Ying Ying

Arriving in Taiwan in the 1950s, Kuei-mei makes a disadvantageous marriage to a widower with three unruly kids and a bad gambling habit. Beautifully portrayed by celebrated actress Yang, she weathers pregnancies, her husband's infidelity, her daughter's resentment, a stint as servant in Japan, divorce, and illness while struggling to keep the family restaurant business afloat.

Tsi-Bing is living a wealthy and successful life. However, he is manipulated by his mistress into believing that his wife is having an affair and he throws her out. After his mistress vanishes with his money, Tsi-Bing is forced to relocate to a makeshift home with his three children, who take on various jobs, such as selling rice dumplings, to make ends meet. The story centers on a man who loses his social and economic status but manages to regain his place in his family through sacrifices – much like the experience of female protagonists in melodramas. This male-centric narrative was recognized as part of a subgenre of Taiwanese-language melodrama. The depictions of a powerful male figure losing his power before finally turning the tide, and a woman able to support herself after leaving home, both suggest the changing attitudes of the late 60s as people were less convinced of the perfect family, but could still find beauty in its cause.

A young man from the country comes to Taipei to search for his sister from whom he has heard nothing during the past year. Beginning in a tenement slum, the young man travels through the city's lowlife, where street hustlers sell fake Rolex watches and other contraband, gangs fight each other, and the ubiquitous sex businesses ply their trade. The young man befriends a rich teenage girl and a young prostitute as he and a hustler who knew his sister search for her through a trail of clues leading to restaurants, dance joints, and brothels.

Cheung Ching Ching is superb, as usual, playing a blind girl who learns martial arts from an old master and who takes revenge on the Red Devil who murdered her entire family. Brilliant sword film as you'd expect from master auteur Joseph Kuo. —Wu Tang Collection

Semi-naked Amazonian warriors defend their girls only island from from male pirates from the men only island.

In 1940s Taiwan, during the last days of Japanese rule, an impoverished farming village is less concerned with colonial politics than with feeding their families. One day, an American bomb falls onto a field, where it lies unexploded.

A young woman is released from prison and starts her life over. Getting a job at a newspaper, she tries to settle in. When bizarre incidents occur, the woman suspects that someone has a vendetta against her.

This early Taiwanese Wuxia film is a classic genre tale of a revenge-seeking swordswoman (Cheung Ching-ching).