At the height of Maoism, China was as closed off as present-day North Korea. But even at that time, some Western foreigners lived in the country and, in the summer of 1966, they witnessed firsthand the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution. In this time, young leftist activists In Western Europe idolized Mao as a harbinger of a utopian society. As China eased out of its age of isolation in the early 1970s, many Westerners outside of China had to face a harsh reality.
Unable to serve in World War II because of a heart condition, a barber moves his family adjacent to a Wisconsin army base and prisoner-of-war camp to provide his services. But even in rural America -- far from the frontline -- the war finds victims.
Italy, after the promulgation of the racial laws (1938). Luciano, a Fascist-abiding restaurateur, nonetheless believes he can still live by his own rules inside his business. However, everything changes when Anna, a girl with a dangerous secret, starts to work at his restaurant.
In the fourth installment, Musashi's potentially greatest opponent Kojiro jumps in and out of the story at the oddest and most coincidental moments. As his great love Otsu has succumbed to madness. Musashi then sets off to beat the functionaries of a treacherous clan in an arranged duel. 73 against one. Boastful Kojiro watches, secure in the knowledge that only he is a worthy opponent.
Mexico is in the midst of Revolution when the protagonist returns after studying in Paris to find his native town in Chihuahua occupied by Francisco Villa’s revolutionary forces. He visits his deserted home and remembers people and events from his adolescence that provide glimpses of pre-Revolutionary society under dictatorship: his uncle, the chief of police; his sister’s involvement with a liberal political association; bathing with the girls from a local brothel; a labor strike that ended in a massacre. Returning to the present he discovers that his father has been assassinated and, in the company of his father’s former servant, joins the revolutionary movement.
Winter 1862. In the midst of the Civil War, the US Army sends a company of volunteer soldiers to the western territories, with the task of patrolling the unchartered borderlands. As their mission ultimately changes course, the meaning behind their engagement begins to elude them.
Joseph Bologna stars as Bill Bonanno in this made-for-television adaptation of the controversial bestseller from Gay Talese, chronicling the rise of New York's infamous Bonanno organized crime family. When his father disappears in 1964 and Bill is compelled to take over the "empire," other mafiosi attempt to take what's theirs. Brenda Vaccaro and Richard S. Castellano fill out the impressive cast of this gripping crime tale.
On November 14, 1944, the 2nd Ranger Battalion is tasked with sieging the German town of Bergstein, and Hill 400, a highly strategic position that provides the Reich with high ground for artillery.
When the Soviets impose new ways of collective farming and permanent settlements on a region of nomadic dwellers, young Ilyas is separated from his mother, Mariam. Through decades of war, mother and son persevere in their efforts to be reunited.
Jim Bakker establishes a large televangelical empire in the 1980s, including Heritage Village. However, they are removed from P.T.L, the ministry that they had established in 1987.
Early 80's, Sara is a good-family girl, she has never been with a man, does not drinks, does not take drugs. Following her love, she enters in "El Calentito" a bar where the group "las Siux" is singing.
Over 2000 Union soldiers, passengers and crew were crammed aboard the steamboat Sultana, licensed to carry 376. Graft, greed, overcrowding, a poorly maintained boat, and the Mississippi River was swollen with spring snowmelt conspired together to create a disaster. On April 27, 1865, the boat’s boilers exploded, causing the worst maritime disaster in US history.
An actress preparing to play in a historical epic is terrorized by someone faxing her pages from her stolen diary; has colorful flashbacks of her affair with a now-deceased man; and imagines black-and-white film-within-a-film scenes of the movie she is about to appear in.
Rome chafes under the rule of the Emperor Domitian and his Egyptian mistress, Artamne. A mysterious champion arises to fight against the Emperor -- a masked man known as the Red Wolf. In fact, the Red Wolf is Valerius Rufus, one of the Emperor's trusted centurions who's aided by none other than the Emperor's court jester, the diminutive Elpidion. Rebels in league with Valerius kidnap Artamne, planning to exchange her for two of their imprisoned colleagues, but Artamne escapes and soon both Valerius, (now exposed as the Red Wolf), and his fiancee, Lucilla, are sentenced to be immersed in a cauldron of molten lead. Valerius's friends, however, rise up to rescue him and to liberate Rome.
In the mountains of Peru, an environmental scientist discovers ancient artifacts submerged beneath the headwaters of the Amazon; his findings could save this sacred landscape from mining devastation.
Michael Flaherty (Craig Wasson), an American Vietnam veteran of Irish descent, returns to Belfast to join the cause of his grandfather, Seamus (Sterling Hayden). Soon he finds that he is not as welcomed in his home country as he imagined he would be. Even worse, he's the target of an IRA assassination plot designed to make the British forces look bad in order to elicit financial support from wealthy Americans.
It is the story of Jiri and Jan, two Czech soldiers, battling alongside the allied forces against the Germans, during World War II in Tobruk, Libya. Jiri Pospichal, eighteen years old, signs up as a volunteer in the Czechoslovak army. His naive ideas about heroism are rawly confronted with the hell of the African desert, complicated relationships in his unit and the ubiquitous threat of death.
When the British army looks set to defeat Mussolini’s Italian forces, Hitler sends reinforcements; the Afrika Korps led by General Rommel. The Desert Fox is on winning form until Montgomery, the British commander, sets up a plan to crush his opponent. After the American landing in North Africa, the Axis armies have no choice but to surrender and put an end to the Desert War.
1802: The adventurous life story of Hans Bückler, known as “Schinderhannes”, who fights against the French occupying forces and large landowners who exploit poor farmers in the Hunsrück region during the Napoleonic Wars.