After helping rogue Dhampir Rose Hathaway evade justice, Sydney Sage's situation with the Alchemists is shaky at best. Her career is jeopardized to the point where she may have to undergo re-education. Woken in the middle of the night, Sydney is given a last chance: to pose as the older sister of Jill Dragomir ( illegitimate sister of Vasilisa Dragomir ) at a boarding school in Palm Springs California and assists Keith the alchemist whom she hates and also studied with Sydney's father to conceal her identity to those who oppose Vasilisa. This is because of the family quorum law which means that if Jill were to die Vasilisa would have no family left and would have to abdicate the throne. This is all set in motion due to an attack on Jill which was violent and brutal. Sydney, Jill, Eddie Castile, and Adrian head off to Palm Springs. Sydney and Jill room together while Eddie rooms with Micah which is later said to remind Eddie of his dead best friend Mason from St. Vladimir's Academy.

On the first day of school, Jill is sent back to her dorm room accused of having a hangover in the morning. While Sydney visits Adrian in the afternoon, he reveals that he and Jill are bonded from the attack which actually killed Jill, but Adrian, being a spirit user, brought her back from the dead - she is now shadow kissed. This is why she always knows what Adrian is thinking and why she feels hungover every morning. As time goes on, Sydney is excelling in school while Jill is seen to have few friends and is continuously picked on by Laurel due to her crush on Micah, as he shows an interest in Jill.

When meeting with an older Moroi - Clarence, who is housing Adrian, Jill starts to fall for the Moroi's 19-year-old son Lee. Lee takes the whole squad mini-golfing and Jill uses her water magic much to Sydney's disdain, as it freaks her out reminding her of her alchemist training that Moroi are unnatural creatures made from evil.

While at school, Sydney starts to get friendly with a boy who helps out in her history class. Trey asks Sydney about the lily tattoo on her cheek, which is the sign of an alchemist. Many in the school have similar tattoos that give them drug-like effects similar to steroids or marijuana. Sydney tells Keith about the alchemist-like tattoos, but Keith brushes it off. After talking to her friends, Sydney discovers that the tattoos are given by a place called Nevermore and she finds vials of Moroi blood and saliva along with copper and silver. When visiting Adrian, Sydney sees a needle sized hole in Clarence's neck and deduces that Keith has been supplying Nevermore. Thus, she has him removed by the Alchemists.

Jill is in a fashion show at a local boutique and after the show Adrian and Sydney get into an argument because Sydney has been paying for Adrian to go to college classes without him knowing. Sydney was worried he would drop out before next semester, but seeing as damaging it is to Jill she decides to go to Keith's house and let Lee drop Jill back at school.

While clearing out Keith's things, Lee turns up and Sydney discovers that Lee was a strigoi, but he was turned back by a spirit user. This means that he ages slower and may be unable to access his magic. Lee also wishes to be turned back into a strigoi, but is unable to and he's the reason for all of the unknown deaths in Palm Springs including that of his cousin. Adrian show up at Keith's house, but both he and Sydney are restrained and Lee called his strigoi friends using Sydney and Adrian as a bargain for being re-awakened. Once the strigoi turn up and try to change Lee into one of them he instead dies then Sydney, Adrian, and the two strigoi get into a fight. One strigoi goes to drink Sydney's blood, but cannot as it is too vile and tastes horrible, but as they feed on Adrian. Sydney uses a fire charm that she created on a whim of her history teacher Mrs.Terwilliger to distract the strigoi. Just then, Eddie and Jill show up and with the help of Jill's water magic Eddie kills both strigoi.

After the encounter, the alchemist offer Sydney Keith's apartment, but knowing Adrian's wishes, she instead asks that Adrian be given the apartment in exchange for his assistance in the research into spirit users and Strigoi and why they cannot be reawakened. Sydney instead requests her own dorm room on campus, allowing her to continue to watch Jill. Back at school, Sydney confronts her teacher about the amulet, and the teacher confesses she had known about vampires all along as well as Alchemists. She believes that Sydney has an innate magical ability, and it was that ability that gave the amulet its power.

Abe Mazur, Rose's father, arrives with Jill's new roommate – a Dhampir named Angeline who Sydney met while on the run with Rose the previous year. Adrian realizes that Abe has been keeping a close eye on Palm Springs because of ''Nevermore'' – and that Abe himself is likely trafficking vampire blood as well. Abe, in turn, reveals to Adrian that the reason Sydney had been forced to obey his commands was that Sydney had contracted him for an attack on Keith that left him with a glass eye – retribution for Keith's rape of her sister.

The game follows the story of a young man named Kyle who has his girlfriend Erin sequestered with the vampire Nosferatu (in the opening cutscene of the Japanese version, he is also referred to as Count Dracula); he has the objective of obtaining their blood. Kyle then goes up to the castle where Nosferatu lurks with the intent to rescue Erin, but getting there, he discovers that the huge place is full of traps and violent creatures. The game starts with Kyle being trapped in the dungeon of the castle, and the player must escape from there and walk through the castle until they reach the tower where Erin and Nosferatu are.

Ted is outside a movie theater showing ''It's a Wonderful Life'', waiting for the rest of the gang and carrying a gingerbread house as their Christmas-themed movie snack. Future Ted backtracks to two days before, when Marshall and Lily eagerly await the results of her latest pregnancy test. The test is positive and they excitedly tell Ted, Barney, and Robin the news, but the doctor later says it is a false alarm and Future Ted tells the story of what happened during the past two days.

Prior to the test, Ted and Punchy begin talking about Punchy's wedding. After hanging up, Ted argues with Robin about his ability to be an effective best man, especially in the event that Punchy gets cold feet. Robin reveals that she auditioned as a "currency rotation specialist" (coin-flip bimbo) in the game show ''Million Dollar Heads or Tails'', hosted by Alex Trebek. Ted rebukes her for bailing on her New Year's Resolution to be working for the World Wide News network by the end of the year. Robin admits that she applied for the network, but only an associate researcher position is available. When Marshall and Lily break the news of the pregnancy, Robin becomes aware of how her own life is stalling, and resolves to take the research position, but when they reveal the false positive, she changes her mind once more, deciding that she is content to be a "coin-flip bimbo".

Barney, meanwhile, has received an end-of-year bonus, which he intends to spend on luxuries for himself, including a suit with diamond pinstripes. When he hears about the pregnancy, he realizes how unfulfilled his selfishness has left him, and decides to spend the money helping others. After buying the patrons of MacLaren's designer clothes, toys and condoms, and taking them to a strip club, Barney goes to see Sam Gibbs, his brother's father and a minister, to make a donation to his church. He begins to write a check for $10,000 when he gets the news about the false positive, and adds a decimal point to turn it into $100, returning to his selfish ways and, indeed, buying his diamond-striped suit.

Immediately after they discover and announce the pregnancy test's results, Marshall and Lily secretly begin to panic about how unprepared they are to raise a child, and scramble to complete pre-delivery remodelling of their apartment in one night. After an argument about playing music for the child, the couple see the doctor, who tells them Lily is not pregnant.

Marshall and Lily meet up with the rest of the gang outside the theater and admit that they are relieved about the false positive. Since they are not ready for kids, they are considering getting a dog for now. When Robin and Barney agree with them, Ted angrily smashes the gingerbread house and orders everybody to reconsider their decisions, forcing Marshall and Lily to go straight back home to try to conceive, yelling to the "criminals of New York" about Barney's suit, effectively making him a walking target for theft, and ordering Robin to take the research job. When Punchy calls him, suffering the predicted cold feet, Ted angrily orders him to get married, solving that problem as well. After everyone leaves, he decides to watch ''It's a Wonderful Life'' alone.

In the end, Marshall and Lily continue trying to conceive, Barney returns the diamond suit, makes his intended cash donation to the ministry and also donates suits for jobless people to wear to interviews, and Robin begins her first day at World Wide News. Back at the apartment, Robin thanks Ted for his fit of rage and he accepts her offer to be the best man if she ever marries anyone else.

Tego Leo is imprisoned in the Dominican Republic, and engages in a debate with other prisoners regarding corporations holding back the electric car and starting wars for oil. Rico Santos, meanwhile, encounters difficulty in locating gas in order to get home on time for dinner. Han Lue later arrives, and is collected from the airport by Cara and Malo. They drive him back to Rico's house, where his aunt Rubia is struggling to keep up with her gas bills. Han goes outside to see Dominic Toretto working on his car, before they both go inside to enjoy a meal with the entire family. Dom discusses breaking Tego out of prison and stealing oil to support the family. Dom, Cara, and Han later head to a nightclub to meet with corrupt local politician Elvis, who is able to arrange for the robbery to take place on a highway the following morning.

After managing to break Leo out of prison and finalizing the plan with Rico, Dom is surprised by the arrival of Letty Ortiz. The two drive together to a beach, and rekindle their romance.

The story is set in Cuba in 1959, when 17-year old medical student Sonya dreams of becoming a painter. Encouraged by the ideals of the Cuban Revolution she joins the militia and is sent to the Bay of Pigs, where she's imprisoned and tortured by her own comrades. She returns home, but discovers her opinions are not in line with Fidel Castro's regime.

Three women sharing an apartment in Los Angeles are all endangered by the men in their lives.

Major James Prentis (Alan Bates) is a British spy of World War II and war hero who goes under the code name of "Shuttlecock". Alienated from his family and children, he ends up in a mental institution in Lisbon, Portugal, where he eventually decides to publish his memoirs 20 years after the war. His son, John (Lambert Wilson), becomes increasingly alarmed with the enigmatic Dr. Quinn (Kenneth Haigh), the director of the institution, and concludes after reading his father's memoirs that Quinn is responsible for his father's mental decline.

During the 1930s, three privileged old University friends gather for the week-end in an old country house located in a sprawling British estate. In fact, McFayden (Murray Melvin), the estate's owner, which he has recently inherited, invites his two college acquaintances Talbot (Larry Dann) and Duller (Vivian MacKerrell) ostensibly for a week-end of game hunting. Duller is sullen and rude, though an excellent shot while Talbot is easygoing but puzzled as to why he was asked along, especially when his colleagues continually abuse and ridicule him. As soon as they arrive, personality clashes, petty arguments and gloomy environment start on wear on everyone's nerves. To make matters worse, McFayden neglects to mention that the place might be haunted. During the night, Talbot begins to have strange hallucinations involving a creepy porcelain doll and the former occupants of the mansion.

Talbot finds himself transported back into time, bearing witness to the trials and tribulations of a young woman Sophy (Marianne Faithfull), who once resided in the house. As the story progresses, the tenuous ties that bind the men together begin to unravel and the strange visions begin to become more and more vivid until they threaten to drive one of them, Talbot mad. It turns out to be haunted by the previous occupants, though only Talbot can see them. Finally, McFayden admits that he invited Talbot and Duller because he had heard rumours that the house was haunted and he chose them both as likely subjects to draw any spirits out in the open. As the visions become more frequent and detailed, Talbot is thrust into a strange supernatural realm of incest, arson and madness from which escape is impossible.

The ''Caribbean Star'', a combination cargo ship and floating casino is hijacked by terrorists led by Luis Carreras (John Vernon), who installs an atomic bomb, holding both the passengers and the bomb hostage, hoping to exchange them for the gold bullion on a U.S. Treasury ship. However, First Officer John Carter (Richard Harris), Susan Beresford (Ann Turkel), and Dr. Marston (Gordon Jackson) join forces to foil the plan.

Jess and Josh are best friends, housemates and 'twentysomething'. While their friends finish university degrees, climb the corporate ladder and settle down, Jess and Josh live for the weekend. When they find themselves unemployed, they decide it is time to become their own bosses.

Their entrepreneurial pursuits range from a hugely successful erotic house cleaning service, guided Melbourne tours that show twentysomething backpackers the city in a new light, an elite babysitters' agency for a very small 60% commission and even profiting from returning lost dogs for big rewards. Although Jess and Josh have every intention of succeeding, they somehow manage to self-destruct, always ending in chaos.

With Josh under added pressure from his older and more successful brother Nick, (Simon Russell), to join the family advertising business, Jess finds a welcome distraction in Billy (Hamish Blake), an on again/off again ex who has recently returned home from an overseas adventure. When there is no one else, there is always Abby, (Leah de Niese), the back up friend.

A mysterious aircraft, disguised as a giant magnet, steals a highly potent mutagen known as PX-41 from a secret laboratory in the Arctic Circle. Director Silas Ramsbottom of the Anti-Villain League (AVL) sends one of their agents, Lucy Wilde, to recruit former supervillain Gru. Forcibly brought to the AVL headquarters, Gru is asked by Silas to help them track down the culprit and recover the mutagen. However, Gru refuses, claiming that he is now a legitimate father and business owner. Longing to resume his criminal life, Dr. Nefario, Gru's friend and assistant, leaves him for new employment. This causes a reluctant Gru to investigate the theft and work with Lucy. The pair are stationed at the Paradise Shopping Mall, with a cupcake store as their front.

Gru immediately suspects Mexican restaurant owner Eduardo Pérez might be "El Macho", a supervillain who supposedly died by riding a shark into an active volcano with 250 pounds of TNT strapped to his chest. Gru and Lucy break into Eduardo's restaurant at night but find no proof. Meanwhile, Gru's three adopted daughters, Margo, Edith, and Agnes, who dream of having a mother one day, believe that Gru will fall in love with Lucy. Gru denies it, saying his relationship with Lucy is only professional.

Despite holding Eduardo as his prime suspect, Gru agrees to pursue other leads, including the shop of wig merchant Floyd Eaglesan, where Lucy discovers traces of PX-41. After witnessing Eduardo's son Antonio woo Margo and invite everyone to his Cinco de Mayo party, Gru renews his focus on Eduardo. After a neighbor sets Gru up on a bad blind date, Lucy helps him escape, and the two begin to bond. The next day, the AVL arrests Floyd after finding an almost-empty jar of the mutagen in his shop. Silas closes the investigation and reassigns Lucy to Australia.

At the Cinco de Mayo party, Gru follows Eduardo and discovers that he is indeed El Macho. Having faked his death, El Macho has hired Dr. Nefario, and had abducted most of Gru's Minions, using the stolen PX-41 mutagen to transform them into an army of indestructible and savage purple beasts. El Macho plans to launch rockets full of the evil Minions into major cities to dominate the world. He offers Gru the chance to team up with him, but Gru walks away with the girls. Suspicious, El Macho sends an evil Minion, Kevin, after them.

Lucy, having decided to disobey orders and return home to Gru, arrives at the party right after Gru leaves. Realizing that Lucy and Gru are working for the AVL, El Macho kidnaps her. Dr. Nefario, feeling guilty for changing sides, and informs Gru of the situation. Gru returns to El Macho's fortress with two of his own disguised Minions. The evil Minions see through the disguise and attack them. Meanwhile, Kevin breaks into Gru's house and attacks the girls. Margo and Agnes lure him to the lab, where Dr. Nefario arrives with an antidote and turns Kevin normal again. Dr. Nefario puts the antidote in Gru's jelly reserves, and he and the girls hurry to Gru's aid. Gru, Dr. Nefario, the girls, and the surviving Minions use jelly guns to restore all the other evil Minions to their normal state. El Macho threatens to kill Lucy, and uses the PX-41 to become a monster himself, but is defeated by Gru and Dr. Nefario.

Gru starts to rescue Lucy from El Macho's TNT-loaded shark rocket, but El Macho's pet chicken Pollito launches it, sending them toward a volcano. Lucy accepts Gru's invitation for a date, and they jump into the ocean before the rocket explodes in the volcano. 147 dates later, Gru and Lucy eventually get married, giving Margo, Edith, and Agnes a mother.

The master of disguise, False-Face, manages to steal the jeweled Mergenberg Crown and replace it with a false one right under the watchful eyes of the police. Included with the false crown is planning to rob an armored car. Batman catches False-Face, who is disguised as one of the armored car drivers but manages to escape in his Trick-Truck.

Batman and Robin follow False-Face into an alley, where they are attacked by False-Face's gang. The police arrive in time to arrest the gang, but False-Face escapes by disguising himself as Chief O'Hara, before gassing the real Chief O'Hara. Batman captures False-Face's assistant, Blaze, who leads the duo to what they think is False-Face's hideout, a deserted subway platform. It is in reality a False-Face trap. Batman is gassed by a vending machine, while Blaze gasses Robin. They awaken to find that False-Face has glued them to the train tracks with a super-strong epoxy. Momentarily, they will be run over a speeding train.

In the present day, one man had started to experience dreams and visions of the past. He attempted to take medicine to stop it, thinking that this was a medical problem, but the medicine was ineffective; something larger was at play here. The man decided to find a shaman to find out what the problem was, what these dreams and visions meant, and to cure him of them. However, the shaman told the man of the ancient stories of a battle 30,000 years ago between a great hero and the two Sisters of Chaos - one who controls Light from the Sun, and one who controls Darkness from the Moon. The Sisters were imprisoned after the battle, but the hero had perished in the process. The shaman informed the man that he was the hero's reincarnation, and that the Sisters of Chaos have apparently escaped their imprisonment. This man was now the only one who could stop them, and so he went forth on the journey.

First, the man runs into the Crossroads of the World, which connects to multiple areas. When he arrives, however, he experiences yet another, and the last, vision of the past in the middle of a large shrine. This is perhaps the most vivid of the visions, because even the player gets a chance to control the hero from 30,000 years ago as he makes his way through the destruction of the world to defeat the Sisters. However, the fight itself is not shown, as the vision is terminated at the very moment the fight began, while the narrator tells the result.

Back in the present day, the man makes his way throughout four areas: the Jungle, the Underworld, the , and the Sky. There are four protectors in the world, one per area, but they have been corrupted by Chaos and are now her minions. Due to this, the man must defeat these protectors as well. There are also many different species of creatures throughout the world, born from Light, Dark, or neutral energies, attempting to block the man's path, assisting the protectors and Chaos.

After the defeat of one protector, a rune, depicting the defeated protector, is activated in the large shrine in the Crossroads of the World, which triggers a short speech from the narrator about that protector and their corruption, as well as the opening of the next area of the world (in the order of the Jungle, the Underworld, the and then the Sky). When all four protectors are defeated and four of the five runes activated, the shrine teleports the man to the Temple of Eternity.

The Temple of Eternity is where the Sisters were imprisoned in the battle 30,000 years ago, waiting all this time for their chance to escape and "uncreate" the world. The man must travel throughout the Temple of Eternity, finally ending his journey at one section named the Trail of Tears. Just past the Trail of Tears is a giant ladder, identical to the one the ancient hero had used to fight the Sisters. So the man climbs up the ladder and fights the Sisters in one last battle to save the world.

After winning the battle, the man is ready to deal the final blow and end the Sisters' lives, when suddenly, the Temple of Eternity collapses. The Sisters have never actually seen the world, only knowing that they wanted to destroy it and make it their own. But now, after they see the beauty and tranquility that both time and mankind had created, the Sisters humbly surrender to the man and retreat back to where they belong; one Sister to the Sun, one to the Moon. The spirit of the ancient hero from all those years ago then escapes from the man's body, as both the spirit's and the man's work are complete.

The manga is set in the late 1960s in Yokohama, Japan; the Ghibli film is set in 1963. The main character, Umi Komatsuzaki, is a high school girl who has to grow up quickly when her father goes missing.

"Killed at Resaca" begins with the narrator describing a lieutenant, Herman Brayle, he serves with during the American Civil War. Brayle, a tall man with fair features, consistently wears full uniform and never takes cover during battle. Despite being questioned for his reasoning to behave so foolishly in battles and with little regards for his safety, he never explains or changes his actions. One day when given an order to deliver a message, rather than taking a safe path to do so, Brayle charges out into an open field and is fired upon by Confederate troops. Watching his heroic figure galloping through the gunshots, the Union soldiers also put forth their own efforts to defend and battle. Even when presented with an opportunity for salvation in the form of a hiding place, Brayle awaits death with a defiant stance.

After he falls, the battle is ended and Confederate soldiers assist in his removal from the field and even play a dirge. Included among the possessions of the slain hero is a letter from a woman, who writes that she had heard he hid behind a tree once during a battle, and would rather he were dead than learn that he was the sort of coward who would take cover. Bitter at the loss the letter has caused, the narrator vows to pay a visit to the woman and reveal the destruction of her words. She throws the letter into the fire because it's stained and she "can't stand the sight of blood", howevermuch she enjoyed the thought of it being shed. When she asks how Brayle died, he does not relate the story of his heroic actions. Instead, he simply replies, "He was bitten by a snake."

An American professor travels to Istanbul to find a mysterious century-old chest built by Sultan Abdülhamid II, which he believes is relevant to the present political power games over oil. His search leads him discover long-forgotten underground cloisters at Topkapı Palace, now the Topkapı Museum, where he confronts a patriotic museum curator and the Turkish intelligence. Conspiracies going back to the Gulf Wars, the Iran-Iraq War, World War I, and as far as the final years of the Ottoman Empire are revealed in the course of his investigation.

The special anniversary was marked with a storyline in which the residents had to deal with a tragic accident and its aftermath. In the storyline, Nick Tilsley (Ben Price) and Leanne Battersby's (Jane Danson) bar – The Joinery – explodes during Peter Barlow's (Chris Gascoyne) stag party. As a result, the viaduct running above the restaurant is destroyed, sending a tram careering onto the street, destroying D&S Alahan's Corner Shop and ''The Kabin''. Two characters, Ashley Peacock (Steven Arnold) and Molly Dobbs (Vicky Binns), and an unnamed taxi driver perished as a result of the disaster. Rita Sullivan (Barbara Knox) survives despite being trapped under the rubble of her destroyed shop, while Fiz Stape (Jennie McAlpine) prematurely gives birth to a baby girl, Hope, after her husband John (Graeme Hawley) strikes his stalker Charlotte Hoyle (Becky Hindley) with a hammer to silence her. He later poses as Colin Fishwick (David Crellin), Charlotte's supposed partner, attempting to turn off her life support. Peter marries Leanne in an emergency hospital ceremony, shortly before going into cardiac arrest, although he later rallies and makes a slow recovery.

In the book, Nancy solves a mystery on the Caribbean island of St. Ann when visiting Sugar Moon, a nineteenth-century sugar plantation. She finds clues to a treasure in a faded love letter from a long-dead pirate.

Category:Nancy Drew books Category:2000 American novels Category:2000 children's books Category:Novels set in the Caribbean Category:Novels set on islands

''Dragon Magic'' is a Dragonlance adventure scenario where the player characters journey to a cloud city, get sent to Krynn's moon of Lunitari, and will need to stop the killing the Celestial Dragon of Neutrality.

''Shadowdale'' is a Forgotten Realms scenario in which the player characters leave Shadowdale for a quest to the city of Waterdeep, in the first adventure of the trilogy.

''Tantras'' is a Forgotten Realms scenario in which the player characters have been accused of murdering Elminster, so they must break out of prison and journey to the city of Tantras.

''Waterdeep'' is a Forgotten Realms scenario which takes place in the city of Waterdeep, where the player characters seek to return the Tablets of Fate to the almighty god Ao in the final adventure of the FRE series.

In a medieval world The Lord Protector must save the Earth from destruction and solve The Riddle of the Chosen. The Lord Protector travels to the heart of a magical evil and sets the stage for the ultimate showdown between good and evil.

''Child's Play'' is high-level introductory scenario to the 2nd edition rules, designed for beginning dungeon masters and player characters.

