Chinese films at the Berlinale

When romance starts to cool, Ah Ying applies for a job in a film centre. Instead of paying her for her work, the centre lets her attend its classes for free. She is later drawn into a relationship with her teacher. Based on the life of its leading actress, Hui So Ying, and using non-professionals, the film is a realistic portrayal of contemporary Hong Kong life.

Set in the early stage of Chinese reform and opening. Luo Xingang is a factory director and tries to save the products, the factory, and the faith.

Xueli comes to understand the goodness of her aunt.

An emotionally disturbed woman encounters two passengers on a train who befriend her and ultimately save her from self-destruction. Her fellow travelers find out she has a criminal past but they show her friendship and give her hope.

A story of a corrupt party official who attempts to sell an apartment building he has appropriated from the original owner and the struggles of the tenants to prevent themselves being thrown onto the street.

Sha Ou is a volleyball player and works hard against her injuries resulting from training. In spite of her defeat in an international competition and the the death of her boyfriend, she insists on her training.

Puppets are brought to life and terrorize a rural area in medieval China.

Four students in Shanghai have recently finished university. All are unemployed. Xu contemplates suicide but his friend Zhao talks him out of it. Zhao lives in a shabby room with just a flimsy wall of planks separating him from the room behind. Miss Yang, in town to take a factory job, moves in behind. Her nails into the wall knock Zhao's photos down. The unseen neighbours start playing tit for tat... Zhao gets a job as proofreader at a newspaper. He sees that pretty girl on the tram to work every day. He doesn't know her, but it's Miss Yang... Zhao is assigned to cover labour conditions for the paper. He is sent to a factory, the one where Miss Yang works...

This tale of familial warfare and sacrifice takes place in hard-pressed Shanghai at the end of the 1940s. Hu Zhiqing can barely support his wife and children, and his situation is worsened by the unexpected arrival of his mother, brother and sister-in-law. When he is fired by his unscrupulous boss, the whole family becomes embroiled in one emotional/economic struggle after another.

Kuang and his wife Liao left their son during the revolutionary war. When they finally find their son, Liao wants to get back him and breaks of all his relations with his foster mother.

Two medical students, a married couple, are chosen to study abroad in the 1950s. But the wife has antagonised Party members and is banished to Mongolia. She divorces her husband without telling him that she is pregnant. Twenty years later they meet again.

Set in the "cultural revolution" period of China, a college of labor is set up in a mountain area of Jiangxi Province. Long Guozheng, a veteran cadre of Chinese People's Anti-Japanese Military and Political College, is sent to the new college as secretary and headmaster. He has to try his best to lead the college on the right track.

Five Eighth-Route army soldiers induce a isolated Japanese squad to capitulate.

An elderly veteran of WWII living in peaceful retirement with his son and the latter's family becomes increasingly lost in wartime memories and reminiscences, much to his son's consternation. One day, an item the old man reads in a magazine prompts him to go off unannounced on a war-related quest. The son goes searching for his father, and in doing so reaches a greater understanding of both the old man and the generation he represents.

When a leprous winery owner in 1930s China dies a few days after his arranged marriage, his young widow is forced to run the winery to make a living while contending with bandits, her drunkard lover, and the invading Japanese army.

A semi-literate who was deprived of schooling during the Cultural Revolution, Li Huiquan, is released from labor camp. But his attempts to make good are continually thwarted. His street stall selling clothes puts him on the fringe of the black market, and he soon gets lured back into his old neighbourhood gangs. His disenchanted comrades include a nightclub chanteuse as well as an escaped convict.

China 2.200 years ago. It's the time of the Qin dynasty. The emperor seeks immortality by busily letting his alchemists search for a formula and building the famous terracotta army from the bodies of outlaws and the condemned. This is the time Mong Tiang Fong and court lady Twon fall deeply in love. Such a thing is not tolerated at the court and when their relationship is discovered both are sentenced to death. In the meantime the alchemists have discovered the formula of immortality, but decide to destroy their work. However Twon gets possession of one immortality pill which she manages to give to Tiang Fong before he's made a terracotta warrior too. China 1930. While on location a film crew discovers parts of the grave of emperor Qin guarded by the terracotta warriors. Tiang Fong, being immortal, awakes...

Three very different Asian women forge a friendship in New York.

A young fine-art teacher Kuo is assigned to teach in a small-town. Ah-Ming, an eight-year-old painting genius, is in Kuo's class. Ah- Ming performed badly in school, but he has great sense of color and shape; his imagination is always unique. However, the poverty of his family prevents him from freely painting. Kuo is in charge of selecting representive for a painting competition. Kuo votes for Ah-Ming, but all other teachers choose the mayor's son for the school's and their own benefit. Kuo leaves the school as a proterting gesture. Ah-Ming is upset by losing the support of Kuo in his creating. He gets a sudden liver sickness and dies. After that, the school learns that Kuo send Ah-Ming's work to an international competition, and it wins the gold medal. The school realizes Ah-Ming's talent, but it is too late.

In Ming Dynasty China, the abbot of the San Pao Buddhist monastery must choose a successor. Among the high dignitaries invited, there are some who are after the priceless parchment kept in the temple: the Mahayana Sutras.

A lady fugitive on the run from corrupt government officials is joined in her endeavors by an unambitious painter and skilled Buddhist monks.