Film & Television Shows
This page features a selection of film and television all created by, produced by, or featuring Asian artists.
Plot overviews are minimal to prevent spoilers but read with caution.
The Host
The film, The Host, revolves around an American Military Pathologist in Korea, who orders his local Korean assistant to dispose of 200 bottles of formaldehyde, a fatal chemical, unsafely down a drain where it is released into the Han River. As a result, a creature is created and emerges in the water, going on to attack and murder every person grasps. The film follows Gang-du, the father of a girl who has been attacked and held captive by the creature, and since the surviving population is propagated to believe the creature hosts an exotic virus, Gang-du struggles to save his daughter as he’s forced to quarantine in a hospital. As the local military and American military as well as Gang-du and the other locals attempt to find and kill the creature, The Host provides viewers with a political take on the United States Military in Korea’s lack of concern for the people of the country, as well as the Korean Government’s own stance in protecting their people. Viewers will be left on the edge of their seat from both the thrilling and mysterious scenes, but also the thought provoking insights The Hosts makes about the intersection of disasters and government officials.
Like Father Like Son
Like Father Like Son is a film from the perspective of Ryota Nonomiya, a workaholic who typically spends more time at his job as an architect than with his wife, Midori, or six year old son, Keita. When Ryota finds out that the hospital had accidentally switched his son, and his biological son was a boy named Ryusei, he is faced with deciding what truly makes him a father, biology, or an emotional bond. As he finds that the former won’t necessarily keep Ryusei with him, Ryota learns what being a father truly takes.
Never Not Love You
​Never Not Love You explores the experience after the typical, fiery beginnings of a movie romance. Gio and Joanne, the central characters, have a romance that perfectly characterizes and opposite attract romance: He is a freelance tattoo artist who chooses to live life passionately in the moment while she is an ambitious marketing assistant, who prefers to live by measuring her progress and in the logistics. As fascinating a story their beginning might be, Never Not Love You challenges viewers to think of what happens after the first kiss, the first date, the first “I love you.” It lets viewers take a chance seeing what happens when passion meets logistics, when a strong connection is challenged by what feels like the run out of intensity, but may turn out to be the start of something even bigger.
Still The Water
In Still The Water, 16 year old Kaito and Kyoko are a couple living on the island of Amami ÅŒshima. After the movie’s beginning of the two seeing a dead man floating in the water, Kaito and Kyoko are prodded to navigate their worlds intersections of life, death, and love. The couple, portrayed as naive yet overflowing with emotion and thought, find themselves asking questions in situations where a separation or death don’t necessarily mean a complete loss. Still The Water pushes viewers to immerse themselves in existentialism for it suggests that life, death, and love are much closer than portrayed.