The monarchy of Rhesdain, nestled deep in Greyhawk, somewhere on the edge of the Yetil Mountains, is in danger of toppling. A group of young noblemen, among them a few of Queen Joanna Lune's grandchildren, have launched a campaign to turn the country into a democracy. The group claims a Constitution exists which proves Rhesdain was never intended to be a monarchy. The rebels claim the land is free and the people who live there, according to the constitution, are free to choose their own rulers.

The module details a linear, cross-country, convoy-guard adventure. ''Puppets'' is a two-part scenario, in which the player characters first encounter an evil leprechaun while in the Gnarley Wood, and then must investigate tiny burglars in the Free City of Dyvers. This small-town adventure takes place as the PCs hunt for clues to the plot's central mystery.

''Vale of the Mage'' is an adventure scenario in which the player characters pursue renegade wizards that have fled across the Barrier Peaks to the Vale of the Mage, where the characters must seek assistance from the Vale's master against the wizards.

Fifteen-year-old Nathan Davies (Stephan Bender) moves to St. Francisville, Louisiana, a small Southern town with his parents (Thomas Jay Ryan and Diana Scarwid) and starts to befriend the older boy next door, Roy (Maximillian Roeg), fellow high school student and bus driver, who is in a relationship with Evelyn (Rooney Mara). Nathan and Roy start to develop their relationship by helping each other with school work at Nathan's house. While Roy is teaching Nathan how to solve an algebra problem, Nathan touches his hand. Roy pulls away at first, but then takes hold of Nathan's hand.

After they finish their work, the boys go for a walk in the woods, finding an old cemetery, where they stop and start kissing. They undress down to everything but socks and underwear, and lie in an embrace together. The relationship between Nathan and his father is revealed to be a little strange and full of tension. One morning Roy pulls the bus into a part in the woods and they kiss and Nathan touches Roy. Roy asks if Nathan has ever done this with anyone before, and he promises he never has. Roy takes Nathan swimming with Burke and Randy, but Nathan admits he can't swim. While watching Roy, Burke threatens to throw him in the water, but Roy stops him. While Roy is driving them home, he pulls onto the side of the road and they start kissing. When Nathan starts to have sex with Roy, Roy angrily stops him, asking "who taught [him] to screw like that". Nathan swears "no one".

When Nathan gets home that night, his father wants to know if he had a good time. Nathan is on the brink of tears as he answers his father. He ties a string up to his dresser drawer and bedpost, tucks his pillows under his sheets, and moves to the floor to sleep. In the night he hears a thud and runs from his room, because it's his father sneaking in. It is later revealed that his father had touched him in the past inappropriately. Nathan sleeps outside and comes home only for meals, but returns to his tree outside after eating.

Roy finds him and offers him a place to sleep in his family's barn. The next morning, Nathan goes home for breakfast and his father catches him, yelling at him to not run from him, but Nathan's mother interrupts and he runs to the school bus. Later, Roy tells Nathan they're going camping with Burke and Randy that weekend. That night, Roy tells ghost stories around the campfire, and in their tent, Nathan gives Roy a blowjob, and Roy asks him if he minds when Roy doesn't do those things back to him, and Nathan says he doesn't mind. Hiking through the woods, the boys find an old plantation house. They go inside to investigate, and Nathan hears a voice call his name, resembling his father's. They then find cloth with what looks like to be blood on it, and they smell sulfur (which Nathan says is the smell of the Devil), and the boys see a shadow move up the stairs.

Burke takes the flashlight from Roy and goes to investigate with Randy. Roy and Nathan go into a bedroom and talk, and Nathan says he feels as if he'll never leave that house. He hears the voice again and Roy goes to see if the guys are back. Nathan sees his father and closes his eyes tight, when Roy enters the room again. He tells Nathan not to look at whatever he's seeing anymore and kisses him. Roy gets down on his knees and proceeds to fellate Nathan, when Burke and Randy find them. Roy storms out of the room, and Nathan hears the voice again, and is suddenly knocked unconscious. A shadow of a person carries him up the stairs.

In the attic, Burke rapes Nathan, and realizing what he's done, disgusted with himself, he breaks an arm off a rocking chair and knocks Nathan over the head with it. Blood starts pooling on the floor beneath Nathan's head, and Burke leaves him in the attic. When Roy and Randy find Nathan early the next morning, he appears to be dead. Roy tells Randy to go on and find Burke, whom he says he doesn't believe at this point about what happened. Roy cries once Randy leaves, then Roy leaves too. The police arrive, bringing Nathan's father who tearfully covers Nathan's face with a blanket.

Nathan awakens as if he's resurrected from the dead, gets up and leaves the plantation house. He wanders for a long time still dazed from the blow to his head. Finally he sees Roy coming out of Sunday evening church, but Roy is with his family, so Nathan wanders around some more waiting for Roy to get home. Nathan's mother leaves his father, and Nathan, his head now clear, finds Roy crying in the barn where Nathan slept while hiding from his father. As Roy looks up, he sees Nathan and hugs him.

At the end of the story, Roy is driving the bus and looks in the mirror to an empty seat, but when he looks a second time, Nathan is there smiling at him.

Differences from novel

The movie departs from the novel and leaves the impression that Nathan is truly dead, and that the previous scenes were a wishful dream sequence of one of the two boy lovers, presumably Roy. In the book this scene does not take place. The book has the boys meeting in the yard of Roy's church, running together into the woods to talk things over, and deciding to run away together since Roy has been seen kissing Nathan by both Burke and Randy, and both boys will surely be outed to their families and the whole community. The book ends with: "They hear the voices of people searching for them in the woods. They stand and go. They never look back."

''IGN'' described ''Shenmue'' as a "revenge epic in the tradition of Chinese cinema". According to Suzuki, the three games cover around 40% of the story he has planned.

''Shenmue''

In 1986 Yokosuka, Japan, teenage martial artist Ryo Hazuki returns to his family dojo to witness a confrontation between his father Iwao and a Chinese man, Lan Di. Lan Di demands Iwao give him a mysterious stone artifact, the dragon mirror. When he threatens to kill Ryo, Iwao tells him the mirror is buried under the cherry blossom tree outside. As Lan Di's men dig up the mirror, Lan Di mentions Zhao Sunming, whom Iwao allegedly killed in Mengcun, China. Lan Di delivers a finishing blow and Iwao dies in Ryo's arms.

Ryo's investigation leads him to Master Chen in the Yokosuka harbor. Through Chen and his son Guizhang, Ryo learns that the dragon mirror taken by Lan Di is one of two mirrors. He locates the second, the phoenix mirror, in a basement hidden beneath his father's dojo. He defeats a local gang connected to Lan Di's organization, and Master Chen tells him to seek the aid of Master Xiuying in Hong Kong. Ryo boards a boat to China.

''Shenmue II''

In Hong Kong, Ryo finds Master Xiuying Hong, but she refuses to help him, considering his quest for vengeance reckless. Ryo teams up with a gang leader, Wuying Ren, a free-spirited motorcyclist, Joy, and a street boy, Wong, to find Yuanda Zhu, who sent Ryo's father a letter warning him of Lan Di's intentions.

Ryo and his allies locate Zhu in Kowloon Walled City, but are ambushed by the criminal Yellow Head organization and Zhu is kidnapped. Ryo rescues Zhu as Lan Di departs by helicopter. Zhu reveals that Lan Di killed Ryo's father because he believes Iwao killed his own father. Zhu also reveals that the mirrors will lead to the resurrection of the Qing Dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of China. Zhu advises Ryo to continue his search in the village of Bailu in Guilin, where Lan Di is also heading.

In Guilin, Ryo meets a teenage girl, Shenhua Ling, whose family is connected to the legacy of the dragon and phoenix mirrors. She leads Ryo to a stone quarry on the village outskirts to meet her father, but discovers he is missing.

''Shenmue III''

Ryo learns that Lan Di's father, Zhao Sunming, once visited Bailu with Ryo's father to train under the local grandmaster. Zhao died under mysterious circumstances several years later. Ryo also discovers that the phoenix and dragon mirrors were created by Shenhua's great-grandfather at the request of the Chinese emperor.

Ryo and Shenhua learn that Shenhua's father, Yuan, has been kidnapped by a local gang looking for the phoenix mirror. Ryo defeats two of the thugs, but is defeated by their boss, Yanlang. He convinces Sun, a local martial arts master, to teach him a powerful Bajiquan move, and uses it to defeat Yanlang. A village elder helps them discover a map to the treasure connected to the mirrors. Ryo fends off an attack from Chai, who reveals that Yuan and Xu have been taken to the city of Niaowu.

In Niaowu, Ryo and Shenhua learn that a local gang, the Red Snakes, is holding Yuan and Xu hostage. Shenhua is tricked by a Chi You Men leader, Niao Sun. Ryo and his allies infiltrate the Chi You Men's castle and rescue Shenhua and her father. Ryo confronts Lan Di, but Lan Di easily defeats him. Niao Sun betrays Lan Di, and has her men burn the castle. Ryo, Ren and Shenhua continue their journey along the Great Wall of China.

Albert Nobbs is a butler at the Morrison Hotel in late-19th-century Dublin, Ireland; his boss is Mrs. Baker. Although born female, Albert has spent the last 30 years living as a man. He has also been secretly saving money to buy a tobacconist shop to gain some measure of freedom and independence.

Recently unemployed Joe Mackins arrives at the hotel and cons his way into a boilerman job. He and a maid there, Helen Dawes, become lovers. Hubert Page, tasked with painting at the hotel, discovers Albert's secret. He reveals to Albert that he is keeping the same secret about himself, living as a man after escaping an abusive husband.

Albert visits Hubert at his home and meets Cathleen, Hubert's wife. Albert tells Hubert the story of his life: born illegitimate and then abandoned, Albert was adopted by a Mrs. Nobbs and educated in a convent before being expelled after his mother died. One night, aged 14 and still living as a girl, Albert was brutally gang-raped and beaten by a group of men. After hearing there was a need for waiters, Albert bought a suit, was interviewed and hired, and began his life with a male identity.

Believing Helen may be the ideal wife to run a shop with, Albert asks her out on a date. She refuses, but Joe, believing that Albert will give Helen money that could help the pair emigrate to America, encourages her to lead Albert on. She agrees to this approach, allowing Albert to buy her gifts. Helen is uncomfortable with Albert and the arrangement that Joe has persuaded her to make. Albert also tells Helen about his plan to buy a shop.

Helen eventually discovers she is pregnant with Joe's child. Joe is terrified, fearing he will become like his abusive father. Meanwhile, Albert goes to Hubert's home one day and learns that Cathleen has died, leaving Hubert devastated. Albert and Hubert put on dresses made by Cathleen. Though both at first are extremely uncomfortable, they eventually spend a fun day together dressed as women. A stumble and fall by Albert on the beach brings them back to reality. The pair return to Hubert's, change back into their men's clothing, and go back to their lives as before.

Back at the hotel, Albert learns Helen is pregnant and offers to marry her. She refuses, saying Albert does not love her, though Albert voices a fear that Joe will leave by himself for America and not take her and the child. Later that evening, Joe and Helen get into a loud fight after Joe reveals he is indeed going to America alone. Albert attacks Joe when he gets physical with Helen, and Joe throws Albert against a wall, giving him a head injury. Albert retires to bed, forgotten in the commotion, bleeding from one ear. Helen angrily tells Joe she no longer wants to be with him anyway, and he leaves. Helen finds Albert dead in his bed the next morning.

Helen eventually gives birth to a son, Albert Joseph. It's implied Mrs. Baker found Albert's savings, and hires Hubert again to make improvements to the hotel. When Helen sees Hubert, she breaks down and reveals she earns nothing working for Mrs. Baker, but if she objects she will be separated from her son and thrown out into the street. Hubert looks knowingly at her and says, "We can't let that happen, can we?"

The film opens to an unidentified feral woman, with a wound on the side of her torso as she forages through the woods, returns to her cave, and circles what appears to be her child. A wolf, apparently tamed by the feral woman, circles the infant as well, but does it no harm. Although it is not referenced in the film, the woman is the last remaining member of a cannibalistic tribe that has roamed the northeast coast for decades.

Meanwhile, Chris Cleek, a country lawyer, attends a local barbecue with his family. His oldest daughter Peggy sits off to the side of a pool, upset while reading a book. His only son Brian watches as a trio of boys abuse and push a small girl named Jenny into a corner and makes no effort to save her. After the barbecue, while out hunting, Chris happens upon the woman, who is bathing and fishing at the creek. The next day, he returns with a net in an effort to capture her. He knocks her out and returns home with her, restrains her in a cellar, and directs his family to participate in "civilizing" her.

Over the following days, the Cleek family is revealed to be dysfunctional. Brian enjoys causing pain to others. Peggy, who at school, is always withdrawn of her studies, always seen wearing clothing too large for her size and always excuses herself from gym class and to uses the ladies' restroom. At home, she is also withdrawn and afraid of her father, who gives the appearance of a smart, charming man. Chris's first attempt to approach the woman results in her biting off and eating his ring finger. Chris and his wife Belle argue as the latter is concerned about the woman's well-being and the current situation they are in, and the youngest daughter Darlin' attempts to befriend the imprisoned woman using her toy radio to play music. Chris's will prevails and he orchestrates a violent series of civilizing measures.

Chris bathes the woman with boiling water and later decides to bathe her outside with a high-pressure power washer, causing her extreme pain. Belle and Peggy both watch in horror, but Peggy rushes to the woman's aid and turns off the washer. Peggy is forced into the house while Belle and Chris move the woman back into the cellar and Belle clothes the woman with a dress she sewn together. Later that night, Chris rapes the woman while Brian secretly observes through a hole he drilled on the cellar door after feeding the family dogs one day. The next day, Brian, who came home from school and believing that he is home alone, also violates the woman by initially offering her a gingerbread man cookie he chopped up in half, before pinching her left nipple with a pliers (causing her excruciating pain) and is caught by Peggy who was staying home from school.

Belle, notified by Peggy, tells Chris, who came home from work, what Brian had done to the woman. However, Chris asks his son if his act was true, and dismisses this behavior as “adolescent urges.” Unable to stand the situation anymore (Chris’ sadistic and perverted treatment towards all women, teaching Brian to physically and psychologically hurt females, the situation with the dogs in the family barn, the torture done on the captured woman, and the sexual abuse on Peggy), Belle announces her intention to leave Chris and take their two daughters, but not their "rapist" son. In response, Chris knocks Belle unconscious.

Peggy's geometry teacher Ms. Genevieve Raton, knocks on the door asking to speak with her parents so that she can help her. With Belle unconscious and placed on a kitchen chair and Chris, Brian, and Peggy joining in the conversation, Ms. Raton tells Chris her observations concerning Peggy's well-being at school including Peggy falling behind in her studies, excusing herself to the restroom, and wearing baggy clothes. After asking Chris if Peggy has a boyfriend, Ms. Raton tells him that she believes Peggy is pregnant (which Peggy denies in response). Just as Ms. Raton was about to leave the house, Chris becomes increasingly agitated after reminding her that Peggy does not have a boyfriend, believing that she is accusing him of committing incestuous pedophilia towards his daughter (causing her to get pregnant) and that she will somehow expose the family's secret. Chris knocks Ms. Raton unconscious as Peggy witnesses in horror.

He and Brian tie her hands and drag her to the barn where he keeps the Cleeks’ two German Shepherds. Peggy protests as Ms. Raton is not only her teacher, but also her only friend. Chris pushes her aside, picks her up, and subjects her to a vicious verbal assault before throwing her to the ground. Belle is in the house and is slowly regaining consciousness.

In the barn, Chris and Brian drag Ms. Raton into the dogs' kennel and lock her inside with the dogs tied to a post, barking and snarling at her as she screams in terror. As Ms. Raton struggles to escape the dogs, she inadvertently takes refuge by a dog house, only for Chris to taunt her telling her that lying by the dog house is a bad idea as the kennel is shown to also contain an eyeless girl named "Socket", the Cleek's secret third daughter who behaves like the two dogs. Socket emerges from the dog house, sinks her teeth into Ms. Raton's back, and tears off her flesh. Ms. Raton revives from the attack and struggles to escape from the animalistic girl, but Socket overpowers her, killing and disemboweling her before the former and the two dogs eat her flesh and entrails.

Peggy releases the imprisoned woman from the cellar. The now-liberated woman attacks and kills Belle (who has slowly regained consciousness and discovers her), gnawing off most of her face as Peggy witnesses in horror before the woman tosses Belle's cadaver aside and causing Peggy to run back to the house. Taking a lawnmower blade, she then kills Brian, severing his torso (similar to how he chops gingerbread men), and overpowers Chris (just as he was about to shoot her with his shotgun), tears his heart out, and eats it.

A terrified Peggy attempts to escape with Darlin’. The woman does not attack the girls. Instead, she drinks a gallon-sized water bottle offered by Darlin’, offers the girls fresh blood, takes Darlin' and they walk away from the house and the property together, along with Socket acting as a dog, apparently forming a new family. Initially reluctant, Peggy follows the new family at a distance as the screen cuts to black.

A post-credits scene shows a live-action/hand drawn animation short similar to the plot of ''Where the Wild Things Are'' of Darlin' on a sailboat, sailing alone in an open sea, before arriving at a beach that is close to a forest. As Darlin' explores the vast wilderness, she encounters a bizarre humanoid entity. Instead of being afraid of the creature, she becomes fascinated by it as she hugs it and it began to bloom flowers from its body. Darlin' accepts the flower and the two become friends. This scene symbolizes Darlin’ leaving her old life behind and starting a new life with the woman.

The "trophy" wife of a stodgy man of wealth yearns for a more interesting life. A daughter of a nobleman, her solution leads to scandal, ruin, and an odd denouement.

A young man, Oisin "(pronounced O-sheen)" returns home with a group of huntsmen from an unsuccessful hunt when a deer, revealing herself to be Niamh (pronounced Nee-am and Nee’uv) a faerie princess, appears to him. She takes him to her father, the Faerie King, whose Shadow has come to life and now threatens Faerie Land. The King begs Oisin to travel to Squalor Web Castle and defeat the evil Shadow.

Oisin and his faerie helper Puck travel to the castle, encountering hags, goblins, merrows and other faerie creatures. They also save a kobold from evil trows. Eventually the three arrive at the lake, beyond which sits the castle. After meeting an Irish faerie who attempts to dissuade them from their mission, they arrive at the castle. Avoiding redcaps, the Shadow's evil soldiers, Oisin makes his way to the tallest tower, defeats the Shadow, and joins a celebration in Faerie Land before returning to his human companions.

The cover to ''Dragonlance Classics, Volume 2'' The ''Dragonlance Classics'' series reprints the original adventure modules from the 14-module Dragonlance Saga series from 1984-1986 and updates them to AD&D 2nd Edition game rules.

''Dragonlance Saga Classics, Volume 1'' is a compilation of modules D1 through D4, revised for the 2nd edition rules.

''Dragonlance Classics Volume III'', the third and final installment, compiles the ''Dragons of Dreams'', ''Dragons of Faith'', ''Dragons of Truth'', and ''Dragons of Triumph'' entries, omitting the ''Dragons of Glory'' board game. Players assume the roles of Tanis, Raistlin, and other characters from the early Dragonlance novels, then embark on a journey that takes them from the Red Dragon Inn to the depths of the Blood Sea.

''Dragon Keep'' is a Dragonlance adventure scenario which ends the trilogy started with ''In Search of Dragons'' and ''Dragon Magic''. The player characters journey from Lunitari to deep in the ocean of Krynn to defeat the daughter of Takhisis.

''Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights'' takes place in Paris at the end of the 19th century, during the Belle Époque. The protagonist of the game, the eccentric and mystery-solving archaeologist Doctor Jean-Pierre Lautrec, is a lecturer at the city's Museum of Natural History. Together with his assistant Sophie Coubertin, a university student, he comes into possession of a map that leads to a hidden treasure of Louis XIV of France. On their quest through Paris and the catacombs beneath it, Doctor Lautrec and Sophie are pursued by a crime syndicate and the Knights of the Iron Mask, an order of knights with iron masks and claws.

On Guy Fawkes Night, trainee nurse Samantha Adams (Jodie Whittaker) is mugged by a gang of teenage hoodlums: Pest (Alex Esmail), Dennis (Franz Drameh), Jerome (Leeon Jones), Biggz (Simon Howard) and leader Moses (John Boyega). When a meteorite falls from the sky into a nearby car, Samantha escapes. As Moses searches the wreck of the car for valuables, his face is scratched by a dog-sized alien creature. The creature runs away, but the gang chase and kill it. Hoping to gain fame and fortune, they take the dead animal to their acquaintance, cannabis dealer Ron (Nick Frost) and his boss Hi-Hatz (Jumayn Hunter), a local gang leader.

More objects fall from the sky. Eager to fight the creatures, the gang arm themselves and go to the nearest crash site. However, they find these aliens are much larger and more threatening. Fleeing the aliens, the gang are intercepted by two policemen accompanying Samantha, and Moses is arrested. The aliens follow Moses and maul the unarmed officers to death, leaving Samantha and Moses trapped inside a van. Dennis reaches the vehicle and drives away, only to crash into Hi-Hatz's car. Samantha runs away while the rest of Moses's gang catch up and confront Hi-Hatz and his henchman.

The gang try to flee to Wyndham Tower, a tower block, but are attacked by the aliens; Biggz is forced to hide and Pest is bitten in the leg. They find that Samantha lives in their building and persuade her to treat Pest's leg. An alien bursts in and Moses kills it with a samurai sword. Realizing that the group was not lying about the creatures being extraterrestrial, Samantha joins them.

The gang moves upstairs to the flat (apartment) owned by Tia (Danielle Vitalis), Dimples (Paige Meade), Dionna and Gloria, believing that their security gate will keep them safe. The aliens instead attack from outside, smashing through the windows and decapitating Dennis. The girls believe them to be the focus of the creatures and kick them out of the flat. Hi-Hatz and two more henchmen attack the gang, but an alien arrives and chases Hi-Hatz and the henchmen into a lift; only Hi-Hatz makes it out alive.

Making their way upstairs to Ron's weed room, the gang runs into more aliens, but using fireworks as a distraction, they manage to get through. Jerome becomes disoriented in the smoke and is killed by an alien. Entering Ron's flat, they find that Hi-Hatz is waiting for them there, who prepares to shoot Moses but he is then suddenly attacked and killed by aliens who break in through a window. The group flee and are joined by Brewis, one of Ron's customers and a zoology student. Moses, Pest and Samantha retreat into the weed room, while Ron hides in the flat.

In the weed room, Brewis notices a luminescent stain on Moses' jacket under the ultraviolet light. Brewis theorises that the aliens are like spores, drifting through space on solar winds until they chance on a habitable planet; after landing in an area with enough food, the female lets off a strong pheromone to attract the male creatures so that they can mate and propagate their species; Moses may well be carrying the female's scent (from the kill at the start) which may be attracting males to the block. Moses persuades Pest to return Samantha's stolen ring and together they form a plan. As Samantha has not been stained with the alien pheromone she can to go to Moses's flat and turn on the gas oven.

Samantha successfully bypasses the aliens and turns on the gas in the flat. She leaves the tower block, and Moses, with the corpse of the small alien strapped to his back, runs to the gas-filled apartment with all of the aliens following him. He throws the corpse into the apartment; with a firework he ignites the room and leaps out of the window. The resulting explosion kills all the aliens and leaves the high-rise flat in flames.

