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Directors must ask themselves, on occasion; is it really worth being part of an omnibus film? Little if anything links the trio of short films featured in the anthology E.S.F. beyond the fact each director is an up-and-coming Taiwanese. Nothing wrong with that per se, but the three are so wildly disparate in tone, length and arguably quality, getting them as a package deal is surely set to sour the effect for some potential viewers.

The opening film comes from director Chang Rong-Ji, who previously helmed the 2006 documentary My Football Summer, about a junior high sports team and their performance in Taiwan's National High School Games. At thirty-seven minutes At the End of the Tunnel is the longest of the three shorts, the story of a blind music student (musician Huang Yu-Hsiang) and a dancer (Taiwanese star Sandrine Pinna, Yang Yang, Miao Miao, Do Over) who inadvertently meet in high school,...

Korea’s Mother won the top honor at the 4th Asian Film Awards, picking up Best Picture, while Chinese and Hong Kong films sweeped the other major award categories. After the grand opening of Hkiff on Sunday night, the ceremony has been held on the following day, adding an extra kick to the film festival. Bong Joon-ho’s murder mystery predictably won in a category that has previously been dominated by Korean films. - Korea’s Mother won the top honor at the 4th Asian Film Awards, picking up Best Picture, while Chinese and Hong Kong films sweeped the other major award categories. After the grand opening of Hkiff on Sunday night, the ceremony has been held on the following day, adding an extra kick to the film festival. Bong Joon-ho’s murder mystery predictably won in a category that has previously been dominated by Korean films. Not surprisingly,...

'Stick to what you know' is theoretically sound advice that's launched many a promising career, but it's just as often led to aspiring writer/directors crowbarring the familiar in where it doesn't belong. Cheng Yu-Chieh's 2005 debut Do Over expended far too much effort working a mish-mash of garbled sub-plots and disparate visual styles around the central story of a director shooting a film he didn't believe in, and while the production values were fantastic the result was a pretentious mess that failed to make any lasting impact.

For his second feature, Yang Yang, Cheng brings back his most promising cast member - French-Taiwanese actress Sandrine Pinna, impressive in last year's winningly sweet little drama Miao Miao. The plot centres around Yang Yang, a Eurasian girl (like Pinna, half-French) struggling to balance her responsibilities to her new step-family with her inner conflict over her mixed parentage.

The tighter focus and...

Now a look back a few years to a little flick featuring the breakout performance from current Taiwanese box-office it girl Sandrine Pinna (Miao Miao, Yang Yang). Cheng Yu-Chieh’s debut feature film is the story of one seemingly innocuous event and how it leads several different people to think about how their lives have ended up. Are you going to want to give it another chance or will Do Over have you wishing you’d never watched it? Review after the break.

Berlin -- Richard Loncraine's "My One and Only," a '50s-era comedy starring Renee Zellweger and Kevin Bacon, was squeezed into the competition lineup for this year's Berlin International Film Festival, barely a week before the event kicks off.

Zellweger plays a glamorous single mom on the hunt for a rich man to foot the bill for her and her sons' lifestyle. Produced by Merv Griffith Entertainment and Ray Gun Prods., "My One and Only" will have its world premiere in Berlin. Essential Entertainment is handling international sales.

Berlin also added Lone Scherfig's Sundance favorite "An Education" with Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina and Emma Thompson and Davis Guggenheim's music documentary "It Might Get Loud" for its Berlinale Special Galas, ensuring the films will get the red carpet treatment without any of the pressure of competition.

All three films should give an added boost of star power to...