Melvelet's Hidden Gems (<400 checks)
My favourite films with less than 400 checks on iCheckMovies, created for the forum's annual Hidden Gems/500<400 poll. I only add movies at the end here now for the IMDb search link. Real order can be found here: https://www.icheckmovies.com/lists/melvelets+hidden+gems+dashleft400+checks/melvelet/
My 2015 ballot: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls074674403
2018: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls040743936/
Ineligible link: http://www.imdb.com/search/title?lists=ls058869139,ls075488012&sort=my_ratings&view=simple
http://www.imdb.com/search/title?lists=ls074613752,ls075488012&sort=my_ratings&view=simple
Missing: https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?lists=!ls058869139,!ls074613752,!ls075488012&sort=my_ratings&view=simple&my_ratings=restrict&release_date=,2020
My 2015 ballot: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls074674403
2018: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls040743936/
Ineligible link: http://www.imdb.com/search/title?lists=ls058869139,ls075488012&sort=my_ratings&view=simple
http://www.imdb.com/search/title?lists=ls074613752,ls075488012&sort=my_ratings&view=simple
Missing: https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?lists=!ls058869139,!ls074613752,!ls075488012&sort=my_ratings&view=simple&my_ratings=restrict&release_date=,2020
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259 titles
- DirectorYoshihiko MatsuiStarsToshihiko HinoSimon KumaiYukiko MurataIn the slums of Osaka, various marginalized misfits have their own interpretations of love. Completely alienated from the outside world, they commit sexual perversions, violence and cannibalism.
- DirectorMikio NaruseStarsKeiju KobayashiMichiyo AratamaMitsuko KusabueTwo friends meet in a bar. Later that night, one friend's flirtatious wife is reportedly in an accident. The other friend doesn't feel well. What's come over him?
- DirectorHsiao-Hsien HouStarsChi-Kuang WangShu-Chen LiHsiu-Ling LinA coming-of-age story about a young brother and sister who spend a pivotal summer in the country with their grandparents.
- DirectorVíctor GaviriaStarsLeidy María 'Lady' TabaresMarta CorreaMileider Gil13-year-old Monica leads a street life, making her living by selling flowers to couples in local nightspots, she is joined by 10-year-old Andrea who runs out of her house after her mother beats her.
- DirectorAkio JissôjiStarsMichiko TsukasaRyô TamuraEiji OkadaNear a remote Buddhist monastery, a young man falls in love with his sister and gets her pregnant. After a monk finds out, the young man becomes an assistant to a master sculptor, only to proceed to complicate matters with his affairs.
- DirectorHsiao-Hsien HouStarsDoze NiuShih ChangChung-Hua TouAh-Ching and his friends have just finished school in their island fishing village, and now spend most of their time drinking and fighting. Three of them decide to go to the port city of Kaohsiung to look for work. They find an apartment through relatives, and Ah-Ching is attracted to the girlfriend of a neighbor. There they face the harsh realities of the big city.
- DirectorKaige ChenStarsLeslie CheungGong LiKevin LinNot far from Shanghai, in a country town stands the palatial home of the Pang family. Old Master Pang is an addict who brings up his beautiful daughter Ruyi on opium smoke. Her older brother, Zhengda, is addicted as well, and then paralysed and effectively brain-dead. Zhongliang, Zhengda's brother-in-law, is a successful gigolo in Shanghai who seduces older married women and then blackmails them. When Older Master Pang dies, the clan elders make Ruyi take over the role as the head of the household. Zhongliang returns to the Pang family on the death of Old Master Pang, re-encounters Ruyi, and they are secretly attracted to each other. Wanting to seem sophisticated, she succumbs to Zhongliang's attempts to seduce her. But then an emotional maelstrom follows - for the angry, jealous and sexually frustrated sister (Zhengda's wife) is also part of the picture.
- DirectorKihachi OkamotoStarsKeiju KobayashiMichiyo AratamaEijirô TônoThis comedy portrays the everyday life of an ordinary salary-man who uses himself as a model to write a novella.
- DirectorHsiao-Hsien HouStarsAnnie Shizuka InohGiong LimJack KaoIntended as the concluding film in the trilogy on the modern history of Taiwan began with Beiqing Chengshi (1989), this film reveals the story through three levels: a film within a film as well as the past and present as linked by a young woman, Liang Ching. She is being persecuted by an anonymous man who calls her repeatedly but does not speak. He has stolen her diary and faxes her pages daily. Liang is also rehearsing for a new film that is due to go into production soon. The film, entitled Haonan Haonu, is about a couple Chiang Bi-yu and Chung Hao-tung who returns to China to participate in the anti-Japanese movement in China in the 1940s and are arrested as communists when they go back to Taiwan.