In the aftermath, Moses, Pest, Brewis and Ron are arrested and held responsible for the deaths around the block. The police then ask Samantha to identify Moses and his friends as those who killed everyone, including the two police officers who had arrested Moses earlier. Instead, Samantha says the boys are her neighbours and they protected her. In the back of the police van, Moses and Pest hear the residents of the block cheering for Moses; they both smile.

The play takes place in the drawing room of Elena Ivanovna Popova's estate exactly seven months after her husband's death. Since her husband died, Popova has locked herself in the house in mourning. Her footman, Luka, begins the play by begging Popova to stop mourning and step outside the estate. She ignores him, saying that she made a promise to her husband to remain forever faithful to his memory. Their conversation is interrupted when Grigory Stepanovitch Smirnov arrives and wishes to see Elena Popova.

Although Luka tells Grigory Smirnov to leave, he ignores Luka's requests and enters the dining room. Popova agrees to meet with him and Smirnov explains to her that her late husband owes him a sum of 1,200 roubles as a debt. Because he is a landowner, Smirnov explains that he needs the sum paid to him on that same day to pay for the mortgage of a house due the next day. Popova explains that she has no money with her and that she will settle her husband's debts when her steward arrives the day after tomorrow. Smirnov gets angered by her refusal to pay him back and mocks the supposed 'mourning' of her husband, saying: :Well, there! "A state of mind."... "Husband died seven months ago!" Must I pay the interest, or mustn't I? I ask you: Must I pay, or must I not? Suppose your husband is dead, and you've got a state of mind, and nonsense of that sort.... And your steward's gone away somewhere, devil take him, what do you want me to do? Do you think I can fly away from my creditors in a balloon, or what? Or do you expect me to go and run my head into a brick wall?

Smirnov decides that he will not leave the estate until his debts are paid off, even if that means waiting until the day after tomorrow. He and Popova get into another argument when he starts yelling at the footman to bring him kvass or any alcoholic beverage. The argument turns into a debate about true love according to the different genders. Smirnov argues that women are incapable of loving "anybody except a lapdog", to which Popova argues that she wholeheartedly loved her husband although he cheated on her and disrespected her. The argument deteriorates into another shouting match about paying back the debt. During this argument Popova insults Smirnov by calling him a bear, amongst other names, saying, "You're a boor! A coarse bear! A Bourbon! A monster!"

Smirnov, insulted, calls for a duel, not caring that Popova is a woman. Popova, in turn, enthusiastically agrees and goes off to get a pair of guns her husband owned. Luka overhears their conversation, gets frightened for his mistress, and goes off to find someone to help put an end to their feud before anyone gets hurt. Meanwhile, Smirnov says to himself how impressed he is by Popova's audacity and slowly realizes that he has actually fallen in love with her and her dimpled cheeks. When Popova returns with the pistols, Smirnov makes his love confession. Popova oscillates between refusing him and ordering him to leave and telling him to stay. Eventually, the two get close and kiss each other just as Luka returns with the gardener and coachman.

Young and broke couple Dina (Miranda Bailey) and Ron (Waylon Payne) put their unborn baby up for adoption online. They get a response from a wealthy married couple, Paul (Jeffrey Donovan) and Maria (Leonor Varela), who are willing to pay up front for the adoption. Dina and Ron arrive at their home and are welcomed in. But, Ron and Dina have a plan in their mind. They are to take their money to buy a new home and not give them the baby. However, Maria and Paul fight back.

A serial killer known as Cinderhella is on the loose and preying on Grizzly Lake High's student body. Viewers are introduced to misfit students Riley, Ione, Toshiba, Mimi, and Clapton, as well as Sander who is infatuated with Riley. The school's principal, Verge, places them all in detention until 10 PM on the night of prom, certain that one of them is the killer. While in detention they discover that the school's stuffed bear mascot is actually a time machine and that the world is supposed to end in 1992 as a result of Ione's mother Sloane refusing to go to prom with Verge. It's also revealed that "Ione" is actually Sloane, who managed to swap bodies with her daughter and that the real Ione is in Sloane's body in 1992. Via her daughter's body Sloane stole Riley's crush Clapton, causing strife in their friendship.

They use the bear to time travel to 1992, where Ione tells them that she wants to remain in 1992, as she has become very popular due to knowing all of the trends. They also learn that Sander is the true killer and that Verge destroyed the world with his help. Although reluctant, Ione agrees to go to the prom with Verge, who agrees not to destroy the world. Riley also takes advantage of the time travel to keep her father from becoming an alcoholic.

After they return they discover that while the time travel did have some changes, the murders still occurred. Riley and Clapton, who had become a couple after the revelations of Ione/Sloan, are attacked by a jealous Sander. The three battle and Sander is killed after he is impaled on the bear mascot's fangs.

The film wraps up by showing that several of the students, two of which are Riley and Clapton, are now dating. Ione, who stayed in her mother's body, married Verge after she realized they were compatible and frequently grounds Sloan. The world is then invaded by plant based aliens, upset that humans have eaten and destroyed plants.

15-year-old orphan Jolene breaks free from foster care, marrying Mickey, a nerdy 20-year-old. They live with Mickey's Uncle Phil and Aunt Kay. On the night before her sixteenth birthday, Jolene asks Mickey about his mother, but he rebuffs her and starts crying. To make him feel better, she seduces him, but Mickey's inexperience leads to uncomfortable and joyless sex. The next day, Mickey and Uncle Phil wish Jolene "Happy Birthday" with Kay asking Jolene to clean the floor. Phil walks in with Jolene and they have sex. They start a passionate affair, and Phil promises to build a house for the two of them, but asks Jolene to keep their relationship secret. Upon catching Phil and Jolene in bed, Kay sends Jolene out of the house. As Phil and Kay argue, Mickey kills himself by jumping off a bridge.

Aunt Kay has Jolene placed in a juvenile mental institution, where she meets Cindy, a psychiatric nurse. Jolene, a talented artist, asks for paper and colored pencils to draw. Her request is denied, but she is allowed crayons, and she starts a small business selling crayon portraits to her fellow patients. Jolene is called to testify against Uncle Phil, and he is sentenced to eighteen months in prison for statutory rape. Cindy, a closeted lesbian, is immediately infatuated with Jolene and this culminates in another affair. Cindy breaks Jolene out of the mental hospital and hides her in her apartment. Using the money from her portraits, Jolene leaves and boards a bus west out of South Carolina. Jolene resorts to hitchhiking further west, supporting herself by prostitution.

Jolene ends up in Arizona, working as a waitress at an outdoor diner. There, she meets Coco Leger, an aspiring musician and tattoo artist. A relationship blooms between them and Jolene becomes a tattoo artist at Coco's parlor. After two weeks of dating, Jolene moves in with Coco and he convinces her to get married. After he passes out during sex, Coco is revealed to have a cocaine addiction, supporting his habit and the parlor by dealing cocaine. One evening, a young woman enters the parlor and declares herself to be his wife, Marin. She introduces his son, Coco Jr. Coco returns and is confronted by both women before he walks out with Marin and the baby. Jolene destroys the parlor, dumps the cocaine on a table, steals the drug money and dumps her ring in the center of the cocaine, before dialing 911 and fleeing the scene.

Jolene later is in Las Vegas, working as an erotic dancer when she meets Sal Fontaine, a mobster. He takes a liking to her and invites her to quit dancing and move into his high rise condo. Jolene enjoys a life of luxury with Sal, going to fancy dinners and exploring her talent as an artist. One night, Sal demands that Jolene get dressed, go downstairs and wait for him. She falls asleep in the restaurant and quietly returns to the condo to find Sal dead and the mob looking for her. Jolene escapes and ends up hitchhiking on a truck to Tulsa.

In Tulsa, Jolene finds work as a receptionist and banquet server. She meets Brad Benton, the son of a wealthy family. He relentlessly pursues her, sending flowers to her workplace and charming her into dates. Outwardly religious but obnoxiously arrogant, he is rude, entitled and demanding to everyone. Brad pressures Jolene into quickly getting married and anally rapes her on their wedding night. When Jolene becomes pregnant, Brad interrogates her on how many people she has had sex with; when she refuses to comply, he slaps her across the face. After the baby is born, Brad's parents investigate Jolene's past and inform him. He then brutally attacks her, permanently damaging her vocal cords. She tries to leave and take Brad Jr., but a domestic violence lawyer refuses to take her case due to her past. While staying in a shelter for battered women, the police come and arrest Jolene for kidnapping and Brad is granted an annulment. Jolene is convicted of the kidnapping and is allowed supervised visits. She decides to exit her baby's life while he is an infant, reasoning that he can imagine his mother to be anybody.

Finally, Jolene ends up in Los Angeles, working as a comic illustrator for a graphic novel company, where she incorporates events from her life into her work. In her final narration, she reveals that she has dreams to be an actress and that a film studio might want to use her. Seeing a woman walking her young son up the street, Jolene imagines herself a famous actress returning to Tulsa in a limousine to visit her son and happily walks out of frame.

Jake Cunningham (Shawn Christian) is an uptight FBI agent assigned to protect Brandi O'Neill (Jami Gertz), a lower-class cocktail waitress who recently helped with the tax fraud investigation of her billionaire boyfriend. When Jake's wealthy parents (Tyne Daly and Winston Rekert) unexpectedly call him home for the holidays, Jake must bring Brandi with him in order to keep her safe prior to the trial. They pose as a couple in order to keep the proceedings a secret until the court date. The Cunninghams disapprove of the match but begin to accept Jake's "girlfriend" just as Jake and Brandi are truly becoming a couple. Brandi testifies against her former boyfriend. Brandi introduces Jake, her new love, to her mother.

At the Bastøy prison for youths, the newest arrival, Erling "C19", soon becomes friends with Olav ("C1"). Under the rule of Håkon, Erling comes to terms with the harsh winter, the mistreatment by the staff, and the hated Housefather Bråthen. Later, Olav sees Bråthen molesting "C5", Ivar, a timid, shy boy in the laundry room. When he raises this with the Governor, the boys are severely punished and C5 is reassigned to duties far away from Bråthen. However, after hearing that Bråthen expects him to be back in the laundry room tomorrow Ivar drowns himself in the freezing Norwegian waters, while the rest of the boys are chopping wood. Bråthen is apparently fired, to the overwhelming delight of the other boys. Olav is paroled and is planning to leave, but on the way to the departing boat, walks past Bråthen, who had been sent away on a shopping trip until Olav, the only witness to Ivar's rape, had left Bastøy. Olav and Erling attack Bråthen and as punishment they are locked in the freezing solitary confinement. They are freed by Bjern, one of the few Bastøy boys who has remained on the island as a caretaker. Olav again pursues Bråthen, and the attack inspires a mass uprising. The boys ransack the prison, and drive away the staff. Bråthen is repeatedly hanged and released and then beaten. The barn he is in is set ablaze, but Erling drags him to safety. The navy is brought in and violently puts down the uprising. Olav and Erling manage to escape across a frozen fjord back to the mainland, but Erling falls through a gap in the ice close to shore and quickly freezes to death.

Olav is shown later, older, as a member of a ship's crew, watching Bastøy pass by the side of his ship.

The story is told by a 1st-person narrator, a fifty-nine-year-old ex-naval lieutenant whose name is Edward, though other characters usually call him Skipper or Papa Cue Ball (due to his baldness). Though the tone of the novel strives to be comic and optimistic, the narrator's life is beset by a series of tragic events: his father (a mortician), his wife, and his daughter Cassandra commit suicide; his son-in-law Fernandez is killed after he has left Cassandra to live with his gay lover; Skipper is beaten up and perhaps raped during a mutiny on board of U.S.S. ''Starfish'', the ship he commands in W.W.II; he is harassed by a small clan of shady fishermen on the "black island" in north-Atlantic where he settles after leaving the US Navy. The narrator eventually finds shelter in a tropical island with his black mess boy, Sonny, and his lover Catalina Kate, though it is not clear if the scenes on the island, where Skipper works as an artificial inseminator, are real or simply imagined.

The novel is told in a non-linear fashion through a series of flashbacks. It is then at first difficult for the reader to understand the reasons of some weird episodes, such as the one which takes place in the second chapter, when Skipper, goaded by Cassandra, has the name of his son-in-law Fernandez tattooed on his chest in green ink. We subsequently discover that Fernandez has left Cassandra because their marriage was no more than a masquerade, devised to hide Skipper's incestuous relation to his daughter (which may also explain his wife Gertrude's suicide).

Upon reaching the train station to death, a dejected soul is informed that he is "lucky" and will have another chance at life though he does not want it. He is placed in the body of a 14-year-old boy named Makoto Kobayashi, who has just committed suicide by an overdose of pills. Watched over by a neutral spirit named Purapura in the form of a little boy, the soul must figure out what his greatest sin and mistake was in his former life before his six-month time limit in Makoto's body runs out. He also has a number of other lesser duties he must complete, such as understanding what led Makoto to commit suicide in the first place.

He finds Makoto did not like his family and he greatly dislikes them for the same reasons. He is contemptuous of his father who is an underdog at work, forced to work much overtime. Despite her efforts, he hates his mother who had an affair with a dance instructor, something his father seems to be oblivious to. His older brother, Mitsuru, has given up on him because he is too moody and has no friends at school. He discovers that a girl he fancies, Hiroka, sells sex to older men so she can have the clothes and things she wants. Shoko is a weird girl from Makoto's class who becomes suspicious of his unusual behavior, so he tries to stay away from her. After he gets mugged and beaten up by some delinquents, Shoko comes to visit Makoto at his house, but he scares her off. In one of their subsequent encounters, Purapura explains that Makoto will really die this time after his six months expire. However, when he befriends Saotome, a boy in his class who accepts outcasts such as him and treats them as equals, Makoto sees the joy in life for the first time. They spend some time together and they even begin studying for their high school entrance exam, something for which neither of them had any ambition before.

Knowing that his brother will never get accepted to a public high school due to his bad grades and lack of interest, Mitsuru announces that he will postpone his college entrance exams in order to allow his parents to save some money so they can send Makoto to a private school. Makoto refuses and tells his parents and brother that he has already chosen Tamegawa High (a public school he and Saotome agreed on earlier). An aggravated Mitsuru is unable to comprehend his unwillingness to accept his family's help and asks him if he enjoys tormenting his own family. Makoto breaks into tears and says that he just wanted to go to the same school his only friend is going to apply to, which leads to his parents accepting his wish. With his deadline reaching its end, Makoto meets with Purapura for one last time. He announces that he has found out what his former life's mistake was. He reveals that he's none other but the soul of Makoto Kobayashi and his mistake was that he killed himself. Purapura tells him that he will keep on living, but that he will also erase his memories of Purapura in order to make Makoto not think that he has any more chances. Before wiping his memories, Purapura advises him to live a colorful life.

It's the end of summer in 1976, in a northern suburb of Beirut, and the war seems to be over. A priest announces the upcoming marriage of Jean Freiha and Noha Elias, who is 30 years old. After mass, she is congratulated by Olga, the aunt of her ex-boyfriend, Joseph Maroun, from three years earlier. Olga is also upset that Noha hadn't invited her to her wedding. Noha confides to her friend Wadad that she had secretly called Joseph and arranged a meeting with him. Joseph's mother had stalled any plans between the two as Noha is older than Joseph.

His mother, unaware of Noha and Joseph's arrangement, tells him to visit his sister, who has recently had a miscarriage. Noha is at her dress fitting. Her dress was purchased by her older sister, Layla, for her own wedding. Her boyfriend, Melhem, had given her an ultimatum, to elope or break up. Not wanting to bring shame to her family by eloping, Layla ended her relationship. Noha doesn't want to wear the dress, believing it to bring bad luck.

Joseph goes to Noha's house to meet her, but she avoids him. She watches Joseph from a balcony, as he hesitates to know on the front door, and then leaves. Noha waits on the street outside her house and Joseph returns to go on a drive together. They discuss his friend Asmar, with whom Joseph had earlier gone hunting. Noha tells Joseph about her meeting with Olga, and Joseph mentions that Olga hadn't spoken to his mother since his mother had kicked out Noha. Noha tells Joseph that she is planning to get married in Harissa, and that she is planning to call off her wedding. They steal glances at each other as they sit in silence, driving to a forested area. Noha embraces Joseph in the car, and he kisses her, but she starts crying. She tells him that she shouldn’t have called him, that she was scared, and that she still loved him. He seems unaffected by her statement and she confronts him for not standing up for her. She realizes that she doesn’t want to get married or be anybody’s wife, exits the car, and starts walking back by herself.

While resting, she witnesses two masked men dragging a kidnapped person in a sack, through the forest. The person is shot by an unmasked woman. Joseph hears the shot and runs to Noha, but is seen by the masked men and searched. They interrogate him and ask if he is alone. He is from Sad El-Bauchrieh, a city near Jdeideh, and not an insurgent, but merely a carpenter. He tells them that he is alone, sheltering Noha. They order him to get back in his car and drive in front of them to an undisclosed location, while Noha watches them leave from her hiding place.

Arriving late from having walked home, her mother is upset with her, as that night they are expected at the house of her younger brother, Assaf, for a small engagement party. Her young nieces, Camelia and Mony, are her bridesmaids, but confide to Noha that they don’t like Jean and are scared of the way he laughs. They are unhappy because Noha was to be their 5th grade teacher that coming year, but won’t be able to teach once she’s married. They tell her they wish she wasn’t getting married.

While at their house, one of the guests mentions how her own brother had been kidnapped and they had to bargain for his remains  to be return so he could be buried. The nieces say hello to Jean but avoid getting near him. Jean tells the girls he has brought presents, and only the ones who give him a thank you kiss will receive a present, but the girls don’t move from their mother’s side. Their father force the girls to give their uncle and kiss and thank him for the gifts. Noha sticks up for the girls but their father continues to force them. After giving their uncle a kiss, they start crying and are sent away. However, the girls merely hide behind the doorway.

The adults proceed to discuss the war and the battles they had participated in, while the young girls listen in secrecy. The debate gets heated, as everyone starts taking sides and mentioning atrocities. The unmasked woman from the car is the guest at Noha’s engagement party, who had to bargain for her brother’s remains, and Noha mentions that killing a kidnapped person in a sack in the woods is an atrocity, looking directly at the woman.

Noha starts throwing up during dinner, and goes to bed early. She wakes up later after the guests leave, and tells her sister, Layla, that she wants to cancel the wedding and become a spinster like Layla. Layla tells Noha that her friend, Wadad, had told Layla that Noha had been with Joseph. Assaf, their controlling brother, overhears and demands to know who Noha had been meeting with. He assaults Noha and grabs her hair as she tries to escape, dragging her through the house. Noha’s mother tells Assaf to stop and Noha confronts him about his controlling behavior. Noha tells her brother his hands are murderous. Noha confronts Layla, and Assaf realizes that Noha had been meeting with Joseph. Assaf kicks Noha out of the house and disowns her. Her mother goes after her, as does Layla, but their mother tells Layla to say back.

Noha walks to the forested area, followed by a pack of dogs. She sees her mother, who had been following her, who proceeds to sit on a bench near the hidden Noha, and cries. Shots ring out, and one of the dogs near Noha is shot. Noha goes to her mother, and realizes she has been killed after being shot in the neck by a stray bullet. Her screams are combined with the howls of the other dogs.

Noha’s mother’s funeral is held. After that day, a good day never followed. Noha is now hospitalized after suffering a breakdown and faring poorly. A nun, Sister Nawal, working as a nurse in the hospital, tells Layla that a visitor had come on behalf of her to visit Noha, and that his surname was "Maroun". Layla is surprised, and Sister Nawal reveals that Joseph had stayed for two minutes, and then had broken down. Noha had not recognized him and he had cried his eyes out. Layla blames Joseph for Noha’s being hospitalized. Assaf, having learned that his mother had been killed, banged his head against the wall exclaiming that it was all his fault. Assaf and his wife had a son 10 months later, but Noha never met the child. Noha no longer knows anyone.

It is revealed by Layla that their house was later one of the first to be bombed. Assaf fled with his family to Cyprus, and Layla had fled with them. Their house burnt down and nothing remained. Ironically, only Noha’s dowries survived the bombing.

The film ends with Noha crying, grasping a lace suit inherited from her mother, and Sister Nawal comforting her.

The game begins with a tsunami engulfing a freighter carrying a priceless collection of fifteen paintings on their way from England to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The ship is lost, as is the entire collection, along with their owner, Professor Vambery. The game then cuts to a tunnel leading into a columned room full of water, where a dark figure calls to "Ellen", telling her "the shadow is approaching." Ellen Cross, an art restorer who works for the Met, is then awakened in her apartment in New York by a telephone ringing. She answers it, and is told of the loss of the Vambery collection. She is next seen at her doctor's; Ellen suffers from an extremely rare blood disorder, and has just been told the medication which keeps her alive has been discontinued. Her doctor gives her a last supply of medication, and Ellen vows to live life to the full until the end. Several months later, Phillips, the director of the museum tells her one of the lost paintings has possibly surfaced at a private auction in Budapest and dispatches her to investigate if it is authentic.

Upon arriving, she meets Inspector Bizlos Lazlo, and determines the painting is definitely from the Vambery collection. Lazlo tells Ellen it was being sold by a man named Adrian Friedlen, a well-known petty thief. He refused to speak to the police, but, as he talks in his sleep, Lazlo set up a recorder in his cell. Ellen listens to a recording in which Friedlen warns "the master is approaching," looking for his mirror, and also refers to the "Prince of Exile." She hopes to speak to him, but Lazlo finds him dead in his cell. Although it appears as if he died of either natural causes, or possibly committed suicide, his face is contorted in terror, and a moment before he died all the security cameras in the police station stopped working. Lazlo and Ellen also discover Friedlen wrote "He's coming to kill me" on the wall of his cell. In his belongings, Ellen finds an encoded message, which she takes, unbeknownst to Lazlo.

She calls Phillips to tell him the painting is authentic, and he tells her Vambery's assistant has discovered Vambery added an uncatalogued sixteenth painting to the collection, but no one knows what it is. As such, he sends her to Vambery's residence in Whitby to see if she can find out anything about it. Once there, she meets Vambery's assistant, Adam Stoker, Bram Stoker's great-grandson. As Ellen explores the manor, she discovers a secret surveillance room in which she listens to an audio recording where Vambery talks of a portrait by an artist known as Kaneyek. Vambery is greatly disturbed by the portrait, which was handed down to him by his father, but although he fears it, he is unable to destroy it, and so he decides to ship it with the collection for New York without telling anyone. He reasons that putting the painting in a museum on the other side of the world will give him peace, and speculates that "he won't think to look for it there."

In the Vambery family tomb next to the house, Ellen finds a hidden vault in which she discovers a bust of Vlad Tepes. In a chest she finds garlic, a stake, silver bullets and a crucifix. This leads her to speculate the missing painting could be a portrait of Dracula. She also finds a wax cylinder, recorded by Herman van Bergen in 1870 (Fr. Arno Moriani also listens to this cylinder in ''Path of the Dragon''). Van Bergen was Vambery's grandfather and made the recording after returning from the village of Vladoviste in Transylvania, where he had gone with his friend Ioan Hartner. Dracula had fallen in love with Hartner's wife, Luciana, and had initiated her onto "the Path of the Dragon." Van Bergen and Hartner followed them to Vladoviste, where van Bergen killed her by driving a stake through her heart. Dracula, however, eluded them. After listening to the recording, Ellen asks Stoker if he knows what the Path of the Dragon is, and Stoker tells her it is thought by some to be an initiation rite one must follow if one wants to become a vampire, although he himself doesn't believe in vampires.

