Forbidden Imperial Tales

hong kong romance

Pairs of best college friends, Shen Jung (Brigitte Lin) and Li Lun-mei (Chelsia Chan); Chen Cheng-hsiung (Chin Han) and Fang Juei (Alan Tam) meet at the tennis courts. Fang Juei likes the ebullient Li Lun-mei, but after hearing the contemplative Cheng-hsiung at a school concert, is smitten by his talents and looks. However, as fate would have it, Cheng-hsiung is after the studious and gentler Shen Jung.

Taiwanese romance film released to commemorate the 9th anniversary of First Films' founding.

This film depicts the conflict between the West and Eastern culture, the Northern and Southern ways of life and the traditional and modern concepts. It consists of six stories.

A comical look at the preparations and anxiety associated with marriage. As a young man searches for his ideal mate, he reflects upon this madness and has second thoughts about matrimony.

An early Brigitte Lin Romance.

Story of a US-educated scientist who returned to China, and suffered during the years of the Cultural Revolution.

Set in Shanghai in the 1940s. Story of a ballroom girl Jolie Chan who falls in love with a student and becomes pregnant, but the student's family force her to have an abortion.

Jointly and respectively directed by King Hu, Lee Hsing, and Pai Ching-Jui, three major Taiwan directors of the 1970s, this film consist of three shorts with the same cast of two actors and one actress, who through reincarnation meet in three different times.

Directed by some of most well known Chinese-language directors of the time, the portmanteau film Four Moods was an attempt to alleviate Li Han-hsiang’s financial troubles during the late 1960s. Arguably one of his best works, King Hu’s short Anger is an adaptation of the famous Peking opera San Cha Kou; set to opera instrumentation and stylishly shot, the film deftly captures the tense showdown between political schemers, avengers and vagabonds inside an inn. Li Han-hsiang’s Happiness, inspired by the Strange Tales of Liaozhai, tells a tale of reprieve for a kind-hearted ghost, while Pai Ching-Jui’s Joy and Lee Hsing’s Sadness both explore the fateful encounters between mortal men and ghostly women.

Taiwanese drama film directed by Pai Ching-jui.

Taiwanese film

Pai Ching-jui traveled to Italy in 1960 and enrolled in the prestigious Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome in 1962, becoming the first Chinese student ever admitted to the institution. He graduated in 1963 with an experimental short film, Un Amore (鐘情者痴), which he wrote and directed himself — a playful work staging a "love scene" between an actor and a camera. He remains the first Taiwanese filmmaker to have studied cinema in Italy.

The story of Lonely Seventeen centers on Tan-mei, a seventeen-year-old high school girl who comes from a wealthy family. The film begins with Tan-mei inviting her cousin, who is also her sister’s fiancé, Feng Tse (Ke Jun-Xiong), to come over to her place on a rainy night. However, Feng Tse secretly visits his mistress first and gets seriously wounded after a fight with the woman. When he tries to make a second stop at Tan-mei’s place, he loses control of his car and is killed in a car accident. After the death of Feng Tse, Tan-mei and the mistress start to behave strangely, and both of them are sent to the same mental health institute after their emotional breakdown.

Kuai Chi, the conductor of a women’s western music band, alertly keeps her distance from men around her. Nonetheless, she eventually succumbs to the charms of A-lang and falls pregnant; she then breaks off her engagement and embezzles money so she can elope with A-lang. Unfortunately, A-lang fails in everything he does, and Kuai Chi persuades him to move and start a new life. However, A-lang has become addicted to excitement…

Alan Tang plays an engineering student in Taipei, Taiwan who meets and falls in love with another college student played by Brigitte Lin. Tang is the rich spoiled playboy son of a wealthy builder. When he meets Brigitte, Tang's life changes and he becomes very serious about her. There are many wonderful romantic scenes between the two on the beach and in the country under a maple tree.