(dir. Andrew Lau 劉偉強) This film, based on a real incident in 2018, was a massive hit in China. Made with the full cooperation of Sichuan Airlines, it is an overwhelmingly positive portrayal of the Chinese aviation industry, and unironically employs every airplane-disaster movie cliché in the book. Hard not to think of Airplane! at moments, but nevertheless an enjoyable watch. ★★★☆☆

(dir. Ang Lee 李安) Ang Lee’s first major film, this is the story of an elderly taiqi master who moves to America to live with his son and daughter-in-law. The dialogue-free first ten minutes sets up the tension in the suburban home wonderfully, and Sihung Lung 郞雄 is excellent throughout as the father. This, together with Ang Lee’s next two films, is available on blu-ray as his Father Trilogy. ★★★☆☆

(dir. Huang Bo 黄渤) Actor Huang Bo (known from films such as Crazy Stone 疯狂的石头 and Lost in Thailand 人再囧途之泰囧) directs and stars in this Lord of the Flies-type story about a tour group stranded on a deserted island. Wang Baoqiang 王宝强, as a bus driver-turned-despot, is the particular comic highlight. ★★★☆☆

(dir. Sung Hsin-yin 宋欣穎) An animated film about a Taiwanese woman coming back home from America. While the story treads familiar ground, the hand-drawn and painted animation is refreshingly idiosyncratic, and there’s a good amount of Taiwanese culture and history shown. The still above, for example, is a primary teacher teaching bopomofo and insisting that a sofa is a shāfā 沙发 (standard Mandarin), not a péngyǐ 膨椅 (Taiwanese dialect). ★★★☆☆

(directed by Yan Fei 闫非 and Peng Damo 彭大魔) This film, from the directors who made Goodbye Mr Loser 夏洛特烦恼, is a broad comedy about a hopeless goalkeeper who will inherit a fortune only if he can spend a large sum within a month (it’s based on the novel/film Brewster’s Millions). It stars Shen Teng 沈腾 and Vivian Sung 宋芸桦. Entertainingly silly, and did very well at the Chinese box office. ★★★☆☆

(directed by Lin Chun-Yang 林君陽) This ten-part TV drama examines social, legal, and media attitudes towards mental illness in Taiwan. It won a number of prizes at Taiwan’s Golden Bell Awards, and definitely has a better script than most Chinese dramas, even if it does heavily rely on melodramatic coincidence for the first few episodes. The story was inspired by the 2016 killing of a child by a schizophrenic man in Taipei. Mostly in Mandarin, with some other Chinese languages. The Taiwanese blu-ray set has traditional Chinese and English subtitles. ★★★☆☆

(directed by Jill Culton and Todd Wilderman) It’s a Dreamworks animated film, but was co-produced by Pearl Studio 东方梦工厂 in Shanghai (they had previously done work on Kung Fu Panda 3). Beautiful versions of modern Chinese cities and south-west Chinese landscapes, even including a trip to the Leshan Buddha 乐山大佛. Well worth a watch with younger children. There are versions in mainland and Taiwanese Mandarin, and in Cantonese. The film caused some controversy across south-east Asia because the heroine’s map includes the nine-dash line 九段线 (actually the ten-dash variant, if you freeze-frame the film). ★★★☆☆

(dir. Tian Xiaopeng 田晓鹏) A 3D animated film made in China, this used to be on Netflix with an English dub. I have a Hong Kong-produced DVD (with both Mandarin and Cantonese audio, and simplified, traditional, and English subtitles) from yesasia.com. I hope the Japanese blu-ray that’s also available uses a different source, as the DVD picture quality is atrocious. But anyway, this is suitable for 11+ viewers, and has Monkey King teaming up with a trainee monk to defeat a demon king. The child-eating demons make it a bit nastier than you’d expect from this kind of film. Not a masterpiece of storytelling, but will provide plenty of entertainment and some Chinese language input. ★★★☆☆