Using a scytale, Ellen decodes Friedlen's note and finds the name and address of a painter called Yanek in Istanbul. She contacts Phillips, who informs her the modern form of Kaneyek is Yanek. As such, she is sent to Istanbul to find Yanek. When she arrives, he denies knowing Friedlen or having any paintings by Kaneyek. After he leaves his home, Ellen breaks in and finds two paintings from the Vambery collection. In the attic, she finds a body and a sealed case containing a painting. She takes the case and returns to her apartment, where she opens it. It is a portrait of Adam. As she looks at the picture, it suddenly comes to life, as Adam grows fangs and lunges at Ellen.

In a monologue with himself "in the last person", the nameless unseen protagonist begins with the words, "Imagination dead imagine". He then describes an enclosed space of bare walls that are "five foot square, six high and lit on and off from no visible source. Evoking a theatrical setting, he imagines light fading up on a stool surrounded by walls displaying women's faces while, in a corner, he perceives the "tattered syntaxes of Jolly and Draeger Praeger Draeger". The size and description of the space with "no way in, none out" is subject to change depending on the clarity of the protagonist's failing memory as he attempts to recall a love affair with Emma.

Madeleine Ross (Susan Sarandon) is a journalist, and her boyfriend, Harris Sloane (David Steinberg), is the owner of an art theatre. Their relationship is on-again/off-again, and when Madeleine meets the French star Jean-Fidel Mileau (Jean-Pierre Aumont) it provokes changes in the way she and Harris feel about each other.

''Storm Riders'' is the first adventure in the "Empires Adventures Trilogy", in which the player characters are trapped by the Horde in a forbidden land and must agree to escort a princess if they want to leave.

''Black Courser'' is an adventure in which the player characters search for a lost city to obtain an artifact to free the Purple Dragon so that the characters can overcome an evil raja.

The story is set in Jin, a ducal state under the Zhou dynasty, during the Spring and Autumn period in ancient China. Zhao Dun, the chancellor of Jin, and his son, General Zhao Shuo, have a feud with General Tu'an Gu. Tu'an Gu secretly murders the Duke of Jin and pushes the blame to the Zhao family, using that as an excuse to massacre the Zhao family. The sole survivor is Zhao Shuo's baby son, Zhao Wu, whose mother is the Duke's elder sister, Lady Zhuang. Lady Zhuang pleads with Tu'an Gu's subordinate, Han Jue, to spare her child. She then instructs Cheng Ying, a physician, to bring the child to Gongsun Chujiu, a friend of the Zhao family, before committing suicide. When Tu'an Gu learns that the orphan had escaped, he slashes his sword at Han Jue's face in anger and disfigures him. Tu'an Gu then issues an order to seal the gates and to gather all newborn babies in the city. The plan was to identify the Zhao orphan since Tu'an Gu was counting on the person hiding the baby to not hand over the baby to him, hence singling out the one baby left in the city to be the Zhao infant.

Cheng Ying brings the baby Zhao Wu home, but his wife gives the child to the searching soldiers. Cheng Ying then asks Gongsun Chujiu to bring his wife and his real son (disguised as Zhao Wu) out of the city, while he stays behind to try and retrieve Zhao Wu from Tu'an Gu. Tu'an Gu finds Cheng Ying suspicious, but Cheng lies that the Zhao orphan has been taken out of the city by Gongsun Chujiu. Tu'an Gu then leads his soldiers to Gongsun Chujiu's house and finds Cheng Ying's wife and son. Mistaking Cheng Ying's son for the Zhao orphan, Tu'an Gu kills the infant, Gongsun Chujiu and Cheng's wife.

Cheng Ying is devastated by the loss of his family and he swears vengeance on Tu'an Gu. He pretends to pledge allegiance to Tu'an Gu and brings Zhao Wu along with him and raises the child in Tu'an's house. Tu'an Gu mistakenly believes that Zhao Wu is Cheng Ying's son and adopts Zhao Wu as his godson. Zhao Wu gradually grows up under Tu'an Gu's tutelage and develops a close bond with Tu'an. Cheng Ying also forges a close friendship with the disfigured Han Jue and they secretly plot to help Zhao Wu avenge his family.

One day, Cheng Ying breaks the truth to Zhao Wu, telling him that Tu'an Gu, who has been a fatherly figure to him for the past 15 years, is actually the murderer of his family. Zhao Wu is unable to accept the truth initially but his attitude changes as he hears from Han Jue about how Cheng Ying sacrificed his own son to save him. Zhao Wu and Cheng Ying finally confront Tu'an Gu, but Tu'an is aware of Zhao's true identity, because, over the years, he has noticed that the boy resembles Zhao Shuo. Zhao Wu engages Tu'an Gu in a sword fight but is no match for the latter. At the critical moment, Cheng Ying sacrifices himself to give Zhao Wu an opportunity to stab and kill Tu'an Gu. The film ends with a dying Cheng Ying having a vision of his reunion with his family.

Years earlier, Art lost his wife to cancer, a painful wound he nurses by excessive drinking and going to the sportsbook (which is ''where'' he met his wife) every day. Gloria has her own issues when she finds herself homeless and pregnant by her loser boyfriend, who has decided to leave her for another woman, ''and'' take the trailer they live in. However, she soon strikes up a relationship with Colin, a neighborhood barista who is determined to win her over despite her initial reluctance. Art's lonely existence is then brightened when he runs into Josie, an old acquaintance, at a gentleman's club where she works as a waitress.

In what he thinks is a ''fait accompli'', the shop's greedy and sleazy landlord, Jacobi (Amos Glick), sells the property to Big-Mart, and the barbers are forced to relocate. But all turns out well in the end, and Art exacts mischievous revenge on Jacobi, who gets his just reward.

An American Intelligence Agent and Nazi hunter is on the trail of a former SS war criminal reminiscent of Martin Bormann believed to be hiding in the French Foreign Legion in French Indochina. He joins forces with a French Intelligence agent investigating supplies of weapons to the Việt Minh from the Eastern Bloc.

To make up for her poor performance as an assistant producer, a girl promises to have her reserved but very renowned professor appear on their television series. The show involves locating the long-lost loved ones of the participant's past. Although hesitant at first, the professor finally agrees. His story takes the assistant back 50 years—1969—when the world is in chaos.

President Park Chung-hee is a dictator and the students are furious. Suk-young and a group of his classmates travel to the country to escape the tense city and help a small village become up-to-date with newly invented technology. It is there he meets Jung-in, a very pretty girl who is the custodian of the only library. Cheerful and happy, they first run across each other when Suk-young hears Jung-in singing while hanging up laundry. Over the period of time that Suk-young is at the village, they get to know each other more. Although Jung-in is hesitant, she gradually opens up to Suk-young. However, their bumpy courtship is threatened by dark secrets that Jung-in hides about her family and their history in the village, secrets that will haunt the pair as the volatile political climate catches up with them.

Tashan (Abdul Rehman) is young street kid caught while stealing a sheep. He is branded on his forehead for stealing and left for dead. Waking, he covers the brand with a headband and embarks on a journey throughout rural India. On a backwoods dirt road he meets Safia (Kokila Mahendra), helps her, and eventually becomes an accepted member of her family.

''Inside Ravens Bluff'' describes the locations and inhabitants of the city of Ravens Bluff.

''Wonders of Lankhmar'' contains forty-eight short adventure scenarios set Nehwon, and a map of Nehwon.

''Ronin Challenge'' is a Kara-Tur adventure scenario in which the player characters attend a martial arts tournament before journeying into hazardous wilderness and ancient ruins.

''Test of the Samurai'' is a Kara-Tur adventure scenario in which the player characters explore the unusual occurrences and monsters appearing in the Wa peninsula.

Lord Hugo Bruckton is a young Englishman who is the heir to a vast fortune. He is married to Ginny, who seems devoted and loyal to him, and they have a young son. But Hugo is haunted by jealousy, for he imagines Ginny in the arms of a colleague. He begins to spy on her and goes into a rage over her suspected infidelity. One night, after a social gathering with members of his old British Army regiment, Hugo and his friends go out for a drive. He accidentally runs over a woman, who dies at the scene. All but one of his friends urge Hugo to drive on. In his drunk state of mind, Hugo had imagined himself running over Ginny.

Over the next few days, a psychological war ensues. Peter, Hugo's business associate, wants to use the cover-up to leverage power over the estate. Jamie, who's dating Hugo's sister, wants to go to the police to report it. Hugo's family closes ranks as Ginny and the rest side with Hugo, who fears that his arrest and imprisonment will ruin the family's reputation. As the police investigation closes in on Hugo, the power struggle leads to deadly consequences.

At the end, Peter and Hugo murder Jamie and arrange it to look like a suicide—that it had been Jamie driving the car that killed the woman—and he had killed himself out of guilt by throwing his dead body off a seaside cliff. The police believe the story and close the case, and the amoral Hugo gets away with everything as he continues his sordid and unwholesome life undisturbed.

The story involves two couples, appearing to live well in identical houses in the suburbs. However, neither couple is happy in their marriage. An affair is being carried on secretly within this foursome, leading to a very violent conclusion.

''Revenge of the Titans'' is a direct sequel to ''Titan Attacks!''. After successfully stopping an alien race from the moon Titan from destroying Earth via their spacecraft, the aliens return for revenge, launching an all-out ground invasion. The player is the unseen commander of a military force that must stop the new invasion and then deal with the alien threat once and for all, by decimating them on Titan itself.

During power outages, Peter Griffin tells his family the stories of the original ''Star Wars'' trilogy films, with characters from ''Family Guy'', ''The Cleveland Show'', and ''American Dad!'' playing the ''Star Wars'' roles. A running joke at the end of the first two episodes deals with Chris Griffin (voiced by Seth Green) criticizing Peter's take on ''Star Wars'' as a ripoff of ''Robot Chicken: Star Wars''. In the third episode, Peter and Chris initially argue about Seth Green then move on to arguing about Seth MacFarlane, which is when the rest of the family joins in and the characters voiced by Seth MacFarlane (Brian, Peter, and Stewie) quarrel with those who are not.

Shuhei Horikawa (Chishū Ryū) works as a mathematics school-teacher in a middle school. A widower, he has a ten-year-old son named Ryohei (Haruhiko Tsuda), who studies in the same school. While taking his class out for an excursion one day, one of his pupils drowns after running off with a classmate on a secret boat trip. Shuhei blames himself for the accident, and quits his teaching job out of remorse.

Shuhei enrolls his son to a junior high school in Ueda, where Ryohei studies as a boarder, and goes to work in Tokyo to finance his son's education.

Years pass. The twenty-five-year-old Ryohei (Shūji Sano) has finished college and has himself become a school-teacher in Akita. Shuhei now works as a clerk in a Tokyo textile factory and the two meet occasionally. Ryohei has thoughts of quitting his teaching job to join his father at Tokyo, but Shuhei rebukes him for not doing what his duty decrees. Ryohei takes a ten-day vacation to join his father in Tokyo. Together with retired headmaster Makoto Hirata (Takeshi Sakamoto), Shuhei attends a get-together with his former pupils and the group reminisce about their school days. When Shuhei returns home, he suffers a stroke and is admitted to the hospital. Asking Hirata's daughter Fumiko (Mitsuko Mito) to take care of his son, he dies soon after. The final scene shows Ryohei and his new wife Fumiko returning to Akita, with the urn containing his father's ashes resting on the luggage rack; the two have agreed to live together with Hirata and Fumiko's younger brother.

''Wildspace'' is a Spelljammer adventure scenario and an introduction to campaigning in space, in which the player characters board a ship from the skies and are taken into space where they fight a monster that wants to eat their world.

''Skull & Crossbows'' is a sequel to SJA1 ''Wildspace'' and consists of several connected Spelljammer adventure scenarios in which space pirates are involved.

''Falcon's Revenge'' is an adventure scenario in which the player characters must find an evil cult growing in the City of Greyhawk. The module includes fold-up cardstock buildings which can be used to create a site by a wharf.

''Falconmaster'' is the sequel to ''Falcon's Revenge'', and is an adventure scenario in which the player characters try to find a cult leader. The module includes fold-up cardstock buildings.

While in her home, Lois is approached by Bonnie, who is looking for someone to look after Joe and their daughter, Susie, while she is out of town. Lois agrees to do so, but then gets Meg to look after them instead. The next day, Meg visits Joe and Susie, and tells them that she will be helping them out while Bonnie is gone. Joe and Meg bond on the way to school, causing Meg to develop feelings for Joe. The following morning, Meg wants to encourage Joe to like her so she makes him breakfast. Joe takes no interest in Meg, who continually tries to approach Joe throughout the rest of the day. That night, after receiving a call from Bonnie that she will be returning home, Meg travels to the airport where Bonnie is departing (Bangor International Airport), and puts one of Joe's guns into her luggage. Bonnie is arrested by airport security (inadvertently revealing that she was also smuggling cocaine), giving Meg extra time to be with Joe. Unaware that Meg has sabotaged Bonnie's travel plans, the two go to dinner, where Meg suggests that they have a baby, and then breastfeeds Susie to Joe's horror. Joe tells Lois and Peter of Meg's abnormal behavior as Brian went through the same thing. Lois questions Meg about her infatuation with Joe, telling her that the two have nothing in common. Meg waits for Joe to return home, when she jumps in front of his police car, attempting to paralyze herself in order to have a common interest. Joe takes Meg to the hospital, where it becomes clear that she will recover and not lose the use of her legs. Meg apologizes to Joe for her behavior, Joe tells her he is lucky to have her as a neighbor, and the two decide to become friends. Meg also apologizes to Bonnie, who is understanding as she experienced a similar crush around Meg's age.

Meanwhile, Brian tells Stewie that he has become soft, and has lost his evil nature. Realizing he is right, Stewie builds a machine to increase his evil, but it apparently has no effect. However, unbeknownst to him, it creates a truly evil clone of him instead (distinguishable from the real Stewie in that he wears a red shirt with yellow overalls, whereas Stewie sports a yellow shirt with red overalls). Later that day, Evil Stewie attacks Brian, trying to strangle him with his collar and shoves batteries up his nose, almost killing him. The real Stewie appears and rescues him, and when he sees the clone he realizes what has happened with the machine. Stewie wants to exploit this, but the evil clone beats him into submission, cuts off Brian's tail and forces it down Stewie's throat. Leaving both Brian and Stewie in agony, the clone goes outside and steals a car after graphically severing the driver in half with a machete (in the DVD version, he is seen torturing and killing a boy who bullied Stewie at the beginning and the boy's parents before stealing the car). Attempting to capture the clone, Stewie ties Brian to a light post to act as bait. As Evil Stewie prepares to kill Brian, Stewie ambushes the clone and the two fight. Able to wriggle free, Brian grabs the clone's laser gun, but both Stewie and Evil Stewie have stripped down to their diapers during the fight, and Brian cannot tell the real Stewie from the clone. He kills the Stewie who fails to be amused by the sight of his own feet, a peculiarity of the real Stewie. As Stewie and Brian begin to walk home, Stewie turns back to the camera with a malicious grin and bright yellow cat eyes, to the sound of Vincent Price's diabolical laughter, a reference to Michael Jackson's ''Thriller'' video.

Doug (Rhys Darby) lives in the perfect no worry world but his life shatters when long-term girlfriend Susan (Faye Smythe) dumps him. Doug discovers an injured paradise shelduck and starts to nurse it back to health. This new found motivation propels him into a new journey in his life which causes him to fall in love with veterinarian Holly (Sally Hawkins). The path to love is never easy and just when you think you have a handle on it, it takes flight. Susan comes back into Doug's life, and he must learn a valuable lesson: lean on his friends and follow his heart.

Troy "Slam" Slamsky is a viral video guru who is a huge hit on Mespacetube.com. His nagging girlfriend Miranda wants him to take his skills and growing fan base into the real world and get a job in advertising. She is tired of living in their less than modest apartment, and sees Slam's talent as the ticket out. Slam is only interested in making his short movies, getting stoned with his best friend Harlan "Harley" Lovecraft, and someday visiting Cleveland. After a series of disagreements and the discovery that Miranda is two-timing Slam with rich snob Tyler, Slam is suddenly on his own.

He soon encounters the gorgeous Erica. She is a huge fan of Slam and his work. It isn't long before the two are an item. She connects him with her uncle, Johnny Scarano, a gentleman's club owner with mob ties. Slam and Harley go on a full-fledged commercial shooting spree hyping Scarano's club. Slam is suddenly in the money and very much in love with Erica. Slam's produced videos, as well as the ones playing in his mind, are revealed in comedy sketches that are interjected throughout the film.

The story is set in the distant future where Earth and Mars are on the verge of war. The last spaceship to leave Mars headed for Earth is stopped and searched by Martian soldiers, who are looking for three saboteurs who destroyed a Martian city. They are not found, and the ship continues towards Earth. On board the space ship, a business man by the name of Thacher meets a young woman and two men, who tell that they are the people sought by the Martians, and proceed to tell Thacher the story of how they did not destroy the Martian city, but used a device to reduce the entire city to fit in a tiny globe, which they smuggled on board the ship. The city is to be used as a bargaining chip against Mars in the upcoming war. Thacher reveals that he is a Martian secret agent, and several of the passengers on board are Martian police.

In 2004, Doctor Maria Bennett, her husband Henry, and their three sons Lucas, Thomas, and Simon go on a Christmas holiday to Khao Lak, Thailand. Arriving on Christmas Eve, they settle in and begin to enjoy the brand new Orchid Beach Resort. Two days later on December 26, the massive Indian Ocean tsunami inundates the area.

Maria and Lucas eventually emerge from the swirling water and find one another, with Maria having sustained serious injuries to her leg and chest. They help a toddler, Daniel, from the debris and are soon found by locals who dress and transfer them to a hospital in the city of Takua Pa. Daniel is separated from them during the journey. At the hospital, Maria encourages Lucas to help others find their family members while she goes into surgery for her chest injuries.

Meanwhile, Henry and the two younger boys have also survived and are together. Henry leaves Simon and Thomas with another family who are then taken to the mountains for safety by local relief crews. Henry stays behind to search for Maria and Lucas in the rubble. While out looking, injured and alone, he is picked up by a passer-by and driven to a nearby bus station with other survivors.

Communication facilities are scarce, but a European tourist named Karl, who has also been separated from his family, lends Henry his cell phone to contact his relatives in England. Henry promises Maria's father he will look everywhere for his family and that he will find them. Karl volunteers to accompany Henry to look for Maria and Lucas as well as his own family, who were at the beach when the tsunami hit.

While Maria is in surgery, her medical chart is mixed up with a patient named Muriel Barnes, who has died. Lucas returns to find his mother's bed empty and is then taken to a tent where children without families are kept safe. The mistake is discovered when Lucas cannot identify any of the dead woman's jewelry and he is subsequently reunited with his mother, who had been moved to a private room in the ICU. While he waits in the hospital, Lucas sees Daniel, who has been reunited with his father.

Henry and Karl search for their families in various places before they arrive at the hospital, where Henry is given five minutes to look. Karl gives him a piece of paper with the names of his family members.

A vehicle carrying Thomas and Simon also stops outside the hospital, and the boys get off so Simon can urinate. From a distance, Lucas recognizes his father, and while searching for him in the chaotic crowd outside, Lucas's brothers spot him and they reunite. Henry finds the three of them together. He learns that Maria is in the hospital, ready to undergo more surgery for her leg.

As the anesthesia puts her to sleep, Maria experiences flashbacks of how she came to be injured and how she surfaced the water. While she is in surgery, Lucas tells Henry he has something really important to tell Maria.

The following day, the family boards an ambulance airplane to Singapore so Maria may receive further medical treatment. A representative from their insurance company, Zurich Insurance, assures them everything will be taken care of as Lucas sees countless people outside the hospital looking through patient lists. On the plane, Lucas tells his mother that Daniel is safe with his father. Maria cries and looks out the window at the chaos left behind as the plane takes off.

In an opening flashback, Thomas Popper, Jr., is a child whose father traveled around the world during his childhood in the 1970s. Popper rarely sees his father, Thomas Sr., during his travels and communicates with him through shortwave radio.

In the present day, Popper is now a divorced real estate entrepreneur and a father of two children, Janie and Billy. After returning home from work one day, Popper learns that his father has died during an adventure to Antarctica and, as per his will, has left him with a "souvenir" from his adventures in Antarctica. The following week, a crate containing a gentoo penguin, named Captain, appears at his door. Popper immediately becomes annoyed with the penguin and locks him in a bathroom before going to work. After Captain accidentally floods his apartment with bath water, Popper calls his father's organization asking to return the penguin, but, due to a miscommunication, ends up receiving a shipment of five more penguins named Loudy, Bitey, Stinky, Lovey, and Nimrod.

Popper intends to give them away to the zoo, but changes his idea when his children think that the penguins are Billy's birthday present. An incensed Popper is forced to spend evenings taking care of the penguins and bribing the apartment clerk to not rat him out to the board, as pets are not allowed in the apartment. At one point, he receives an offer to take the penguins off his hands from Nat Jones, the antagonistic zookeeper at the New York Zoo, who warns him that the penguins won't survive at his house. Unknown to Popper, Jones also plans to trade the penguins for animals the zoo does not have.

At work, Popper is given the task of buying Tavern on the Green, the only privately owned piece of real estate in Central Park that is an old restaurant where he used to eat with his father when he was a child. However, the restaurant’s elderly owner, Selma Van Gundy, will only sell it to a person of true value. Popper has meetings with her, but due to him having to juggle them with taking care of the penguins, she begins to have some serious doubts about him.

As time goes on, having the penguins around helps Popper become closer to his children. The penguins lay three eggs. Two eggs hatch, but one does not. Popper becomes obsessed with seeing the last egg hatch, causing him to lose his job. Eventually Popper realizes that the egg is somehow unable to hatch, and, after being given permission from Jones to do so, decides to donate the penguins to the zoo. Then, he is re-employed but his children and ex-wife, Amanda, are disappointed by his decision.

Popper finds a letter from his father—included in the original crate with Captain but lost when Popper broke the crate by accident—telling him to hold his children close and love them and apologizing for not being a better father that Popper needed. Having second thoughts, Popper asks his children and ex-wife to help him get the penguins back from the zoo. After a brief argument with Jones, the family manages to find and free the penguins, while evading Jones and the zoo's security. Upon seeing how Popper had reunited his family and saved the penguins, Van Gundy sells him the restaurant. Popper decides to renovate and reopen the restaurant. Popper and his family travel to Antarctica with the penguins, allowing them to live with their own kind. Popper's first penguin, Captain, is revealed to have laid another egg. Popper tells his children that they will visit the penguins when the egg hatches.

A group of teenagers intend to hunt a bear and are stalked by a masked madman Vietnam veteran.

In Arcadia, Arizona, salesman Nick Halsey is fired from his job of 16 years following an incident in Denver related to his alcoholism. After stabbing his supervisor Gary’s tires with his farewell gift – a Swiss Army Knife with his name on it – but leaving it behind, Nick has a confrontation with teenagers outside a convenience store. He returns home to find his wife Catherine is gone, the locks have been changed, and his belongings are strewn all over his lawn; she has left a letter explaining that she is leaving him, also over the Denver incident, and not to contact her.