- DirectorBostjan HladnikStarsDusa PockajMiha BalohRado NakrstPeter is the dark brooding type. Leading a vacuous, shapeless life, he longs for the ideal woman, while at the same time, half heartedly continuing with his habitual girlfriend, Marusa , who is considerably older, a fact that Peter is quick to point out. As an ageing actress, struggling for parts in her local theatre, she oozes insecurity and breathes uncertainty. Together, they spend their time in the local restaurant, smoking, drinking and trading verbal blows. "I bet you'll just end up a drunk," she tells Peter each time. Peter just grins and tells her how old she looks. Compounded by a thankless director who soon shows her the door, Marusa finds her identity being squeezed harder and harder against the wall. To escape, Peter and Marusa dream...
- DirectorYoshishige YoshidaStarsMariko OkadaShigeru TsuyuguchiTamotsu HayakawaA married woman lets her lover take naked pictures of her. The photos end up in possession of a man who starts blackmailing the couple.
- DirectorNien-Jen WuStarsAkio ChenShu-Fang ChenJun FuAutobiographical story about the life of a poor family in the Taiwanese countryside during the 1940s and 1950s as the Japanese rule of the island ends and nationalist forces of Kwomintang arrive when the Communists take the mainland.
- DirectorYoshishige YoshidaStarsMariko OkadaYasunori IrikawaRuriko AsaokaA young man who's about to marry is torn between his fiancée and the love for his mother. His past, dreams and desires unfold simultaneously.
- DirectorNagisa ÔshimaStarsKazuo GotoSukio FukuokaKenichi FukudaA metaphysical mystery involving a university student's camera getting stolen, and the thief then committing suicide. Looking back upon the event, the situation comes to be questioned if it happened at all.
- DirectorGakuryû IshiiStarsRena KomineTadanobu AsanoKotomi KyônoBus conductor Tomiko falls in love with driver Niitaka, even though she also suspects him of being a serial killer who killed his female conductors after tiring of them.
- DirectorYûzô KawashimaStarsMichiyo AratamaYukiko TodorokiSeizaburô KawazuA couple stand indecisively on a bridge in Asakusa. Tsutae and Yoshiji have lost confidence and passion for their future as they get on the bus for Tsukishima and get off at Suzaki. Across the bridge they see the sign for Suzaki Paradise, a red-light district where Tsutae once worked as a prostitute. Tsutae spots an ad for a waitress at a bar near the bridge and she rushes in to get the job. The kind hearted madam, Tokuko, helps them out by hiring Tsutae and finding work for Yoshiji delivering noodles. But the wanton Tsutae is soon attracted to Ochiai, a rich, generous man who owns an electrical shop specializing in radios.
- DirectorAkio JissôjiStarsKôji ShimizuAkiko MoriRyô TamuraTwo student couples stumble upon a cult dedicated to promoting the primordial human state through rape and agriculture.
- DirectorKoreyoshi KuraharaStarsTamio KawajiYuko ChiyoEiji GôA juvenile delinquent gets out of the pen and causes reckless mayhem, mostly directed at the girlfriend of the journalist who helped send him up.
- DirectorNikos NikolaidisStarsVera TschechowaJohn MooreNiki TriantafillidiAwaiting for Orpheus to save her from a modern Hades, Euridice faces her fears, desires, hallucinations and memories.
- DirectorAlain Robbe-GrilletStarsJean-Louis TrintignantSylvie BréalZuzana KocúrikováOn the run from pursuing soldiers, a man hides in a small European town.
- DirectorDang Nhat MinhStarsVân LêLuu Viet Bao DangYen HoangDuyen faces a daily struggle to care for her young son and her weakened father-in-law, while keeping secret the fact that her husband died in a battle during the war.
- DirectorJohn GuillerminStarsMelvyn DouglasPatricia GozziDean StockwellAgnes, a lonely teenage girl, and her father befriend an escaped convict, named Joseph, who arrives at their farm in Brittany, France. When Joseph develops an attraction to Agnes, her father threatens to break up the union.
- DirectorAkio JissôjiStarsSaburô ShinodaEiko YanamiRyô TamuraAs a faithful young houseboy fully devotes himself to his spiritual duty, his teacher plans turning over his grandfather's mountain property to realtors for profit.
- DirectorWen JiangStarsYu XiaWei ChenShaobo DaiBeijing, 1970s. Now that the CR has driven most adults to the provinces, 14-year-old Monkey and his pals have free reign over the city. They hang around, get up to no good, and discover that unsolvable mystery referred to as "girls."
- DirectorAlain Robbe-GrilletStarsFrançoise BrionJacques Doniol-ValcrozeGuido CelanoA sad man meets a beautiful, secretive woman who may or may not be involved in some conspiracy ring dealing in kidnapped women used as prostitutes. After several days of their sadly passionate relationship she disappears. The sad man is unable to locate her as all the local Turkish people pretend not to remember any such woman. He suddenly finds her again (she finds him?) and before she can explain her disappearance she is killed in a car crash while he is in the passenger seat. He replays the accident over and over in his mind trying to remember how she died if he caused the accident himself by grabbing the wheel.