• Director:Anthony Hemingway
• Genres:Action | Adventure | Drama | History | War
• Release Date:20 January 2012 (USA)

Cast

Bryan Cranston : Maj. William Mortamus
Josh Dallas : Ryan (as Joshua Dallas)
Daniela Ruah : Sofia
Cuba Gooding Jr. : Major Emanuelle Stance
Terrence Howard : Col. A.J. Bullard

World War II rages and the fate of the free world hangs in the balance. Meanwhile the black pilots of the experimental Tuskegee training program are courageously waging two wars at once — one against enemies overseas, and the other against discrimination back home and within the military. Racial prejudices have long held ace airman Martin “Easy” Julian (Nate Parker) and his black pilots back at base — leaving them with little to do but further hone their flying skills — while their white counterparts are shipped out to combat after a mere three months of training. Mistakenly deemed inferior and assigned only second-rate planes and missions, the pilots of Tuskegee have mastered the skies with ease but have not been granted the opportunity to truly spread their wings. Until now.

As the war in Europe continues to take its dire toll on Allied forces, Pentagon brass has no recourse but to reconsider these under-utilized pilots for combat duty. Just as the young Tuskegee men are on the brink of being shut down and shipped back home, Col. A.J. Bullard (Terrence Howard) awards them the ultimate chance to prove their mettle high above. Undaunted by the prospect of providing safe escort to bombers in broad daylight — a mission so dangerous that the RAF has refused it and the white fighter groups have sustained substantial losses — Easy’s pilots at last join the fiery aerial fray. Against all the odds, with something to prove and everything to lose, these intrepid young airmen take to the skies in a heroic endeavor to combat the enemy — and the discrimination that has kept them down for so long.” Read more

• Director:Edmon Roch
• Genres:Documentary | Biography | History
• Runtime:88 min

Cast

Rupert Allason : Interviewee (as Nigel West)
José Antonio Escoriza : Interviewee
Aline Griffith : Interviewee
Juan Kreisler : Interviewee
Joan Pujol : Himself (archive footage)

Official site :-

• Official site

A compelling account of Juan Pujol, an extraordinary Spanish double agent during WWII who helped change the course of history. Read more

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEuxQ_lL9-0

• Directors:Jackie Chan, Li Zhang
• Taglines:Fall of the Last Empire
• Genres:Action | Adventure | Drama | History | War

Cast

Jackie Chan : Huang Xing
Bingbing Li : Xu Zonghan (as Bing Bing Lee)
Winston Chao : Sun Yat-Sen (as Wen Xuan Zhao)
Joan Chen : Longyu
Jaycee Chan : Zhang Zhenwu

Official Site :-

• Official site [China]
• Official site [Japan]

An epic war film that details the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the violent rebellion that brought it down. With China split into warring factions and the starving citizens beginning to revolt, the ruling Qings are building a powerful army to quash any rebellion. But revolutionary leader Huang Xing (Chan) decides he must act before the Qing army becomes too powerful and leads an increasingly desperate series of violent uprisings against the power Qings. Read more

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjh0tpygG2g

• Directors:Vanessa Roth, Brian McGinn
• Genres:Documentary | Biography | History | News

Cast

Matt Damon

Official site :-

• Official site

Weaving interviews of policy experts and startling facts with the lives and careers of four teachers, American Teacher tells the collective story by and about those closest to the issues in our educational system — the 3.2 million teachers who spend every day in classrooms across our country.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzvD9v7CbEE

• Director:Carl Colby
• Genres:Documentary | Biography | History | War

THE MAN NOBODY KNEW: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby is a personal exploration into the life of America’s controversial former CIA Director told through the eyes of his wife and filmmaker son, Carl. Through extraordinary events in twentieth century history, this consummate soldier/spy stood at the center of the Agency’s most clandestine activities and operations. The film reveals the ‘cover life’ of this CIA operative, who followed orders and took on the dirtiest assignments until the Nixon Administration ordered him to ‘stonewall’ Congress about the CIA’s past abuses, but he refused. This film reveals why, for the first time, he could not obey.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM1p0Mlhs7c

• Director:Lech Majewski
• Genres:Drama | History

Cast

Rutger Hauer : Peter Bruegel
Oskar Huliczka : Musician playing a horn
Charlotte Rampling : Mary
Michael York : Nicholas Jonghelinck

Official site :-

• Official site

Lech Majewski directed this visually striking examination of the nexus between art and politics in the 16th century. In 1564, the Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel created one of his best-known and most controversial works, “The Procession to Calvary,” in which Christ, carrying his cross, makes his way to his own crucifixion though a crowded landscape that features representations of hundreds of historic and contemporary figures. The painting was a biting commentary on political matters of the day as well as a satiric view of religion, and in The Mill & the Cross, Majewski re-creates the making of Bruegel’s masterpiece, as the artist (played by Rutger Hauer) stages the images and explains their meanings while we learn more about the individuals depicted and the people who posed for the work, many of whom have their own stories to tell. Using digital imaging technology, The Mill & the Cross allows viewers to enter into Bruegel’s painting as the static figures come to life.Read more

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzbbYinuTWc

• Directors:Sanping Han, Jianxin Huang
• Genres:Drama | History
• Release Date:17 June 2011 (USA)

Cast

John Woo
Andy Lau
Wei Tang
Bingbing Fan
Daniel Wu

The Founding of a Party is set in the period between 1917, at the eve of the October Revolution in Russia, and the founding of the Communist Party of China in 1921.