After spending the night on the lawn, Nick meets his new pregnant neighbor, Samantha, and pays a neighborhood boy named Kenny to watch his things. He discovers that he has been cut off from his credit cards, joint bank account, and phone service, and his company car is taken back. Almost arrested when the police ask him to vacate the premises, Nick has them contact his AA sponsor, Detective Frank Garcia, who provides him with a permit for a yard sale, allowing him three more days before he must move on.

Nick gets Kenny to help him sell his possessions, promising to pay him and teach him to play baseball, but is initially unwilling to let items go. He bonds with Samantha, who is still waiting for her husband to join her at their new house. Nick reveals that he had been sober for six months until a business trip to Denver, where he got blackout drunk with a female colleague; he awoke with no memory of the night before, but she lodged a complaint against him, leading to his firing.

Finding a yearbook with a friendly message from an old classmate, Delilah, Nick tracks her down; their reunion is awkward, but Delilah tells Nick he still has a good heart. Out of money and alcohol, Nick experiences withdrawal. Samantha brings him Valium and tells him to seek help, but Nick replies that she is no better than him for putting up with her husband’s drinking and frequent absences, and she storms off.

Nick awakens to find Kenny has arranged his belongings with thoughtful price tags, and they sell almost everything. Nick apologizes to Samantha, who admits he was right, and has told her husband to either come home or get a divorce. She, Nick, and Kenny go out to dinner, where Nick runs into Gary, who reveals that the Denver incident probably did not happen: the female employee was fired for having a history of suing coworkers for sexual harassment, and Nick would likely have gotten his job back if he had not slashed Gary’s tires. When Gary leaves his beer behind, Nick refrains from drinking and returns it to him.

Visiting Frank at his office, Nick answers a call on Frank’s phone from Catherine. He confronts Frank, who admits Catherine has been staying with him; they fight, and Frank declares that Catherine deserves better than Nick. Driving him home, Frank observes that Nick’s marriage was bound to fail, and gives him Catherine’s divorce papers to sign, along with some money and the keys to Nick’s house. Asking Frank to tell his wife he is sorry, Nick walks home; he almost stops at the convenience store where he regularly bought beer, but moves on and spends the night in his old bed.

The next day, he pays Kenny – including what he skimmed for beer money – and receives an appreciative hug from Samantha, whose husband has come home. She hands him the picture she took of him a few days prior, with the message from the fortune cookie he gave her: “Everything is not yet lost”.

''Arena of Thyatis'' is an adventure scenario intended to be used with ''Dawn of the Emperors'', in which the player characters have dealings with a senator from Thyatis and are then involved arena combat in the Coliseum.

''Legions of Thyatis'' is a sequel to ''Arena of Thyatis'', and contains an adventure scenario in which the player characters explore catacombs to prevent a corrupt senator from removing the magic that protects Thyatis City from the monsters beneath the city.

''Hanasaku Iroha'' centers around Ohana Matsumae, a 16-year-old living in Tokyo, who is left in the care of her estranged maternal grandmother, following her mother's elopement with her boyfriend. Ohana arrives at her grandmother's country estate to realize she is the owner of a Taishō period hot spring inn called Kissuisō. She begins working at Kissuisō at her grandmother's request, but finds herself at odds with many employees and customers at the inn. Initially feeling discouraged, she decides to use her circumstances as an opportunity to change herself for the better and to make amends with her deteriorating relationship with the Kissuisō's staff for a more prominent future.

Characters

; : :Ohana is an energetic and optimistic 16-year-old girl and the protagonist of ''Hanasaku Iroha''. She is sent to live at her estranged grandmother's hot spring inn, Kissuisō, after her mother elopes with her boyfriend to evade his debt. Her best friend, Kōichi Tanemura, confessed his feelings to her before her departure, which was left unanswered until later in the series. At her grandmother's demand, she works at the inn as compensation for staying there. After parting with Koichi, she realized that she has feelings for him, though she still hasn't admitted it yet. However, she is always dependent on him. She is a strong willed girl who is stubborn and is realistic for her age. She likes to drink a mix of cola and black tea. ; : :Minko is a 16-year-old apprentice chef and resident at Kissuisō. She is a tsundere, and dislikes Ohana from their first meeting, nicknaming her balut (she pronounces it hobiron ("hột vịt lộn" in Vietnamese for balut)), but has slowly accepted her as a friend. Against her parents' wishes, her dream is to become a professional chef, resulting in her search for training opportunities. Her search led her to Kissuisō, where Tōru Miyagishi accepted her as an apprentice chef. Since then, she has strong feelings for him and becomes jealous when he talks about other girls. ; : :Nako is a shy and timid 16-year-old cleaning part-time maid and waitress at Kissuisō. She has three younger siblings whom she assists her parents in raising. She becomes close friends with Ohana and teaches her how to perform her duties. Nako is very good at swimming, by which she gains since childhood the nickname "Kappapa", after an aquatic mythic creature kappa. ; : :Yuina is the 16-year-old daughter and heiress to the Fukuya Inn, the rival inn of Kissuisō. She is in the same high school as Ohana, Minko, and Nako, and is seen hanging out with them on several occasions. She is divided on the choice of whether to go on with her family's inn-running business, or to find herself a different form of career fulfillment. ; : :Kōichi is a 16-year-old teenager and Ohana's best friend. Kōichi confessed his feelings to Ohana before her departure, but was too afraid to hear her answer and ran away. He often offers support to Ohana when she feels down. He feels abandoned by Ohana as she adjusts to her new lifestyle. However, as the story progresses, he realizes Ohana still harbors feeling for him and eventually tries to repair their relationship. ; : :Ohana's 68-year-old grandmother and owner of Kissuisō. Behind her fierce and strict composure towards her employees (to the point of physically reprimand them), Sui eventually reveals herself as comprehensive and caring toward them when most needed thus earning not only obedience from them, but also respect and devotion. ; : :Tomoe is the 28-year-old head waitress working at Kissuisō. She enjoys hearing gossip about other employees and customers lodging at the inn. As a single woman near her thirties, Tomoe is usually reminded by her mother that she should start looking for a husband and start a family. ; : :Ohana's 32-year-old uncle. He was bullied by Satsuki during their childhood. He often calls upon Takako and considers her his partner. The two marry late in the series. After Kissuisō's closure, Enishi plans to improve his management skills in order to succeed his mother. ; : :A 23-year-old junior chef working at Kissuisō. He is very outspoken and easily frustrated. He strictly mentors and supervises Minko's training, often going too far with verbal abuse. Ohana was initially intimidated by him, but has since developed a dislike to Tōru. However, Tōru appears to develop feelings toward Ohana as he feels that she is the only one who is willing to say she needs him. Afterwards, he is often seen looking out for Ohana, much to Minko's jealousy. ; : :A 42-year-old cook working at Kissuisō. Renji is Tōru's mentor and the head chef of the Kissuisō kitchen. He has a very gruff appearance, evidenced by a small facial scar, but has been shown to have a light-hearted side on occasion. He gets nervous very easily when under pressure, but is usually well-focused on his job. ; : :A 30-year-old business consultant adviser for Kissuisō. She attended the same university as Enishi. She often has erratic plans to improve the inn and tends to spout out random English sayings. She eventually marries Enishi late in the series and takes on his family name as '''Takako Shijima'''. ; : :A 31-year-old novelist who frequently lodges at Kissuisō. He writes erotic novels using the Kissuisō's staff as character references. He eventually starts working at the inn after it is discovered that he can't pay his bill. Ironically, his past works include a cooking manga that inspired both Minko and Tōru to become cooks themselves. ; : :A 73-year-old janitor working at Kissuisō. He has been working at Kissuisō since its establishment. The staff call him "Beanman". ; : :Ohana's 38-year-old mother. She is a journalist who elopes with her boyfriend to evade his debt. She leaves Ohana to the care of her mother, who claims to have disowned her daughter. She neglected Ohana as a child and raised her with the mentality of relying on oneself. She works as a hotel and inn critic, often asked to write scathing reviews by her higher ups. ; : :He was Ohana's father, who died when Ohana was a baby. He was a photographer and inspired Satsuki to be an editor.

In a not so distant future, zombies have overrun the earth. Fearing for the future of humanity, God sends his son Jesus Christ to save humanity. Upon returning, he finds that his powers are greatly diminished as they are tied to others' faith in him. So he sets out to find the last remaining faithful and rally them to his cause.

Along the way he comes across various friends including Mother Teresa, Elvis Presley, a stripper named King, and a time traveling Abraham Lincoln.

Claire (Julie Bowen) becomes a determined neighborhood vigilante hoping to catch and stop a sports car that is speeding through the suburban streets while Phil (Ty Burrell) sells a house nearby for a difficult client, Laura (Jami Gertz), who happens to be the driver of the car.

Claire prints out several posters, intending to say "slow down," with the license plate of the car below, and signed "your neighbors" below the license plate. However, the rest of her family point out that as presented, the posters actually state "slow down your neighbors." Regardless, Claire orders Phil to put them up. Later, Claire chases the car on a bicycle, but loses track of the car. She meets Phil at the open house he has arranged for Laura and is introduced to her. Laura is just about to leave and offers Claire a lift back to her home, she enters the car, realizing too late that Laura is the driver she despises, while Laura criticizes the posters' creator as a sex-starved woman without knowing that Claire had created the posters.

Manny (Rico Rodriguez) is about to ride his first bicycle to school. However, his stepfather Jay (Ed O'Neill) finds training wheels on the bike, set up by Manny's mother, Gloria (Sofía Vergara). Jay decides to teach Manny to ride without the stabilizers, and comes to realize Manny is a natural at riding a bike by himself. As Gloria has never ridden a bike either, after being traumatized by her mother that riding a bicycle is the best way to getting kidnapped, Jay tries to teach her, but she is unsuccessful.

Gloria turns to Phil for bike riding lessons but he is about to leave for the open house at Laura's. Luke (Nolan Gould) decides to teach her by squirting her with a water gun, and Gloria manages to ride it, but soon fails after Claire steals her bike while Gloria is still on it. Seeing as this teaching method is a success, Luke does the same to his big sister Haley (Sarah Hyland) to get her to study, with Phil's consent.

Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) find out that they have a charming new neighbor named Barry (James Marsden) who has moved to the apartment above. Cameron takes an immediate liking to Barry, though Mitchell is reluctant because Barry is fond of reiki, which he considers as a bunch of hot air. However, as Mitchell starts to trust him, Cameron hears from his landlady (Sharon Omi) that nobody has moved into the apartment above and Cameron realizes Barry is living in his daughter's princess castle. When Cameron tells Barry to leave, he and Barry get into a physical struggle inside the castle; Cameron gets Mitchell to call the police but not after affirming that he was right in writing Barry off.

Hong Kong Police Supt. Walter Tso arrests Big Dai, the reformed leader of a criminal corporation. When Dai asked his brother Richard Mao to turn himself into the police, he betrays him and decides to take over the corporation. Dai is imprisoned and an informant is murdered by one of Mao's men. With no evidence against Mao and the corporation, Tso coerced four of the "Five Lucky Stars" to go undercover in the prison, rescue Dai, and help nab Mao and bring down the corporation.

A modern comedy about the everyday perils of first year medical residents at a shabby south Florida hospital. Wood Harris is the Chief Resident, who teaches the trainees how to save lives and not take themselves too seriously, all the while hiding a chilling secret of his own.

''Hey DJ'' chronicles the journeys of DJ Hound. From Miami to Ibiza he struggles to break into the club scene. With the support and advice of some of the best DJs in the world he tries to find the night (and the love) of his life. The movie, filmed in and around such clubs as Space Miami and Pacha Ibiza features the appearances of Carl Cox, Tiësto, Judge Jules, Eddie Halliwell, Bob Sinclar, Pete Tong, Spankox, Anne Savage, Marc Aurel, Kai Tracid, Lisa Lashes, Chris Cox, Robbie Rivera, Kevens, Ferry Corsten, Junior Jack, Marco V, and 1980s rock star Annabella Lwin from Bow Wow Wow.

The story is told from a first person perspective of a young man and his friend, a scientist named Doc Rupert Labyrinth (also appearing in Dick's short story "The Preserving Machine"), who develops a new device called The Animator, which gives life to otherwise inanimate objects. Doc thinks that the machine does not work, and sells it to the narrator for 5 dollars. The narrator leaves his shoe in the machine, and discovers the following day that the shoe has become alive. Doc and the narrator catch the shoe and stuff it in a drawer, while Doc returns to the University to get his fellow professors to witness the shoe. Meanwhile, the narrator loses the shoe, as it escapes and leaves the house. Shortly later, the shoe returns and uses the Animator to animate a woman's shoe for companionship, and when Doc and his fellow professors, and the press, return, they witness the two shoes, moving across the lawn, disappearing into a hedge.

Set in 1848, in the Montana Territory, Ben Johnson plays John Coulter who lives on the plains with his daughter Beth and his friend Standing Bear. The story is told mainly from a Native American point of view.

Beth is kidnapped by Greyeagle of the Cheyenne nation, who was tasked by the chief to bring Beth to him. Coulter and Standing Bear go through various adventures to find Beth, to bring her back safely home.

Season 1

Anubis House is a residence at an English boarding school, built in the 1890s as part of an estate by Egyptologist Robert Frobisher-Smythe. The house is now the boarding house for nine secondary school children under the watch of the boarding school's strict caretaker, Victor Rodenmaar Jr (Francis Magee). As an American girl named Nina Martin (Nathalia Ramos) moves into Anubis House, another resident, Joy Mercer (Klariza Clayton), disappears without warning, along with all evidence of her existence. Joy's best friend, Patricia Williamson (Jade Ramsey), is saddened by Joy's disappearance and accuses Nina of being involved with her disappearance.

Nina meets an elderly woman after moving in, who gifts her with a locket shaped like the Eye of Horus. The woman identifies herself as Sarah Frobisher-Smythe, the daughter of Robert. Afterwards, Nina's locket proves to function as a key to open a secret panel in the attic, in which she finds a collection of antique phonograph cylinders and a portrait of Sarah as a girl. The cylinders are diary recordings made by Sarah during and after her parents' trip to Egypt to uncover Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922. Alongside Egyptian hieroglyphs on the back of the portrait, the recordings offer clues to the location of a number of Egyptian relics. Nina and her classmates Fabian Rutter (Brad Kavanagh) and new roommate Amber Millington (Ana Mulvoy Ten) form a secret group, 'Sibuna' (Anubis backwards), and later initiate Alfie Lewis (Alex Sawyer) and Patricia, who is eager to learn how the relics are connected to Joy's disappearance.

After finding seven relics, the Sibunas intuit that they must be put together to make the Cup of Ankh, a mythic cup capable of producing an elixir of life. However, the cup can only be assembled by one born on seven o'clock of the seventh day of the seventh month. As Joy's birthday is the seventh of July, it is revealed that Victor and his secret society, consisting of staff from the school, a police officer, a nurse, and Joy's father, conspired to force Joy to assemble the Cup of Ankh. They removed Joy from school, and destroyed evidence of her existence, to protect her from a former society member Rufus Zeno (Roger Barclay), who will stop at nothing to get the cup. However, on the 'chosen hour' of the cup's assembly, Joy realises that, as she was born at seven ''PM'', she is not able to assemble the cup; Nina, however, shares Joy's birthday and was born at seven o'clock in the morning. Nina assembles the cup and, with the rest of Sibuna, fool Rufus into believing himself immortal.

Season 2

While hiding the Cup of Ankh, Nina unknowingly sets free an Egyptian spirit, Senkhara. Senkhara curses Nina with the Mark of Anubis, bending her to her will, and instructs her to find the Mask of Anubis, an artifact able to "weep tears of gold" in addition to an elixir of life. The Sibunas discover a chamber of tunnels underneath the house that contain a series of puzzles and tasks in order to progress, including swinging scythe-like pendulums over a chasm and a game of Senet using players as pieces. Senkhara is displeased with Nina's slow pace and gives the Mark of Anubis to the rest of Sibuna, and to Nina's grandmother, as a threat. Alongside the group, Victor is also searching for the mask as he believes that it holds the missing ingredient for the elixir of life – tears of gold. To obtain the Book of Isis that contains the recipe for the elixir, Victor instructs Mr Sweet to gain an Egyptian Exhibition. Jerome locates his father in prison, who tells him that in order to reverse his bad luck, Jerome must find the Frobisher Gem and put it into the Frobisher shield after he stole it as a child. New American pupil Eddie (Burkely Duffield) becomes rivals with Patricia, even though they are just hiding the fact that they are attracted to each other. Victor teams up with Anubis House's new housemother, Vera, who 'helps' him with locating the mask. Unbeknown to Victor, Vera is in fact working with Rufus Zeno. It is a race against each other as Sibuna and Victor try to outwit one another on the quest for the Mask of Anubis that will lead to eternal life. In the end, Nina leaves for good to live with her grandmother.

Season 3

A new teacher, Miss Denby (Susy Kane), arrives at the school. New American student K.T. Rush (Alexandra Shipp) comes to the school. Eddie has a vision of K.T.'s dying grandfather giving her a key and telling her to go to Anubis House. Eddie and K.T. do some snooping around the house while Fabian tries to decipher a series of codes mistakenly given to Amber. Eddie and K.T. become new members of Sibuna. When Amber leaves for fashion school, Sibuna is revived with Eddie as a leader and Fabian, K.T., Patricia and Alfie as members. They find out that the adults are trying to reawaken a sleeping Robert Frobisher-Smythe, with Denby being the "Keeper" [she keeps Frobisher in the tank room in the gatehouse (her home on the school property)], Victor being the "Enabler", and Mr. Sweet being the "Seeker". The Sibunas discover that Miss Harriet Denby's name is actually Caroline. Her sister is actually Harriet – and the original Keeper. However, she is locked in a mental hospital because of her sister. It turns out that K.T. is the great-granddaughter of Frobisher. Jerome, Joy, Alfie, and Patricia are the descendants of Frobisher's friends and are needed for the ceremony, but because of Caroline Denby lying about her identity, Frobisher is reawakened evil.

Everybody thinks that the ceremony didn't work out since Sibuna intervened just in time, but when Caroline goes to the gatehouse to pack her bags, she meets Frobisher, who is reawakened and evil. Caroline does not tell Eric Sweet or Victor about this. Robert explains to Caroline that he needs to capture five sinning people for Ammut at midnight or noon, so that they could become evil. The sinners captured are Victor, Patricia, Mr. Sweet, Fabian and Alfie. Ammut rises, but needs more souls. She gives Frobisher a book that easily captures people's souls. A fake assembly is organized as an attempt to capture more souls. Willow (Louisa Connolly-Burnham) is the only person who didn't become a sinner. Willow, Eddie and K.T. are chased by Frobisher and the soul-less students but Harriet comes to the rescue with a stolen ambulance. She explains that Willow didn't become a sinner because she had K.T.'s moon key, and that Ammut can be sent back with Caroline's sun key and K.T.'s moon key. Willow becomes a sinner when she and K.T. try to steal the sun key because Harriet slipped the moon key into K.T.'s pocket. In the end, Ammut is sent back, devouring Caroline. Frobisher is not evil again and old. All the sinners are back to normal and don't remember what happened during the time they were sinners. Willow doesn't even remember the short time that she was good, so she forgot about the whole mystery. The Sibunas, of course, are told by Eddie and K.T. about what happened. Frobisher and Harriet set off for Egypt, and Jerome and Joy finally get together after a lot of drama, involving Jerome cheating on Mara and Willow. Mara and Fabian flirt. The group enjoys a fireworks display.

In the finale special ''Touchstone of Ra'', the Anubis House residents are preparing for their graduation; however, their joyous celebration plans are cut short with the arrival of four [freshmen] fourth years who move in early – Cassie, Erin, Dexter and Sophia. Patricia instantly antagonizes Sophia because she spotted her flirting with Eddie. On their trip to an Egyptian museum, Eddie, Dexter and Sophia discover a special artifact known as the Touchstone of Ra. Back at the house, Victor announces that an artifact from the museum was stolen, and the Touchstone suddenly appears to be in Eddie's possession. Victor confiscates the Touchstone but has no intentions of returning it. Later, the Sibunas (along with Sophia and Mara) overhear Victor speaking to Mr. Sweet about what happens when the Pyramid of Ra is built. They plan to prevent him from building the Pyramid, retrieving the Touchstone for good measure. Eventually, Eddie discovers that Sophia has betrayed them when she plans to complete the Pyramid of Ra herself. At the graduation ceremony, Mara is manipulated by an unknown force when she wears the valedictorian medal (which is actually an artifact discovered by Alfie). At the house, the Sibunas team up with Victor to find the remaining pillars of the Pyramid to stop Sophia from accomplishing her goal. In the final showdown, the Pyramid is incomplete and the students are saved. Since Sophia fails, she is transformed into stone as a punishment from Ra. Eddie loses his Osirian powers in the process. Since Victor's "destiny" was to prevent the pyramid from ever being built, he decides to leave the house for good that evening as the students celebrate their graduation party.

The series takes place in the present-day United States with real and alternate versions of real cities; such as the setting of ''Infamous'', Empire City, which resembles New York City; and the setting of ''Infamous 2'', New Marais, which resembles New Orleans (''Infamous: Festival of Blood'' also takes place in this city). Washington, D.C. is occasionally mentioned, and ''Infamous Second Son'' takes place in Seattle. It features American government agencies such as the FBI, NSA and DARPA, along with agencies fabricated for the series, such as the DUP (Department of Unified Protection), an agency with the sole purpose of stopping conduits, now labeled "bio-terrorists", from causing mass destruction similar to what was caused by Cole MacGrath.

The main character is Johan Gustav Dåådh (Peter Eggers) a former army physician from the Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790), now criminal inspector in Stockholm. He is inspired by the French Revolution and the new ideas of his time. He is an atheist and a strong supporter of republicanism, and he has embraced Voltaire's philosophy. He has also fallen in love with Magdalena, wife of his superior, Walhstedt. Magdalena shares Dåådh's worldview. Dåådh struggles with seeking to change the world while influencing his revolutionary friends to refrain from violence.[https://web.archive.org/web/20101223133544/http://meny.nu/filmtv/1.1045110-stockholm-1790-i-en-frostig-studio-i-hallabrottet Stockholm 1790 – i en frostig studio i Hällabrottet – Film & TV – meny.nu]

Inspector Dåådh's assistant is Simon Freund, portrayed by Joel Spira. Simon Freund is in many ways Inspector Dåådh's opposite, being a more conservative man with a strong faith in God, though he does have a bad habit of drinking.

A Sealyham Terrier named Jennie leaves a comfortable life and embarks on a journey for new experiences and stardom.

Dave Brown (Harrelson), a 24-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), patrols the Rampart Division. While training a new officer, he roughs up a suspect to find the location of a meth lab. After work, he goes home to his two daughters and two ex-wives, who are also sisters (Heche and Nixon). After dinner, he goes to a piano bar where he picks up a stranger and has a one night stand.

The next day, Brown is t-boned in his patrol car. When the other driver attempts to flee, Brown brutally beats him, and the assault is captured on video by a bystander. The video creates another controversy for the LAPD, which is already besieged by the recent Rampart scandal. The Assistant District Attorney (Weaver) urges Brown to simply retire. He refuses and outlines his defense. Over the course of the film, it is revealed that although Brown failed the bar exam, he remains extremely knowledgeable about case law.

