022's Un Certain Regard, is an unpredictable and refreshingly authentic story of a young woman's search for identity. Park Ji-Min delivers a revelatory performance as Freddie, an adoptee who was born in South Korea and raised in France.

Freddie is magnetic, spirited and hard to pin down; never in one place, or with one person, for long enough to get attached. At 25 years old, she visits Seoul for the first time since her adoption, in an attempt to reconnect with her biological parents and the culture she had to leave behind.

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Two talented physicists - Jan (Jan Myslowicz) leaves the city for the countryside and works as a meteorologist in a small village, Marek (Andrzej Zarnecki), a promising scientist with a dazzling career in science, trieslo persuade Jan to return to the University.

Unexpectedly, Marek's suggestions meet with strong resistance. The film pictures two life strategies. One is to use one's intellect to the utmost, a thrilling path that leads to wealth and respect; the other is to consciously seek the meaning of existence in rejecting all amenities of civilization. Jan gets immersed in a simple life, and submits to the passing of time that enables him to sustain a harmony between his own existence and the nature. Marek fails to comprehend why a talented physicist would seek refuge in the countryside. The director seems to incline towards Jan's position. Zanussi's debut film seems particularly mature and original, both in the intellectual and the visual plane. The film was awarded at the IFF in Mar del Plata, IFF in Valladolid, and IFF in Panama.

After a series of chance meetings a shiftless motorbike enthusiast Koh (Riki Takeuchi) begins a romance with a carefree girl Miyo (Kiwako Harada), after teaching her to ride. When Miyo proves herself a biker prodigy Ko begins to fear that she is destined to crash.

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It's the story of a shop-clerk named Clara (Lucia Bose) who finds a chance casting in a small movie role develop into a full-blown career as screen-siren.

Tension erupts when her husband can no longer tolerate watching her frivolous cinema escapades, and pushes her into a "serious, artistic" production of the life of Joan of Arc... whereupon she is castigated by the critical establishment.

"The Devil" is a violent tale of Satanic seduction during the Prussian invasion of Poland in the 17th century, which proved so controversial upon release that it was banned for 16 years.

Rock Hudson stars as journalist Burke Devlin, fascinated by the sordid lives of a trio eking out a living in carnival circuit daredevil airshows - Roger Shumann (Robert Stack), former WWI fighter pilot, forced into races and parachute routines with the help of his wife LaVerne (Dorothy Malone), and faithful mechanic Jiggs (Jack Carson).

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A breathtaking blend of violence, eroticism and dark humour, 'Branded to Kill' saw Suzuki's reinvention of the gangster film taken to a new level that borders on the surreal. Hanada is the underworld's 'Number 3' assassin.

When his car breaks down he is picked up by the beautiful and mysterious Misako who before long has hired his services. The hit goes wrong - a mistake that cannot go unpunished in Hanada's world. He is soon drawn into a deadly game of cat and mouse with the legendary and anonymous 'Number 1'. Strange, sexy and utterly compelling, prepare to be blown away.

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The provocative Italian filmmaker Elio Petri's most internationally acclaimed work is this remarkable visceral, Oscar-winning thriller.

Petri maintains a tricky balance between absurdity and realism in telling the Kafkaesque tale of a Roman police inspector (a commanding Gian Maria Volonte) investigating a heinous crime - which he himself committed. Both a compelling character study and a disturbing commentary on the draconian government crackdowns in Italy in the late 1960's and early '70s, Petri's kinetic portrait of surreal bureaucracy is a perversely pleasurable rendering of controlled chaos.

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Desperate to escape his mind-numbing routine, uptown Manhattan office worker Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) ventures downtown for a hookup with a mystery woman (Rosanna Arquette).

So begins the wildest night of his life, as bizarre occurrences - involving underground - art punks, a distressed waitress, a crazed Mister Softee truck driver, and a bagel-and-cream-cheese paperweight-pile up with anxiety-inducing relentlessness and thwart his attempts to get home. With this Kafkaesque cult classic, Martin Scorsese-abetted by Michael Ballhaus's kinetic cinematography and scene-stealing supporting turns by Linda Fiorentino, Teri Garr, Catherine O'Hara, and John Heard - directed a darkly comic tale of mistaken identity, turning the desolate night world of 1980s SoHo into a bohemian wonderland of surreal menace.

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When Kikunosuke (Shôtarô Hanayagi), the son of a famous actor, falls in love with his brother’s nurse, Otoku (Kakuko Mori), his father vehemently opposes the affair.

Forced to cut ties with his family, Kikunosuke forges his own way in life, but his fortunes dwindle until Otoku decides to sacrifice her own future for the sake of her lover’s. Finding Mizoguchi operating at the height of his powers, 'The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums’ is a beautifully photographed and deeply moving romantic tragedy.

Asteroid City: a fictional American desert town, circa 1955. Junior Stargazers and Space Cadets from across the country assemble for the annual Asteroid Doy celebration - but the scholarly competition is spectacularly upended by world-changing events.

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Experienced manservant Barrett (Dirk Dirk Bogarde) starts working for foppish aristocrat Tony (James Fox) in his smart new townhouse. Much to the chagrin of Tony's girlfriend (Wendy Craig), Barrett slowly insinuates himself in the house and manipulates his master by slyly rearranging the decor.

The arrival of Barrett's alluring and sexually permissive 'sister' (Sarah Miles) fatally severs the class barriers and the boundaries between master and servant, as Tony succumbs to the will of his stronger adversary.

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The movie tells the hauntingly tragic story of a forbidden love affair between a merchant's wife, Osan, and her husband's employee, Mohei, in an era when the punishment for adultery was crucifixion.

When a series of innocent events lead to the false accusation of an affair between Osan and Mohei, the accused pair are forced to flee an almost certain death sentence. On the run, the outlaw couple grow closer together, drawn inexorably towards the romantic crime of which they are accused.