During the early 20th Century, China was marked by political disunity, and a handful of individuals, including Mao Zedong, Li Dazhao and Zhou Enlai, envisioned a unified China. After the First World War, the Western Allies gave Tsingtao and Kiaochow Bay to the Empire of Japan, stirring sentiments amongst China’s youth which led to the May Fourth Movement. In March 1920, Grigori Voitinsky came to China in an attempt to spread communism to the Far East, and on July 22, 1921, thirteen representatives from throughout China met up at Shanghai’s women’s dormitory in what would be the beginning of the party. Read more

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaH-zR6M50A

Director:Christina Yao
Genres:Biography | Drama | Family | History | Romance
Runtime:113 min

Cast

Aaron Kwok :
Lantian Chang : Eunuch
Zhicheng Ding : Manager Qui
Lei Hao :
Shih Chieh King : Manager Liu

Official site :-

• Official site

Based on historical events, a saga of China’s ‘Wall Street’ over a century ago. A young man must decide whether to follow his father’s path or find his own when he is obligated to assume the role of heir to a banking empire.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5hOH7n9DhI

• Director:Wayne Wang
• Genres:Drama | History
• Release Date:15 July 2011 (USA)

Cast

Gianna Jun
Bingbing Li
Vivian Wu
Hugh Jackman
Archie Kao

In 19th-century China, seven year old girls Snow Flower and Lily are matched as laotong – or “old sames” – bound together for eternity. Isolated by their families, they furtively communicate by taking turns writing in a secret language, nu shu, between the folds of a white silk fan. In a parallel story in present day Shanghai, the laotong’s descendants, Nina and Sophia, struggle to maintain the intimacy of their own childhood friendship in the face of demanding careers, complicated love lives, and a relentlessly evolving Shanghai. Drawing on the lessons of the past, the two modern women must understand the story of their ancestral connection, hidden from them in the folds of the antique white silk fan, or risk losing one another forever.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wlk7TsdhsY

• Director:Chuan Lu
• Genres:Drama | History | War
• Runtime :132 min

Cast

Ye Liu : Lu Jianxiong
Yuanyuan Gao : Miss Jiang
Hideo Nakaizumi : Kadokawa
Wei Fan : Mr. Tang
Yiyan Jiang : Xiao Jiang

Official site :-

• Official site

City of Life and Death takes place in 1937, shortly after the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Imperial Japanese Army has just captured the capital of the Republic of China, Nanking. What followed is now known as the Nanking Massacre, a period of several weeks wherein massive numbers of Chinese prisoners of war and civilians were killed.

After some KMT commanders of the National Revolutionary Army flee Nanking, a Chinese Nationalist KMT soldier, Lu Jianxiong and fellow soldier Zhao attempt to stop a fleeing group of troops from leaving the city, but as they exit the city gates, they are captured by Japanese Imperial troops that have surrounded the city.

As the Japanese search the city, a Japanese soldier named Masao Kadokawa and other troops are raided by Lu and a small unit of KMT regular and irregular soldiers who attack from building tops. However, they are eventually forced to surrender as more Japanese troops arrive. Lu is captured and all the soldiers are marched out to the beach to be killed in a mass execution. Afterwards, Zhao finds Lu dead, but also sees that Xiaodouzi, a young boy soldier, has survived. Both of them flee to the Nanking Safety Zone run Dr. John Rabe, a German business man and Nazi party member as well as other Westerners. In this safety zone, thousands of Chinese women, children, elderly men, and wounded soldiers seek refuge from the killing. The safety zone is forcefully entered several times by bands of Japanese soldiers intent on raping female refugees. Due to the repeated intrusions, the women are forced to cut their hair and dress like men in order to avoid being raped. Xiaojiang, an attractive prostitute refuses to do so saying that she needs to keep her hair in order to feed herself.

Meanwhile, Kadokawa develops feelings for a Japanese comfort woman named Yuriko, and struggles to come to terms with the omnipresent violence around him with his own conflicting impulses. Despite his feelings of alienation, Kadokawa brings Yuriko candy and gifts from Japan and vows to marry her after the war. Read more

www.youtube.com/watch?v=q90R13aMwbA