Back at the piano bar, Brown picks up a lawyer named Linda (Wright), after first determining that she is not surveilling him. Later he meets with ex-cop Hartshorn (Beatty), who suggests that Brown was set up to distract from the scandal. As the LAPD exerts more pressure on Brown, he retains legal counsel. Soon after, his ex-wives ask him to leave their houses so that they can sell them. Brown meets again with Hartshorn and mentions his need for cash. Hartshorn tips him off to a high stakes card game happening later that night at the Crystal Market.

While Brown surveils the card game, it is knocked off by two armed men. Brown pursues the gunmen, killing one of them and letting the other go. He then stages the scene to make it look like he was shot at. Brown realizes that a homeless man nicknamed "General" (Foster) witnessed the whole thing from his wheelchair. As another investigation into Brown heats up, he goes to a hotel and blackmails the concierge into giving him a room. Next, he blackmails a pharmacist into giving him an assortment of drugs.

When Brown meets with Hartshorn to give him a cut of the money from the card game, he asks for the source of Hartshorn's tip about the game. He suspects that he was set up again. Hartshorn refuses to name his source. Brown then meets with General in a parking lot to make sure that he will not testify about witnessing the shooting. The next day, an investigator with the District Attorney, Kyle Timkins (Cube) surveils Brown, who confronts him. Brown insists that he is not a racist, merely a misanthrope.

Brown grows increasingly paranoid and reliant on drugs as the pressure on him mounts. He pulls a gun on Hartshorn and accuses him of setting him up. The elderly man scuffles with Brown until he has a heart attack. Instead of calling an ambulance, Brown leaves him to die. Back at the hotel, Brown's two daughters drop off some dry cleaning at his room, and he confesses to his younger daughter that everything she has heard about him is true.

Brown summons Timkins to a meeting and tapes a confession in front of him. He admits that he has been a dirty cop, and that in 1987, he killed a business acquaintance. He justified the murder because he knew the man was a serial rapist, which is why he got away with the extrajudicial killing. Timkins refuses the confession, insisting that he will arrest Brown for his most recent murder. The film ends with Brown revisiting his family and staring at his elder daughter on the front porch before disappearing into the night.

The story begins 2,222 years ago.

Contravening any historical fact, Zhen Li, King of Qin, having unified the six states in which the kingdom was divided into, undertook the title of Qin Shi Huang, or rather the first august emperor, reviving with him the very beginning of time. To delete any historical fact that would have illegitimated his power and following his trusted Minister Shi Lu's recommendations, had ordered that any text so far written be destroyed and to obtain the largest possible number of hard labor prisoners for the construction of the Great Wall, the terracotta army, and his three hundred and sixty-five room palace, extended sentences which would have punished not only the responsible but its entire family, as well. It was because of a book and the extension of the penalties that Chuang Tse's family was deported. Chuang Tse was saved thanks to his foresighted mother who had not registered him at birth, making him unknown to the civil service. Eleven years had past from that day. Chuang Tse had grown up as did his longing for revenge.

In the meantime, the first emperor had attained an immeasurable power and proved to be a cruel and despotic tyrant. He had thousands of enemies which he had to watch from and despite all the propitiatory rites, the stars had predicted for him a terrible defeat and a reign of only eleven years. Yet the emperor was not aware that the time of that most terrible enemy had arrived.

That morning, like every morning, Chuang Tse set out for the banks of the river with his yellow canoe. He had been warned not to sail towards the sea, but Chuang was anxious to experiment the Emperor's latest invention: a compass. The emperor had assured him that the use of that instrument would have always helped him find the right direction, but for the moment Chuang had not yet understood its mechanism.

Distracted and near the sea by now, he had not noticed the arrival of a storm. Carried away, the boy lost his grip and sank under the waves. Down below he distinguished the presence of a wall that was not visible from the surface. He had no time to investigate: the violent waves hurled him against the wall. Trapped in some sort of channel, convinced he was dead and now within the tunnel that connects the world of the living with that of the dead, he was still certain of this state when he re-emerged in the middle of a bright colored garden of a mysterious palace unknown to anyone.

Chang Tse was determined to become the first to discover this secret place.

But the palace was not an easy place to explore, besides being rather disquieting: the four sides of the garden were decorated with the figures of mythological animals accompanying one to the afterworld, yet the magnificence of the place did not bring one to presume of a burial chamber.

It was then and while he was hidden behind the bushes, that Chuang Tse saw him for the first time. He was flying... or rather, it was the impression he gave. He suddenly appeared from the far end of the immense room and moved as if its feet never touched the ground. He did not make any noise, not even the smallest murmur. Without doubt must have been of noble birth judging from the palace and the garments he was wearing; even if, ever since Ying Zheng became first emperor, in fear of rebellion, forced all aristocrats to move into the capital city and that palace was just much too far from there.

He was absorbed in his thoughts when he glanced at the face of the small being. He there realized that he was just a child and that he could have been almost his same age. His skin was as white as alabaster and his mouth seemed a rose-colored line placed on his face in form of a smile. The nose was perfect and his eyes... were closed.

Suddenly, the mysterious child disappeared and Chuang decided he was no longer eager to do any further investigation: the place was beginning to haunt him. He returned to the same spot from which he had entered, but the grating from which he had gotten by was now closed and too heavy to be raised by a child. Chuang was trapped, but he did not lose faith: he would have found the way out elsewhere. Forced to enter the palace, he finally made acquaintance with the small boy and discovered, thanks to a hidden tablet, that the boy was the Emperor's secret son. The boy was blind from birth, but the Emperor could not reveal to the people that he had generated a son of the darkness and, being of divine descent, nor take his life. He therefore put to death all those who knew about his existence and confined the boy in the secret palace in the middle of a forest.

Considering his nature, Chuang Tse would have gravely yearned to return to the first Emperor's progeny, all the evil that the Emperor had inflicted on his family, but realized that the child was just another victim, just like they all were, if not the one that paid the highest price, being so close to the first Emperor: he had been deprived of his life, even if in a more subtle manner, having his existence been denied.

In the world of obscurity in which the child lived in, the alternated silence of water pelting, sounds and animal calls was all he knew. Yet, despite all this, when he spoke of his father he proudly exclaimed, ”My father is the most powerful man on earth. And even the most righteous, the strongest and most valorous…” then he stopped, remained in silence for a moment and puzzled, concluded: "But I do not know him! “

And while these words still hovered over their heads in the middle of the room and the child remained motionless in his sorrow, Chuang Tse made his first decision as an adult and behaved as the best of men: it was the first time he had heard someone speak worthily of the first emperor and it was also the first time he had no intention in contradicting those words.

After a long silence, the child looked up to Chuang and in a boldly manner said: ”My father cannot come to see me because he is very busy! He created the greatest empire on earth. My father created the world! This is what the scribes say!”; then unexpectedly he stopped, and confused and almost imploring, as if to gather all the courage on earth to speak, asked Chuang; “Please, you who know many things, tell me… how is the world that my father created?”

It was then that Chuang unconsciously accomplished his destiny.

As first thing, he gave his new friend a name. He called him Qi, that, according to his knowledge, had no meaning: energy that generated all changes; that was the essence of Qi's world; as second thing, decided to fill up that emptiness with the description of the world not as his father had actually created it, but to not disappoint the boy, like it would have one day been, and to start off nicely, began from the description of what Qi knew best: his palace.

He illustrated a marvelous world without war or oppression, without pain or sickness, in which time flowed slowly. And thus Chuang depicted a world that was the exact opposite of the world that Qi's father had actually created but at the same time, had told no lie: to not dishearten his friend, he described the future.

Qi did not live alone in the palace; three servants looked after him and one of them was arriving. Obviously, nobody was aware of Chuang's presence and if they would have founded him, it would have meant the end; meanwhile the scribe was getting closer: one further step and he would have seen them. Frightened, Chuang looked around himself, but there was nowhere to hide. He looked at Qi's face that had turned pale in the meantime and it was then that he came up with an idea. Chuang quickly hid himself under Qi's immense yellow mantle and spontaneously began to whisper some suggestions to Qi that he systematically repeated, making the scribe think that the child had gained his sight.

Happily, the scribe brought back the news to the other servants who rushed, while Qi and Chuang were forced to continue in their deception; but by now Qi had understood how things worked in this world and how men behaved; to Chuang's surprise, Qi knew exactly what was happening around him despite his blindness.

All that was left to do was to tell the Emperor.

Despite all the defensive and preventive measures, the first Emperor had been poisoned by someone of whom he had never suspected of: himself. So now he waited.

The scribe arrived and shouted: "Your son can see! We are not sure how long he has begun to see, even if we cannot say he actually sees with his eyes, but he sees much better and much farther ahead than all of us!”;

The emperor, then, threw himself on the chair: he was happy, he was proud and was finally free to leave now; his sovereignty was over. His only order was to inform Qi's mother.

Qi's mother had sought refuge in a mansion not far from the court and bred silkworms. At the good news, the Empress smiled and said something that she had never said before and for that same reason pronounced it with particular pride, ”May my son reign in all the lands beyond the sea, that have never appeared on any book or on any map and never shall be and neither he nor his kingdom be mentioned, until I say so! For the rest, may all those who are working on punishment make return to their homes. Their faults have been amnestied”.

That same day the servant returned to the capital city, rather shocked by the Empress's commands, which had gone far beyond her simple role as Emperor's wife. But having lost much time during his trip, which had brought him far away from his world, the servant could have not known what the Empress already knew thanks to her dreams, her butterflies and to her servant's faster horses: soon after speaking with the scribe, the Emperor died.

Shortly after that unusual conversation, a joyful moment had finally arrived in the life of the august and, thus, had not left any final messages.

The court, unprepared for the event, had not announced the death to the community and hid the remains of the great Emperor in a box with salted fish on its return to the capital city, while plotting deceitful and swindling schemes in search for its successor.

The only thing that remained to do was to carry out the Empress's command, that finally saw the return of many people to their homes, including Chuang Tse's family, although little Qi, who was now called by this name, was furtively taken away from the secret palace and nor his name or his kingdom was ever mentioned again.

By orders of his mother, he was entrusted with unknown islands off the coast of the Chinese sea, which never appeared on any map and which nobody ever spoke of. On these lands, Qi reigned wisely, creating that world, which he now clearly saw, and that little Chuang Tse, finally at home, had told him about.

The scribe, instead, returned to the Empress, took one end of that wonderful thread and brought it all over to the other side of the world, discovering people and countries, which were neither so frightening nor so different than his, and opened a wonderful road today still entitled: the silk route.

The world of Qi, as Chuang Tse had described to him and that the first emperor failed to create, still exists today. Some are certain that it is an island between the three mountains in the middle of the sea, Pongnae-san, Yôngju-san and Pangjang-san, home of the gods; others call it Peng Lai (Paradise), but wherever it may be and however it is called, Qi continues to reign over it, man continues to dream and all we have to do is to search for it... at the bottom of our hearts.

Category:2010 Italian novels

Dragon Yau is a hot-headed ex-cop named whose attitude has got him in trouble with his bosses and his wife. On a trip to the lawyers, he is witness to a robbery where a suitcase of money disappears and a lot of guys get shot. Somehow, he ends up with lawyer Mandy Chang on the run from the cops who think they committed a murder and from the bad guys that think they have the money. Reluctantly they are forced to form an alliance with one of the bad guys, David, who has been betrayed by the gang led by Waise Chow.

The main characters, Yasaman (which means "jasmine" in Turkish), Violet, Katie-Rose, and Camilla, are each named after flowers, and all are entering fifth grade.

Katie-Rose is one of the most unpopular girls in the grade. She has two older brothers (in order of birth): Charlie and Sam. Her only friend is Max, her neighbor. He is funny and smart, but Katie-Rose wants a girl friend, one that she can hang out with at school. She really wants to be friends with popular girl Camilla Swanson, nicknamed Milla. Katie-Rose knows Milla from Pioneer Camp and likes her a lot. Although Milla feels the same way, she is told by her friend Modessa not to hang out with Katie-Rose.

Milla is an only child and has two moms, "Mom Abigail" and "Mom Joyce". Her best friends are Modessa and Quin, but they are not very nice to her. One time, Quin even cruelly put mud in Milla's milkshake.

Modessa (nicknamed by Katie-Rose "Medusa") is the most popular girl in the school. Pretty and smooth, she loves to tease people and bully them. Modessa's BFF, Quin, does the same. Milla, the third in their group as stated before, believes they are her friends and sometimes gets pressured into bullying others, although she does not want to.

One of the girls Modessa bullies is Yasaman. Yasaman is a sweet Muslim girl that is a computer genius. Modessa calls her Spaz-a-man because she is kind of clumsy. Yasaman has a younger sister named Nigar (pronounced Nee-GAR), who gets bullied due to her name reading similarly to a racist slur.

Violet is the last of the flower friends. She is the new girl (she just moved with her dad—no siblings—from Georgia to California), and her mom is in a mental ward, causing her to feel very sad. She temporarily joins Modessa's clique and becomes friends with Milla.

Yasaman has made a website much like Facebook, called a name that Yasaman, Katie-Rose, Milla, and Violet dislike: "BlahBlahSomethingSomething.com". Katie-Rose and Yasaman become friends and Katie-Rose joins the site.

Meanwhile, Milla feels like it isn't right for Modessa to tell her who she can't or can talk to. So Milla talks to Katie-Rose behind Modessa's back, and Katie-Rose introduces Milla to the site. But Modessa finds out, and wants pay Milla back.

In the beginning of the book, Milla had accidentally dropped her good-luck charm: a bobble-head turtle named Tally. Unknown to all, Violet picks it up and keeps it. Later, once she finds out that the turtle is Milla's good luck charm, she wants to give it back to Milla without her knowing that Violet had ever had it. So while the fifth-grade class is giving presentations, she hides Tally in the cushions she knows Modessa will sit in, then find Tally, and then give it back to Milla, so no one knows she was involved. However, Modessa does not give the good luck charm back to Milla; she puts it in Katie-Roses's backpack, pinning the stealing of Tally the Turtle on innocent Katie-Rose. Katie-Rose was then shunned by Milla, who believed Katie-Rose stole it. Violet knows the latter is innocent but doesn't say anything.

Eventually, Violet tells Milla and they ditch Modessa and Quin. They become friends with Yasaman and Katie-Rose and plan revenge on Modessa. They decide to—and do—make Modessa think that Quin put mud in her ice cream, just as she had done to Milla. It was easy to do as Modessa assumes the worst of people. The plan worked and Modessa and Quin are covered by ice cream at the end of the book, angry at each other and in trouble with scolding teachers. United through anger at Modessa and Quin and friends at last, Milla, Violet, Katie-Rose, and Yasaman find out that they are all named after flowers and dub themselves the "FFFs," or "Flower Friends Forever". Throughout all this, Milla gains a crush on Max.

"LuvYaBunches.com" is the name the girls decide to rename Yasaman's social network now that they all use it to at the end of the book.

Three unhappy, middle-aged housewives teach their adulterous husbands a lesson by starting affairs with college-aged young men during the jazz age.

Advanced aliens depart their homeworld in order to flee their stars impending nova.

Decades after the Terran Civil War the aliens arrive and attempt to colonize an inhabited human world. They are not able to recognize the intelligence of the planet's inhabitants, because they do not recognize human forms of communication as communication.

The miscommunication leads to warfare, where these new aliens throw themselves at their opponents with suicidal fury. The old "anti Bug" alliance partners join together to fight off this new threat.

Laurie Stark is very excited when popular, athletic Quentin Palmer (Quin for short) asks her out on a date. While they are on their date, Analise Bower is babysitting. After her job has ended, she doesn't feel like asking for a ride. She says knows the roads and feels safer on her bike. While riding back home in Quin's mother's SUV, Laurie falls asleep and is awakened by a crash. Quin assures her that it was only a deer he mistakenly hit, though he isn't so sure himself. After seeing that the crash had damaged some property, Quin covers the scene and drives away. Sometime after the accident, Analise's talented boyfriend Jeremy receives a call from her parents concerning Analise's location. For a few days, Jeremy and Mr. and Mrs. Bower try to locate Analise. They are unsuccessful and hand the case over to the police. One morning, the police announce that they found Analise injured. Because of the attempt to cover the accident, the case is therefore called a hit and run. In the hospital, the doctors say that Analise has gone in coma because of a serious head injury.

Meanwhile,while at school, when the principal announces Analise's accident and she had been found on the side of the rode, Laurie is very shocked to hear that the accident's location is somewhat near the place Quin mistakenly hit a "deer". Her friend Judie, suggests that she use the information for her own benefit by blackmailing Quin to become her boyfriend. Laurie hesitates but does what Judie says to. Afraid that the incident might ruin his future as an athlete, Quin accepts and pretends to be Laurie's boyfriend.

A few months later, Jeremy receives a call from Mrs. Bower informing him that Analise had died. Guilty of her actions, Laurie emails Analise's friend Amy the evidence that is needed to prove that the SUV Quin was driving was the one which hit Analise. In Analise's point of view, she floats out of her body and outside the building. She passes Jeremy crying in his bedroom and Laurie sitting at her computer, not recognizing the latter, on her way to the light (To show that she is crossing over).

At the end of the book, Jeremy is the one who creates Analise's coffin with his beautiful wood carving skills. Action is taken against Mr. Palmer and his son. The story is finished with Jeremy saying: "Goodbye, my angel".

Bruce Wayne's girlfriend, Lisa Carson (Kimberly Kane), is kidnapped by the Riddler (Evan Stone). She has sex with him in an attempt to curry his favour, but he still ultimately delivers her to the Joker (Randy Spears). Batman and Robin (Dale DaBone and James Deen) are called in by the police to help in the rescue.

Batman investigates a nightclub fronting the villains' lair, but is drugged and abducted by Molly (Alexis Texas), one of Joker's accomplices, who proceeds to have sex with him. Batgirl (Lexi Belle) learns of the situation and joins Robin, who is waiting for Batman to return from the club. Batgirl and Robin sneak into the villains’ lair, whereupon they find Joker having sex with his two accomplices. Aroused, Batgirl and Robin have sex, which distracts them and allows them to be discovered and captured by Catwoman's (Tori Black) henchmen.

The four captives – Lisa, Batman, Robin and Batgirl – are brought before the villainous trio of Joker, the Riddler and Catwoman. Joker intends to kill them but Catwoman, unwilling to kill Batman, for whom she secretly harbours feelings, frees the captured heroes. The heroes battle and defeat the collected rogues.

Grateful to Catwoman for her role in their victory, Batman and Robin have sex with her. Upon discovering that she would still have to be brought to justice for her crimes, Catwoman escapes, activating a trap that imprisons Batman and Robin, ending the film on a cliffhanger.

Prologue

In ''Fear Itself: Book of the Skull'', the Red Skull performs a ritual during World War II, on orders of Adolf Hitler, which causes the Hammer of Skadi to fall to Earth where it lands in Antarctica. Traveling to Antarctica, the Red Skull finds the hammer but is unable to lift it. Red Skull has Adolf Hitler's Thule Society seal it away and put it under their guard. Many years later, Red Skull's daughter Sin, with the help of Baron Zemo, retrieves the ''Book of the Skull'' that contains the location of the hammer.

Core miniseries

While Tony Stark holds a press conference announcing that his company, Stark Resilient, will help rebuild Asgard in Broxton, Oklahoma following the "Siege" storyline, the Sin finds the Hammer of Skadi, and after lifting it becomes Skadi, Herald of the Serpent. She then frees the Serpent from his underwater prison, after which seven celestial objects fall from the sky around the globe. Learning of the Serpent's escape, Odin withdraws his people from Earth against the protests of his son Thor. The seven celestial objects are revealed to be divine hammers that contain the essences of the Serpent's seven generals known as the Worthy. Coming into contact with four of the hammers, the Juggernaut, the Hulk, Titania, and Attuma are respectively transformed into the first of these beings: Kuurth: Breaker of Stone; Nul: Breaker of Worlds; Skirn: Breaker of Men; and Nerkkod: Breaker of Oceans. Along with Skadi, the Worthy go on a rampage all over the Earth for the Serpent. Among their targets are Washington, D.C. and the New York City superhuman prison known as the Raft, from which a number of imprisoned superhumans escape. In the tie-in books, Grey Gargoyle, the Thing, and the Absorbing Man find the other hammers, and are transformed into the remaining three Worthy: Mokk: Breaker of Faith; Angrir: Breaker of Souls; and Greithoth: Breaker of Wills, respectively.

During their battle in Washington, D.C., Skadi mortally wounds the current Captain America, James "Bucky" Barnes. In Asgard, Odin prepares his people to raze Earth completely in order to destroy the Serpent. Thor opposes this, and returns to Earth. After Steve Rogers again assumes the mantle of Captain America, Thor confronts the Serpent, who reveals himself to be Odin's brother and claims to be the rightful bearer of Asgard's throne, before dispatching Thor. Thor then fights the transformed Thing, Angrir, and Hulk, Nul, simultaneously, killing Angrir (who is revived as the Thing by Franklin Richards) and knocking Nul half way around the world, after which Thor collapses from exhaustion. Iron Man requests from Odin the use of his workshop to make weapons to fight the Worthy. Skadi and the Serpent easily repel resistance by Captain America and the Avengers, breaking Captain America's shield and devastating New York City.

As Thor convalesces in Asgard, Odin gives him his own battle armor and the Odinsword, Ragnarok, for a last suicide mission against the Serpent. Iron Man and the dwarves of Svartalfheim present eight newly forged weapons, each designed for a specific Avenger and containing both his repulsor technology and uru (the same metal composing Thor's hammer). They throw them into a vat of boiling uru – into which Iron Man himself leaps – to receive Odin's enchantments. In Broxton, Captain America raises a militia of armed citizens who wish to remain to fight, and along with the Avengers, prepares for a final confrontation with the Serpent and the Worthy.

Iron Man returns to Earth, his armor coated with Asgardian uru enchanted by Odin, along with similarly enhanced weapons with which he arms Spider-Man, Black Widow, Iron Fist, Wolverine, Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye, Red She-Hulk and Doctor Strange. They confront the Serpent's forces and are joined by the people of Broxton and Captain America, who wields Thor's hammer against Skadi. The Worthy are vanquished from their hosts when Odin summons their hammers away from them, and Thor kills the Serpent at the cost of his life. As Thor and Bucky are mourned by their allies, Odin returns to Asgard with the corpse of his brother Cul, sealing off Asgard from Hermod and a number of other Asgardians, who are left on Earth. The Stark-Asgardian weapons are returned to Asgard to be melted (with the exception of the Red She-Hulk, who retains hers), and Iron Man presents Rogers with his reforged shield, now stronger for its uru-infused enhancements, despite the scar it bears.

Epilogue issues

'''''Fear Itself: #7.1: Captain America''''' depicts Captain America dealing with the loss of Bucky, and reveals that Bucky in fact survived Skadi's attack as a result of being injected with the Infinity Formula. With the world believing him dead, Bucky returns to his former identity of Winter Soldier, performing special operations, developments to which only Steve Rogers, Nick Fury, and Black Widow are privy.Norris, Erik. [http://comics.ign.com/articles/121/1211445p1.html "Fear Itself #7.1: Captain America Review"]. IGN. November 2, 2011

'''''Fear Itself #7.2: Thor''''' sees the introduction of Thor's tentative replacement, Tanarus, as well as the return of Thor himself from the dead.Norris, Erik. [http://comics.ign.com/articles/121/1212067p1.html "Fear Itself #7.2: Thor Review"]. IGN. November 9, 2011

'''''Fear Itself #7.3: Iron Man''''' deals with Tony Stark's despair over the still-petrified population of Paris, his anger at Odin for not preventing it, and Odin's reaction to Stark's challenge, which Stark relates to the imprisoned Grey Gargoyle, who was responsible for the Parisians' fate as a member of the Worthy.

