Arcadia Public Library

Three women, varying in ages and therefore perspective, agree that life on a small Chinese island in Hong Kong waters, is better for them now than in the past. They are treated equal to the men in the rigors of manual labor and now participate fully in the island's decision-making and economic life.

Tai A Chau symbolically rids itself of the last vestiges of the Old China. The town is represented by the Landlord Chan when it sells land to buy a freshwater pond. The community effort to improve the island's economic well-being brings together government representatives and the land people.

To the Land of Bliss is an intimate portrayal of the Chinese Pure Land Buddhist way of dying and living. In 1998, the filmmaker/anthropologist Wen-jie Qin returned to her home region in Sichuan Province in southwest China to research the post-Mao revival of Buddhism.

Tai A Chau is home for both farmers and fishermen who use the island as a permanent harborfor their small floating homes. The daily routines of Mr. Wong, a fisherman, and Mr. Ng, a farmer, are representative of their respective problems of survival, mutual dependence, and hopes for the future.

This beautifully realized documentary chronicles the life and work of Qi Shu Fang, one of the preeminent masters of Chinese Opera living in the United States. It is a story of ambition, love, the creative impulse and the struggle to survive against all odds. The film highlights the intricacies of Peking Opera, an art form that is hardly known in the West and is declining in popularity in China. At the same time it explores why Ms. Qi, her husband,...

Carved in Silence tells the story of Chinese immigrants who were detained at the United States Immigration Station at Angel Island in San Francisco Bay during the little known Chinese Exclusion era. The film examines the genesis of racially discriminatory immigration policies, its reality, and its consequences. Interviews are intercut with historical footage and dramatic re-enactments to powerfully translate the impact of public policies into human...

D. W. Griffith reached a pinnacle of expressiveness in this tender yet tragic tale of love and suffering in the seedy Limehouse district of London. Richard Barthelmess gives a sensitive portrayal of a Chinese man who travels to England to spread the pacifist teachings of the Orient, but it is Lillian Gish who illuminates the screen. In this, the most heart-rending performance of her career, she plays a fifteen-year-old street urchin who longs to escape...

Four detectives (Emotionless, Iron Hands, Life Snatcher, and Coldblood), each uniquely skilled with their own individual superpowers, are sent to investigate a murder outside the city. During the investigation, they unexpectedly stumble across clues to an unsolved murder from 12 years previous that hits close to home for one of them. Suddenly, the investigation becomes all too personal, and the detectives must put their lives on the line to solve...