Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on December 2013

Shanghai-based director Ye Lou ventures far from home with Love and Bruises (2011), the story of a chance meeting and steamy affair between a French student and a Chinese woman who has come to Paris to meet her boyfriend, only to get dumped and left with no place to go. Screening from December 21 at Uplink (37-8 Utagawa, Shibuya-ku. www.uplink.co.jp)… To mark the bicentennial of Richard Wagner’s birth, Germany has rolled out another big-budget biopic of Ludwig II, who became the King of Bavaria and is remembered as an ardent supporter of the composer and a monarch with an eccentric streak. No fewer than eight films have been made about the mad king. Screening from December 21 at Yurakucho Subaru (1-10-1 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku; www.subaru-kougyou.jp/movies/)… Political thriller meets historical drama in Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy (2012), which recreates a 1969 bombing of a Milan bank and the ensuing anarchist witch hunt. At Cinemart Roppongi (3-8-15 Roppongi, Minato-ku; www.cinemart.co.jp/theater/roppongi) from December 21.