Tie-in books

'''''Fear Itself: Sin's Past''''' #1 is a reprint book that collects ''Captain America'' #355-357 from 1989, which introduced Sin as part of her father's Daughters of Sin.Schedeen, Jesse. [http://comics.ign.com/articles/116/1163194p1.html "Fear Itself: Sin's Past #1 Review"]. IGN. April 20, 2011

'''''Fear Itself: The Worthy''''' is an anthology origin book in which Sin and each of the Worthy detail the major events of their life in first-person narration, with each vignette concluding with an open-ended look to the future.Schedeen, Jesse. [http://comics.ign.com/articles/118/1184651p1.html "Fear Itself: The Worthy #1 Review"]. IGN. July 27, 2011

'''''The Mighty Thor''''' #7 establishes the Serpent's origin story, revealing him to have been the sibling to Odin, Vili and Vi, who assumed the throne of Asgard following the death of their father, Bor, at the dawn of time, and whose rule was marked by madness and corruption. Odin sacrificed his right eye to receive wisdom from Yggdrasil, which prophesied that to heal his brother, Odin would have to sacrifice his son.

'''''The Invincible Iron Man''''' follows Iron Man as he travels to Paris to confront Grey Gargoyle who, as Mokk: Breaker of Faith, has turned the populace to stone. After Iron Man's rival Detroit Steel meets with the same fate, and Iron Man's armor and energy supply are compromised, Tony Stark uses Odin's Workshops of Svartalfheim to make weapons to fight the Worthy, as pro-Serpent forces conspire against him. In Paris, Rescue comes into conflict with Sasha Hammer and her team of Steelmechs, but both are confronted by Mokk as well. Mokk leaves Paris, however, when the Serpent summons his Worthy to join him at the portal to Asgard in Broxton, while Iron Man returns to Earth with the Asgardian weapons.

In '''''Iron Man 2.0''''', War Machine, Prince of Orphans, Iron Fist, and the Immortal Weapons fight Skirn, and witness Absorbing Man as he is transformed into Greithoth: Breaker of Wills.

In '''''Avengers''''', Spider-Woman, Ms. Marvel, and Protector arrive in Brazil to help Red She-Hulk fight Nul.

In '''''New Avengers''''', Skadi sends the Thule Society to the United States where they fight the New Avengers, at one point attacking Avengers Mansion.

In '''''Secret Avengers''''', that team confronts Skadi during her attack upon Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, Black Widow confronts the webmasters of a tabloid site for fabricating a story that Bucky Barnes is still alive and his death a hoax.

In '''''Avengers Academy''''', the staff and students of the eponymous school fight convicts attempting to escape the Raft, and are later sent to Washington, D.C. to fight Skadi's forces. In Dubai, the faculty later battle Greithoth and Skirn, who subsequently attack the students at Infinite Avengers Mansion.

In '''''Fear Itself: Youth in Revolt''''', Captain Steve Rogers has Ritchie Gilmore/Prodigy assemble a new incarnation of the Avengers Initiative, in which includes members of The Cavalry, the Heavy Hitters, the Desert Stars, Action Pack, and the Shadow Initiative, but the team's efforts in Atlanta, Georgia result in Thor Girl being arrested and later becoming a fugitive from justice. The team also confronts Crossbones in New Jersey, and tries unsuccessfully to stop Kuurth in Las Vegas.

In '''''Hulk''''', Red Hulk attempts to stop Angrir's attack upon Avengers Tower, but the Tower is destroyed in the process and the Avengers' manservant Edwin Jarvis barely escapes. As their battle continues, Zero/One and MODOK Superior compete to reach Red Hulk, as they each harbor plans for him.

In '''''Fear Itself: Hulk vs. Dracula''''', Hulk/Nul, following his battle with Thor in ''Fear Itself'' #5, crashes in the Carpathian Mountains and is confronted by Dracula and his vampire army. The series also explores political relationships between Dracula and other breeds and sects of vampires, and introduces a vampire superhero team called the Forgiven, whom Dracula frees from their dungeons in order to combat Hulk/Nul.Yehl, Joshua. [http://comics.ign.com/articles/119/1194630p1.html "Fear Itself: Hulk vs Dracula #1 Review"]. IGN. September 14, 2011Stell, Dean. [http://weeklycomicbookreview.com/2011/05/30/iron-man-2-0-5-review/ "Fear Itself: Hulk vs. Dracula #3 – Review"]. Weekly Comic Book Review. October 16, 2011

In '''''Thunderbolts''''', the eponymous team deals with the escape of convicts from the destroyed Raft, one of whom is Juggernaut, who becomes one of the Worthy and battles the Thunderbolts outside Chicago. Issue #159 is an anthology issue, with different vignettes focusing on the Raft breakout starring Warden John Walker and convict Crossbones. The Thunderbolts later battle aquatic mutants rising out of Lake Michigan.<!--

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Stell, Dean (June 3, 2011). [http://weeklycomicbookreview.com/2011/06/03/thunderbolts-158-review/ "Thunderbolts #158 – Review"]. Weekly Comic Book Review.Stell, Dean (June 23, 2011). [http://weeklycomicbookreview.com/2011/06/23/thunderbolts-159-review/ "Thunderbolts #159 – Review"]. Weekly Comic Book Review.Stell, Dean. [http://weeklycomicbookreview.com/2011/07/07/thunderbolts-160-review/ "Thunderbolts #160 – Review"]. Weekly Comic Book Review. July 7, 2011Stell, Dean (August 21, 2011). [http://weeklycomicbookreview.com/2011/08/21/thunderbolts-162-review/ "Thunderbolts #162 – Review"]. Weekly Comic Book Review.

In '''''Fear Itself: Spider-Man''''', the webslinger attempts to deal with the rampant paranoia that grips Manhattan, which includes, in addition to his own hallucinations, attempted suicides, hate crimes, no cell phone service and satellite activity, an attack by Vermin, a foreclosed homeowner holding people hostage in St. Mark's Church, a woman in labor in need of a hospital and an attack by the Thing, who has been turned into Angrir.

In '''''Fear Itself: FF''''', the Thing's teammates Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman also confront the Thing/Angrir and try to free him from the Serpent's influence.

In '''''Fear Itself: Black Widow''''', Black Widow and Peregrine are sent on a mission to free hostages being held in a Marseille cathedral by Rapido. He and a group of mercenaries are trying to exploit the panic over the events in Paris to steal France's nuclear arsenal.

The anthology miniseries '''''Fear Itself: The Home Front''''' explores how the events of the storyline affect the ordinary citizens of the Marvel Universe, much as ''Civil War: Front Line'' and ''Siege: Embedded'' had previously done with the "Civil War" and "Siege" crossover storylines, respectively.Schedeen, Jesse. [http://comics.ign.com/articles/116/1160178p1.html "Fear Itself: The Home Front #1 Review"]. IGN. April 6, 2011 The series follows Robbie Baldwin as he escapes an angry Stamford mob, and his confrontations with Kuurth, Nerkodd and a hate group founded by Sin called Sisters of Sin. The series also follows the investigation of an abandoned Thule Society headquarters by Jimmy Woo and the Agents of Atlas, Liz Allan's encounter with bank robbers as she tries to escape New York City with her son, Cardiac's attempt to help a health care industry CEO whose son has meningitis, Blue Marvel's discovery of a submarine harboring antimatter samples off the coast of Kadesh, Mister Fear's realization that the Serpent and his Worthy have surpassed his ability to induce fear in people, American Eagle's attempt to deal with the fear and chaos in Bleachville, the Great Lakes Avengers' confrontation with the forgotten villain Asbestos Man and the attack upon Amadeus Cho, X-23, Spider-Girl, Power Man and Thunderstrike by a group of samurai Shark Men after the former group is teleported onto a station in the Pacific Ocean.

In '''''Uncanny X-Men''''', the mutant team is in San Francisco in an attempt to ease anti-mutant tensions, when they learn that Kuurth is rampaging through California, and decide to confront him when he reaches the city.

In '''''New Mutants''''', Danielle Moonstar encounters Hela in Las Vegas, and is transported to Hel. When her teammates try to follow her using forbidden magic, they instead end up in Hell, where they encounter Mephisto, who offers transport the team to Hel, for a price.

In '''''Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force''''', that team investigates a terrorist bombing, which leads them to a Christian fundamentalist cult named the Purifiers, whose leader, a former neurosurgeon named Jonathan Standish, sees the appearance of the Worthy as a sign that the Devil is on Earth, and blames superhumans for the global chaos.

In '''''Fear Itself: Wolverine''''', Wolverine infiltrates the ''Prometheus'', a fully armed Helicarrier originally intended as Norman Osborn's H.A.M.M.E.R. flagship, which was stolen from a secret U.S. facility in the Sonoran Desert by a rogue faction of S.T.R.I.K.E., who intend to use it to deploy a nuclear warhead in the city, after their leader took the appearance of the Worthy as a sign instructing him to do so.

'''''Fear Itself: The Deep''''' reveals that Nerkodd conquered New Atlantis, ousted its king, Namor, and installed Tyrak, his sister Aradnea, and Tiger Shark as its occupying generals. Namor and his comrades, Lyra, Loa, Doctor Strange and the Silver Surfer, are attacked by the Undying Ones, demons who break through Earth's dimension as a result of the global panic weakening the barriers between the dimensions and who make a deal with Nerkodd to help them take over Earth.

In '''''Herc''''', Hercules pursues escapees from the Raft, and must also confront a resurrected Kyknos and the amnesiac Hecate, who tries to take over Brooklyn after her memories are restored.

In '''''Ghost Rider''''', a woman named Alejandra who grew up in a pyramid temple in Nicaragua among the followers of a man named Adam, becomes a new, female Ghost Rider, and confronts Skadi and her allies. Meanwhile, Mephisto tells Johnny Blaze, who is at peace now that he is free of the curse of Ghost Rider, that Adam (who relieved Blaze of the curse and bestowed it upon Alejandra) intends to take away all of humanity's sins, which will turn it into a cold, emotionless stagnant race devoid of creativity. Mephisto tells Blaze that he must separate Alejandra from Adam, but Alejandra is unwilling to agree to this.

The debut of '''''Alpha Flight''''''s fourth volume depicts the Canadian superhero team's rescue efforts for victims of a tsunami created by Nerkodd, and their ejection of Nerkodd from Canada.

In '''''Fear Itself: Fearsome Four''''', She-Hulk, Howard the Duck, Frankenstein's Monster and Nighthawk intervene when the empathic Man-Thing goes on a rampage in Mahhattan, due to the fear and chaos he senses on the part of the citizenry, and discover a plot by Psycho-Man to use Man-Thing's volatile empathy to create a weapon.

In '''''Fear Itself: Deadpool''''', which offers a humorous take on the storyline, the Merc with a Mouth hopes to improve his security consultation business by arranging the dim-witted villain Walrus to find a bejeweled but otherwise ordinary hammer in order to convince him that he is one of the Worthy, in the hopes of subsequently defeating him publicly in order to bolster his reputation. His plan backfires when the hammer, which belongs to a group of werewolves called the Moon-Born, exhibits special properties under the full moon, which Walrus utilizes while battling Deadpool. Deadpool manages to trick Walrus into entering the windowless basement of a sheriff's office where the hammer becomes powerless, and where Deadpool can take advantage of the sheriff's weapon's cache.

Aftermath

'''''Fear Itself: The Fearless''''' pits Sin and Valkyrie against one another as they compete to find the hammers of the Worthy that fell to Earth at the end of the main miniseries.Esposito, Joey. [http://comics.ign.com/articles/121/1210201p1.html "Fear Itself: The Fearless #1 Review"]. IGN. October 19, 2011

The plot follows on precisely from ''The Lost Planet''.

A previous expedition to Hesikos, the wandering 'lost planet' which is now within a few days flight of Earth, has crash-landed, and Dr Lachlan McKinnon (its organiser), Professor Hermanoff and American engineer Spike Stranahan are marooned. McKinnon's colleagues must build and launch a spaceship from their Scottish base to travel to Hesikos, but to construct the ship they must obtain the expert assistance of Dr Andrieff, a scientist and engineer, who risks exile from his Eastern European country by so doing.

The crew, consisting of McKinnon's nephew Jeremy Grant, Professor Lars Bergman, science student Janet Campbell and Cockney housekeeper Madge, rescue the three explorers, who have survived the harsh winter, and start to explore the planet in a Jeep. They find signs that Hesikos was once inhabited, and that atomic bombs were detonated long ago on the surface. Escaping from a deluge of water, which damages their Jeep, as a river suddenly rises, they take refuge in a cave, which leads to a door. The door opens to admit them to caverns where the inhabitants of the planet now live.

The people are highly intelligent and human-like, communicating with the visitors by telepathy, which is facilitated by a machine called the Electronome. They explain that since their planet's orbit was destroyed eons ago by atomic experiments, they have lived a peaceful underground existence, only emerging in the mild summer season to gather fruits and plants. Their current leader is Solveg, with his daughter Asa.

Power for the colony is supplied by hydroelectric generators, but when a rockfall blocks the underground river, all power is lost. The inhabitants have a fatalistic philosophy that allows them to face inevitable destruction stoically, but McKinnon cannot accept this. Grant and Stranahan use the explosives they have saved from the flood to clear the blockage — and Hesikos is saved.

The visitors' then return to their spaceship in the Jeep which the Hesikans have repaired, and return to Earth accompanied by Asa, who hopes to spread her philosophy of peace.

When a key to a hotel room is delivered to Miami police inside a jar of blood, Debra and Doakes visit the hotel and find a room completely covered in blood. Dexter is sent in first to investigate, but seeing the blood-covered room brings back a repressed memory from his childhood—sitting in a pool of blood at the age of three—causing him to run from the scene. The forensics team surmises that the blood came from at least five different bodies, although none are in the room. Since there were only one set of footprints in the room, they assume that the victims were killed elsewhere and their blood spread around the room by the killer. Debra suggests that the Ice Truck Killer, who has had five bloodless victims, may have been responsible.

While dating a woman in a bar, Batista sees a prostitute with a prosthetic hand and fingernails painted in the same way as the Ice Truck Killer's first victim. Working on a hunch that the killer is an acrotomophiliac, he speaks to Debra's boyfriend Rudy, who he doesn't realize is the actual Ice Truck Killer. Rudy cooperates upon realizing that Batista does not know his identity. Later, Batista is stabbed in a parking lot by a masked man; he manages to elbow him in the face before two men scare the attacker off. Minutes later, Rudy—who had earlier fallen out with Debra due to secretly having dinner with Dexter—arrives with flowers. They kiss, but Rudy backs away complaining of a cut lip, suggesting that he was Angel's attacker.

Rita finds out that Paul is pressing charges against her for assault. She talks with a lawyer, who tells her that since she invited Paul into her house, she cannot prove that her intent was to defuse the situation. At a hearing, it is revealed that Rita violated her and Paul's custody agreement, making his case against her even stronger. When Paul drops by Rita's house to return their children, he threatens Dexter when the two are alone in the kitchen. Dexter responds by hitting him with a frying pan. Paul loses consciousness, so Dexter drives him back to his hotel and frames him for drug abuse. Dexter alerts the police and Paul is sent back to prison. With encouragement from Rudy, Dexter returns to the bloody hotel room, where he relives his repressed memory: the murder of his mother with a chainsaw when he was three.

The story centers around a man named Elwood living with his family in 1950s suburbia. He builds a boat in his back yard, to great annoyance to his wife and neighbors. When they ask him why he builds it, he tells them he doesn't know. Elwood exhibits post traumatic stress disorder, and shuns most people around him, including his family and co-workers. One day, he decides to go home in the middle of his job to work on the boat. He gazes at the boat, wondering why he's building it. As it starts raining, he finally realizes why.

Set in 1895, Robert Cummings plays a con man, Sylvanus Hurley, who is trying to raise the selling price of land he owns by convincing the residents of Miami that a railroad is coming to town. Jerome Courtland plays the barefoot mailman, Steven Pierton, who leads Sylvanus along the beach from Palm Beach to Miami, and who is skeptical of Sylvanus's scheme. Terry Moore is a run-away teenager, Adie Titus, who joins Sylvanus and Steven on their walk by impersonating a child. John Russell plays Theron, a swamp gang leader who tries to carry Adie away.

Ana, a former zookeeper, begins working for software firm Blue Gamma. The firm is creating “digients”, or digital entities. The digients are designed by another Blue Gamma employee, Derek. They are relatively intelligent and have rudimentary speech; Blue Gamma begins to sell them as virtual pets.

Over the course of many years, Ana grows close to a digient named Jax. The digients become more intelligent and develop their own personalities and quirks. Eventually, Blue Gamma goes bankrupt. The digients are cut off from the wider internet. Derek and Ana disagree on the best way to raise funds to transfer the digients to a new system. Options include modifying their brain structures to serve as sexual companions for humans, using the digients as employees, or raising funds from sympathetic donors. Derek and Ana debate the nature of consent, experience, adulthood, and personhood with respect to the digients. With the consent of his digient, Derek sells the rights to a sex toy company. Ana plans to continue raising Jax, promising to discover what "adulthood" means for a digital being alongside him.

The first book, "Showdown" is all about a project started in a monastery in the mountains of Paradise Colorado. There, several children are brought up by monks, raised to be righteous . However, the brightest of the children, Billy, seeks the power that can be found in the lowest parts of the monastery. There, he finds the books of history and writes an evil character into existence. Jonny Drake and Samuel Abraham must find a way to get rid of the evil in Paradise.

The second book, "Saint" is about a sniper part of the "X group" who struggles with his identity. He is special though he does not know why. He knows himself as Carl, the Saint, and goes with his handler, Kelly, to America and ends up discovering who he truly is.

The third and final book of the Paradise novels is titled, "Sinner". It follows the story of Billy and Darsey, two children from the monastery who have special gifts and try to rid the world of evil, but find themselves in more trouble when 3,000 stand up for the truth where it all started-in Paradise Colorado.

The story focuses on the Locke family as they move into Keyhouse, after the tragic murder of patriarch Rendell (Mark Pellegrino). Nina (Miranda Otto) and her three children, Tyler (Jesse McCartney), Kinsey (Sarah Bolger), and Bode (Skylar Gertner) meet up with Rendell's brother Duncan (Nick Stahl) and look to get a fresh start. Keyhouse has been home to the Lockes for hundreds of years. Rendell and Duncan lived there growing up, but Duncan has blocked out a lot of his memories of the place. After exploring the grounds a bit, Bode finds a key with a skull on it. When he steps through the door that the key unlocks, his body drops dead but his spirit is able to fly around the house. This catches the attention of an "echo" named Dodge (Ksenia Solo), who is trapped deep within the well on the grounds. Something is clearly dark about her and we find out that she's been manipulating Rendell's killer, Sam Lesser (Harrison Thomas). The Ghost Key that Bode found is one of many scattered around the area. Each one does something special. Dodge has her eyes set on the Anywhere Key, which can transport you wherever you want to go.

Based upon a description in a film publication, an imaginary kingdom is in a state of unrest due to the extravagance and oppression of the king, who refuses to sign a people's charter. A humorous barber who resembles the king falls in with some terrorists and agrees to take the king's place after he is kidnapped. The barber then plays the king, and there are several humorous episodes. The real king escapes and the barber is sentenced to be shot, but is saved by the queen and escapes in a bag. The film ends with an automobile chase and a transfer to an airplane.

Civilian Vic Donovan (Boyd) visits West Point, and falls for beautiful Janet Cleghorne (Love), daughter of the commandant (Geldart). He successfully wins an appointment to the Academy, where he and Stuart Haldane (Allan), another cadet, vie for Janet's affection. Their competition escalates, nearly resulting in Haldane's dismissal, but Donovan takes responsibility, and Janet falls in love with him.

The film is a tale about a small band of contumacious boys and girls that live in a hidden village on a faraway beach; they are the Ivory Rebellion, a feral group of children that are fighting from oppression against an evil queen named Johanna, and her ruthless Onyx Empire. Like Peter Pan & The Lost Boys, the rebels have shunned society and live completely free of parents and authority figures. Their existence, albeit a simple one, is entirely devoid of technology, minus simple firearms and an ancient tube radio. Surrounding their beach is a border, the land across from which is forbidden and belongs to the Onyx Empire. For the longest time a treaty was set forth, stating that no one from either side shall cross said border, but in a last-ditch effort to induct the boys and girls of the Ivory Rebellion, Queen Johanna has halted all supply shipments into their village. The rebels are running low on food, and with the threat of starvation, are forced to make a decision that could cost them everything.

Hana Aoi, a clumsy teenage girl, is known around her school by the nickname "Clumsy-Good for Nothing". One day, she sees a flyer in town about a zoo that needs workers. After she appears there, she discovers that the zoo is keeping strange things, which she realizes after seeing Shiina, the director of the infamous Oumagadoki Zoo. He has been cursed by a ghost rabbit and given the body of a rabbit. In order to get his original body back, he has to show that he does care for animals by gathering every animal from the world and making his own popular zoo.

New-Gen is an extra-dimensional world where science and technology reign supreme. Nanotechnology controls a huge amount of the world's features, including weather, architecture, energy and materials science. The scientist Gabriel, pioneer in nanotechnology, strives for good and the betterment of his world through the use of his technology. However, his apprentice Deadalus, grows ruthless and seeks to use the nanobots to gain power and control over New-Gen. Deadalus unleashes a powerful, unpredictable type of nanotechnology on the world, which infects several of the children of New-Gen, changing them into super-powered creatures. Gabriel defeats Deadalus and banishes him to the underworld. Gabriel then takes in all the children affected by his nanotechnology in order to protect and train them in the use of their powers, founding the Association for the Protection of the New Generation (A.P.N.G.) in the process. Fearing his infant twin sons, Chris and Sean, were affected, Gabriel sends them to Earth in present-day New York City to protect them from Deadalus, much to the dismay of his wife, Thea. While trapped in the underworld, Deadalus finds fierce robo-insectoid creatures called MetalMites that he can mentally control. After discovering that the Mites can dig into other dimensions, he vows to get back to NEW-GEN and get revenge on Gabriel.[http://www.apngenterprises.com/comic/characters-of-new-gen/ Overview of the NEW-GEN Comics Volume 1]

Years later, Deadalus escapes the underworld and begins wreaking havoc on ancient Crete. Gabriel sends the oldest and strongest member of the A.P.N.G., Mini, to dispatch Deadalus and his army of MetalMites. Mini battles the MetalMites, destroying many of them with his horns, but the fight becomes too much for him to handle alone. Gabriel sends the battle-robot, Horus, to help finish the fight against Deadalus and his creatures. When Mini and Horus have Deadalus beaten, Gabriel tells them to let him live, re-banishing Deadalus to the underworld. Throughout the battle, the native Cretans assume Mini is a sort of monster, which eventually leads to the Greek myth of the Minotaur.

Meanwhile, in present-day New York, Chris and Sean prepare to enter a new school in New York City. They are forced to deal with the pressures of fitting in, combined with a growing distance between them and their adoptive parents, and strange visions of Gabriel and Deadalus, of whom they know nothing. On New-Gen, Gabriel encounters challenges finding the best way of teaching the A.P.N.G.. Simultaneously, in the underworld, Deadalus discovers an enormous quantity of dormant microbots. The microbots respond and behave much like the nanobots he worked with on New-Gen. Deadalus plans to use the microbots to gain power over other worlds and dimensions. He infects himself with the microbots, much like he infected the children of New-Gen, in order to have them reconstruct his body and gain superhuman powers.

In the transformational process, Deadalus' physiology is drastically altered, coming to more closely resemble a demonic beast than a man. His mind is also altered, furthering his powerlust into genuine megalomaniac insanity. He adopts the identity of Sly, and sets his MetalMites to tunneling into a new world to conquer for his own. Additionally, he uses the microbots to upgrade the MetalMites, increasing their destructive power. Once Sly begins taking over the futuristic world of Nu-Mangi, Mini is sent in to stop him once again. However, Sly and his upgraded MetalMites prove far too powerful for Mini alone. The remaining members of the A.P.N.G., Flyer, Diamond, Gazelle, and Roboduck, join Mini for the battle. Meanwhile, on Earth, Sean begins having nightmares and visions of the battle, haunted in the night by the faces of Sly and the MetalMites

The battle rages on the surface of the new world, as the A.P.N.G. destroy wave after wave of MetalMites. Sean and Chris keep getting increasingly vivid glimpses of the battle while at school, but are clueless as to why they are being plagued by the visions. During a lull in the battle, Sly flees and the A.P.N.G. rests knowing another wave is soon to come. Gabriel, observing the battle from New-Gen, holds up several glowing green orbs full of nanobots. Sly, determined to destroy the A.P.N.G. finds machines built by the natives of the new world. He uses his microbots to take over the machines and turn them into larger, more powerful MetalMites. As the twins' visions become more and more clear, they complain of pain and discomfort as their bodies begin to change, alarming their parents as well as Gabriel who is watching them from New-Gen. .

During the battle, the A.P.N.G. show signs of victory until Sly shoots them all with a specialized radiation, destroying all of the nanobots in their bodies, reverting them to their human forms and taking away their powers. Just as Sly is about to finish the A.P.N.G. off, Gabriel teleports to the battle wielding his Kane. He gives the A.P.N.G. the green orbs, containing nanobots that will heal the A.P.N.G. and restore their super-powered forms. As the members A.P.N.G. fight the giant machines, Gabriel battles Sly. The two former friends fight brutally, landing crushing blows and unleashing powerful energy bolts against each other. Eventually, Gabriel and the A.P.N.G. overcome Sly and his forces, but Gabriel decides to again spare Sly, saying he is not ready to finish off his old friend.

Budding comic book artist Yuk Su (Chin Kar-Lok) finds himself living out the fantasies of his alternate world when he saves a young girl from an illegal prostitution racket. After he was expelled from medical school his father took Yuk Su to one of his father's friends to help him keep up with his education. Soon he found a teacher (Lau Kar Leung) who can help him live on his dreams and be a legendary hero. With the aid of his fecund imagination and the help of an aging kung fu expert Yuk Su becomes something even he had never dared dream, a hero in real life.

The plot of ''Heroes'' is designed to be similar to the stories of comic books with small story arcs built into the series' larger story arc plot. Each season of ''Heroes'' is designed to involve ordinary people who discover extraordinary super powers, and how these abilities take effect in the character's daily lives.

The first season, known as "Genesis", begins as a seemingly ordinary group of people gradually becomes aware that they have special abilities. Events illustrate their reactions to these powers, and how the discovery affects their personal and professional lives. At the same time, several ordinary individuals are investigating the origins and extent of these abilities. Mohinder continues his late father's research into the biological source of the change, while Noah represents a secret organization known only as "The Company". While coping with these new abilities, each of the characters is drawn, willingly or unwillingly, into the Company's conspiracy to control superpowered people and into a race to stop an explosion from destroying New York City. Meanwhile, focus is placed on Peter Petrelli as he tries to maintain his volatile power, and Sylar, a serial killer hunting superhumans.

In the Mines of Tethyamar in Daggerdale, in the year 1420 DR, the Zhentarim have constructed the Tower of Void as an attempt to take over the Dale. Lorin-Aria, fearing the power of the Zhentarim, calls on four adventurers from different regions in the Dalelands. She calls a human fighter, dwarven cleric, elven rogue and a halfling wizard. She informs the player that the Zhentarim are building an army to conquer Daggerdale. Aria then vanishes before the heroes, telling them that because of her ties to the Zhentarim, she will not be able to aid them further. The heroes soon run into trouble, as they find goblins imprisoning a dwarven worker. The heroes save the worker who informs them that Goblins are raiding their camps all throughout the Mines of Tethyamar.

The heroes are attacked by an earth elemental, a creature that kills all of the goblins and tries to kill the four heroes. The heroes enter a portal and arrive in a rebuilt part of the Ruins of Tethyamar called Granstone. The dwarf Garbo Silvertongue arranges for the heroes to meet with the dwarves' Master Paxton, Union Leader Esar and Ayer. Eventually the heroes manage to gain Master Paxton's favor by helping the dwarves fight the goblins. While looking in Oxenmoor for the dwarves, the heroes find Master Paxton's satchel, containing Dryad Dust, in a goblin camp. The heroes find that the goblins have poisoned the dwarven water supplies with dryad dust. When the heroes return to Granstone, a whole goblin army attacks the Ruins of Tethyamar, however the heroes defeat the goblins. Ayer then has Master Paxton arrested and opens up the Grand Gates for the heroes to enter.

Following Ayer's advice, the heroes enter the Tower of Void through its storage area. There they find Garbo Silvertongue talking to Master Paxton. The heroes overhear Garbo state that he and the Goblins are loyal to Bane and the Zhentarim and that they plan to poison the rest of Granstone's water supplies. Garbo states that the Zhentarim will grant him the rule of the Mines of Tethyamar. When Garbo leaves, the heroes free Master Paxton who runs to Ayer to warn him about Garbo. To make sure the Goblins do not attack Tethyamar again, the heroes attack the Goblin Chieftain killing him, and scattering the Goblins of Tethyamar. The heroes then encounter Garbo and kill him.

The heroes try to enter the Tower of Void but are swiftly defeated by Zhent Black Hands who lock them in prison. The Zhentarim tieflings play gladiator games with the players. They are encountered by Rezlus who believes them to be Cyricists. Long after Rezlus leaves, the heroes escape. They kill their tiefling guards and venture upwards into the Tower of Void. The heroes again fight Zhent Black Hands who nearly kill them. The heroes, however, meet up with many dwarves, prisoners, and a mysterious cleric woman named Nezra. These allies help them beat the Zhent Black Hands.

The heroes then make it to the top of the Tower of Void. Rezlus kills the heroes' allies and nearly kills them too. The four heroes then get the upper hand for a short time, but are once again defeated when Rezlus calls on his red dragon, Incendius. As the remaining goblins chain the heroes, they manage to escape and kill Rezlus. The dying mage orders Incendius to raze Daggerdale, an order that the dragon complies with. The human fighter, however, jumps on the dragon's back as it destroys the dale and stabs it in the head, killing it. They both then plummet to the destroyed dale.

When the dragon crashes to the ground, the fighter is quickly teleported to the Tower of Void. He is not in the mines of Tethyamar, but rather the ruins that surround the part of the tower where it reaches the surface. The teleporter is revealed to be Lorin-Aria, who has also teleported the other three heroes. Lorin-Aria congratulates the heroes. Then her back is shanked with a sword and she is killed by Nezra. Nezra reveals herself to have survived Rezlus and to be Lorin-Aria's sister. Nezra tells the heroes that Lorin-Aria was once a Banite Priestess loyal to Rezlus. She tells the four heroes that rule of Daggerdale will go to Cyric's Zhentarim, revealing herself to be a Cyrcist Zhentarim Priestess. She tells the heroes that she has no desire to kill them, but they persist and the Zhent Black Hand army marches into Tethyamar to the Tower of Void and kills them.

After the tragic death of their parents, the lives of five siblings are irrevocably changed when they are separated. Now grown up, Seo Tae-poong (Lee Byung-hun) is a professional baseball player. Longing to bring his family back together, the kind-hearted Tae-poong has been searching his whole life for his brother and three sisters.

Tae-poong's older sister Seo Chan-joo (Jo Min-su) has been supporting her younger siblings Moon-joo (Kang Sung-yeon), and Ji-suk (Song Seung-heon), who is newly engaged to his girlfriend Jin Soo-ha (Kim Ha-neul). When Tae-poong finds Chan-joo, Ji-suk and Moon-joo, his estranged siblings want nothing to do with him. Reeling from their coldness, Tae-poong must also deal with an eight-year-old boy who claims to be his son. Not knowing what to do, Tae-poong turns to Chan-joo for help. Meanwhile, youngest sister of the family Seo Yoon-joo (Jun Ji-hyun) has found her big brother Tae-poong after detachment of 10 years but his brother couldn't recognise her. So not revealing her actual identity heartbroken Seo Yoon-joo starts helping her brother. A thug, Ha Shin-yeob (Cha Tae-hyun) and Jo Pil-doo (Cho Jae-hyun) starts showing his affectionate love towards Yoon-joo by making frequent visit at her workplace.

Detective Hollis Lucetti (Terrence Howard) receives news from a doctor that he has been sterile his entire life. Upon reaching home, he questions his wife about who their children's father is.

The story switches to Gavin Nichols (Charlie Hunnam), an atheist, standing on the ledge of a tall building as if to jump to his death. A small crowd forms below Gavin, and Hollis responds to the emergency. At first it looks like a regular suicide attempt. It is quickly revealed to be more complex than that, as Gavin explains to Hollis that he has no other choice than to jump, or somebody else will die.

The story flashes back and describes the story of the love triangle between Gavin, Shana (Liv Tyler) and Joe (Patrick Wilson). Shana is the new girl at the hotel where Gavin works. She lives with her husband Joe in an apartment just down the hall from Gavin's. Joe is a fundamentalist Christian who infantilizes Shana. During a visit one night, Gavin and Joe discuss religion. Gavin neatly picks apart Joe's born again belief system, pointing out that most of the people on Earth would go to Hell, even Catholics, if Joe's faith were correct. Gavin points out that a Chinese child who dies in a traffic accident might never even know about Jesus, and therefore has no chance to be born again. Joe's response is that such an example is not proof of God's unfairness, but merely the reason why Christians are called to proselytize. Their discussion heats up into a full blown argument that ends when Shana asks Gavin to leave.

At work, Shana notices Gavin consoling one of his grief-stricken employees with talk about God. He puts on a genuine act as a believer which helps calm the employee down. On a walk with Gavin one day, she confides in him that she used to be a drug addict and a prostitute. She ended up with a john one night who liked to have sex in empty churches. He beat her badly afterward, and Joe discovered her in the sanctuary. Joe helped her turn her life around, and she feels an immense debt of gratitude to him. She tells Gavin that Joe wants them to move to Uganda to spread God's word.

Gavin and Shana spend more time with each other, and they eventually begin an affair. Joe quickly deduces what is going on and witnesses their assignations. He confronts Gavin as he is leaving for work and insists that he join him for a talk. In his apartment, Joe tells Gavin that he previously had a wife and two kids, but he would leave them at night to score drugs and hookers and do all kinds of depraved things. He lost his family and was drunk in a gutter when he was born again. He believes that, after God had already given him so much, God gave him Shana to take care of. He quotes Psalm 23 to Gavin and forces him at gunpoint to read Leviticus 20:10, "If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death."

Gavin counters with the story of the adulteress from John 8, whom Jesus saves by ordering only those without sin to cast a stone at her. Joe agrees that Gavin has a point, but he questions whether Gavin has the conviction to die for his beliefs. The next day, when Shana is supposed to leave Joe, Gavin is waiting for her to call. Joe calls Gavin instead and orders him to the top of a building. Joe has decided that, "I'm more of an Old Testament kind of guy", but instead of killing both Gavin and Shana, only one of them has to die. Joe has Shana at gunpoint and will kill her at noon if Gavin does not jump off the building.

Lucetti grows increasingly desperate to save Gavin. He tells him more about his story, explaining that his wife committed adultery out of love and fear that she would lose her husband. She wanted their children to look as much like Lucetti as possible. So, she slept with his younger brother. Gavin scolds Lucetti for focusing too much on the pain of his wife's betrayal instead of the love that motivated her. He asks Lucetti to tell Shana he loves her before jumping off the building. The police find Joe and Shana in a hotel room with a direct view of Gavin's suicide. Joe is arrested. Lucetti goes home to his wife and kids, seemingly determined to reconcile.

'''The Summer House''' (Obsession & Suspicion) The story follows Jane as she flees from England to France to stay with her aunt after her boyfriend Richard dumps her for another girl. However, he follows her to the summer house to try to win her back and, on the night of the Moon landing, tries to make his move, unsuccessfully. '''Blue Poles''' (Suspicion & Sincerity) * Libby is a young woman who struggles within herself during a time of "coming of age". She is split between commitments, responsibilities, desires and trying to make sense if it all. After stopping Miles, a country guy driving to Canberra to see the ''Blue Poles'', and spending some time with him, she ultimately moves forward on her own. '''Grasshopper''' (Sincerity & Doubt) The tragic story of two people fighting to break down the walls which stand in the way of human communication. Travis hides behind technology, such as cell phones and computers, to avoid emotional interaction with others. Terri hides behind make-up, high heels and prostitution to avoid emotional interaction with others. Their lives intersect for a brief evening when Terri finds Travis' phone which he left behind on a train. This accident brings them together, but by the end of the evening, Terri commits suicide, leaving a photo of her underage daughter. '''Pennies''' (Doubt & True Love) Charlotte Brown is a waitress and young single mother who will do anything for her daughter Jenny, and when push comes to shove, she does. With a menacing figure on the other end of the phone and a time limit of two hours, she must raise enough money to ensure that she sees the smiling face of her child again. After dealing with a few very unusual customers through the day, Charlotte finally gets enough gratuity money, but they are taken at gunpoint. Finally a tip from an honest customer comes just in time to pay for her daughter's entry in a talent competition with ''Pennies from Heaven''. '''Auto Motives''' (True Love & False Hope) The impacts of certain decisions, we made very easily but it is hard to follow through them.

The story features the Eleventh Doctor and Amy arriving on a spaceship broadcasting a distress signal. From there they travel through time and space to save the Jones family from a variety of Doctor Who enemies, including Daleks, Cybermen and Silurians. The Daleks are searching for a Time Engine. The Doctor and Amy reach the Time Engine, find a Dalek Scientist and there is an explosion. From here the player has to stop the Daleks from completing their mission.

The story of a young girl who is prevented from marrying the man she loves by the machinations of a designing woman. The plot centres on the heroine, Helen Adair, who is courted by George Tempest but who meets and falls in love with Paul Vasher. Vasher's former love Sylvia Fleming who has betrayed him, is jealous of his affections for Helen and manages by intercepting mail between the lovers to plot to win him back.

While Vasher is abroad she places a false announcement of the marriage of Helen and George in the ''Times'' and in his despair at this news he agrees to marry her. Sylvia is trapped in a loveless marriage, Helen retains her virtue, Vasher never forgets his love for Helen and in a final letter from the battlefield writes to his true love telling her he will meet her 'Comin' through the rye'.

Inspired by a staging of William Shakespeare's ''Taming of the Shrew'', Marion Davies plays Ethel, the spoiled-brat daughter of millionaire Mr. Hoyt (Tom Lewis). Mr. Hoyt decides that a rough-and-tumble he-man might be able to straighten out his daughter. To that end, the millionaire hires Ernest Eddison (Forrest Stanley), the actor playing Petruchio in ''Shrew''. Ernest talks Ethel into auditioning for an amateur production of Sleeping Beauty, then runs her roughshod during rehearsals. Ethel is on the verge of exploding when Ernest finally wins her over with a lulu of a third-act kiss.

The story is set in 1874. Hans Bengler is an entomologist from Skåne, Sweden who is studying at Lund University and decides to go on an expedition on his own to the Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa to find insects new to science and thereby to make a name for himself. After a long and arduous journey by sea to Cape Town and then in the desert he arrives at a trading post run by an expatriate Swede, which Bengler decides to make the base for his explorations.

Whilst at the trading post he comes across a small boy, called Molo, who was the sole survivor in his extended family, the rest of whom had been brutally killed by men on horseback with spears and rifles, some who were white and some who were black. He is taken to the trading post where he was put in a cage to be bartered in exchange for provisions. Bengler decides to rescue the boy adopting him as his son. Not knowing his name, Bengler decides to call him Daniel. Bengler sets himself the challenge, as he sees it, of civilising the young savage boy. The two of them journey back to Sweden. Daniel initially seeks to escape but over time grows to accept Bengler as his new father. Daniel begins to learn to speak Swedish and adopt some basic European customs, though still recalling the aspects of his African culture and beliefs he had been taught. On board ship and on arrival in Stockholm Daniel is treated with curiosity and disdain and experiences some racial abuse. Bengler decides to gain notoriety and earn a living by displaying and giving lectures on his exhibits, stored in glass jars. However, noticing the great interest the public had displayed in Daniel, Bengler decides to include him as a surprise exhibit in his lectures.

After a serious incident, father and son are forced to flee, hiding their tracks to avoid being pursued. Bengler hands Daniel over to an elderly farmer and his wife in Småland, to look after as he decides to disappear, promising to return in time. Daniel finds he is not welcomed into the deeply religious close-knit rural community. He becomes more and more homesick and has increasingly disturbing dreams about his mother and other family members. He befriends a young girl called Sanna, whose unusual behaviour has resulted in her being ostracised by local people and is abused by her adopted father. After making one unsuccessfully attempt to make his way home, subsequently, Daniel and Sanna set off together to find a ship to take them both to Africa. Their adventure ends with the two friends arguing and returning home with events spiralling out of control with a sequence of disastrous consequences.

Taking place in World War II, People are starving, cold and frightened, no longer capable of feeling love. An abandoned newborn is saved by a heroic little white dog. The dog adopts the baby, calls him Arf and raises Arf among her four-legged friends. The baby is half-dog, half-human and grows up to be strong, happy and above all to be unknowing of all the cruelty in the world.

One day, the boy is discovered, arrested and taken to a prison camp. The camp is turned upside down by Arf's innocence, the innocence of someone who has never had anything at all. He confuses the prison guards and upsets all the rules. When one day, by chance, the Führer shows up in person in the camp, it seems that Arf can even change the course of the war.

Category:2009 Italian novels Category:Novels set during World War II Category:Dogs in literature

Events depicted in the movie unfold in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Americans are bombing Vietnamese towns and villages, breaking into households, killing women and children. All ships of the European merchant fleet have already left the coast of North Vietnam, but the Soviet dry cargo ship ''Chelyabinsk'' refuses to leave Vietnamese shores despite a United States military ultimatum. A few days later the ship is sunk and surviving Soviet sailors join a caravan of Vietnamese insurgents moving along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The plot concerns the visit of an American actress to war-torn North Vietnam. At the height of the Vietnam War, actress Kate Francis (a cinematic representation of Jane Fonda) travels along with the resistance fighters and witnesses first-hand the destruction heaped upon the Vietnamese people by the American forces. Before returning to the US in order to deliver the truth about the current state of matters to the wider international community, she organizes a press conference to relate all that she has seen and to literally sing the praises of the Vietnamese people.

Meanwhile, in Haiphong, Kate's Vietnamese friend Mai introduces her to her husband, combat engineer Phong, who has recently returned home from the Soviet Union aboard the ''Chelyabinsk''. The CIA is preparing to detonate a bomb in Haiphong port, but friends manage to prevent it.

Werner Holt, a young Luftwaffenhelfer in an anti-aircraft gun crew stationed on the eastern border of Germany in the last days of World War II, is awaiting the attack of the Red Army with his friend and commander Gilbert Wolzow. Holt recalls the last two years of his life: his meeting with Wolzow, their conscription, his experience as an assistant in an anti-aircraft battery. He remembers how he began to lose faith in the war's aims, after witnessing the brutal crushing of the Slovak National Uprising and having a sexual encounter with an SS officer's wife, which left him disgusted. After that, he realized that his father's claims about millions of people being murdered in the concentration camps were true.

As the Soviets attack, Wolzow orders his ill-equipped soldiers to hold to the last man. Holt flees, only to hear that his friend was himself accused of treason by an SS blocking detachment. He arrives in time to see Wolzow hanged. Enraged, Holt grabs a machine-gun and mows down the executioners. He then deserts.

At a school carnival, Cleveland wins two tickets for a weekend at a spa and Rallo wishes himself to be invisible which he believes in as he pulls pranks in the nude. When Roberta and Donna grow apart, Donna reaches her wits end. After Cleveland criticizes her parenting skills, Donna lets him deal with Roberta by himself and takes off with Kendra for the spa weekend Cleveland had won. Cleveland tries to get on Roberta's good side by letting her spend time with Federline only to find out they broke up and Roberta is dating an older boy named Diego. When Cleveland forbids her from going out with Diego, he tries to make up for it by hosting a party at their house instead.

When Cleveland's party is a bust, he heads off to bed leaving Roberta to invite a house full of rowdy partiers (who play music so loud, it makes everything in Cleveland's room jump, and makes Cleveland fall off the bed, jolting him awake to find the partiers) while she uses the cover to sneak off with Diego. Finding Federline crying in the bushes from their breakup, they find the only car they can use to pursue Roberta & Diego is Raymond's old driver's education car, which has a stoned Raymond in the backseat. Meanwhile, Diego's driving scares Roberta who wants out but Diego refuses until after the race which Roberta finds herself in. Directed by Raymond, Cleveland manages to intercept Diego and ejects Raymond who wrecks Diego's car (Raymond then says "I'd like to solve the puzzle, Pat" and passes out, not from the car crash, as he was uninjured, but from having smoked a large amount of marijuana shortly before). Recovering Roberta from the wreck, Cleveland gives credit for driving to Federline letting Roberta make out with him. Rushing home, they clean up the mess from the party before Donna comes home. When Roberta shows a changed attitude towards Donna, Donna starts to doubt her parenting skills for real, until Cleveland tells her of the events of the weekend. Cleveland says the raising teenage girls is hard and they should concentrate on Cleveland Jr. who chooses that moment to walk past naked believing himself to be invisible thanks to Rallo. Cleveland ends the episode by asking why Cleveland Jr. has a C-section scar.

''Dark Tower'' is an adventure which describes a dungeon contested over by followers of Set and Mitra and the surrounding lands. The module describes a village and four challenging dungeon levels in detail.

New York actor Madden Thomas has fallen from grace due to alcoholism and manages to get fired from his job as Santa Claus in a department store on Christmas Eve. This puts both him and his sweet young daughter Kathi on the spot. Kathi is physically challenged with a paralyzed foot.

Because of the state he is in, Thomas is helped home to his daughter by a young composer named Robert Carter, who is their new neighbor. Robert takes a liking to Kathi and they become friends. Robert also manages to get Thomas a paid acting job, playing a part in a minor play he has made the music to. Robert's aunt Alma Lothian is a huge admirer of Thomas' previous work, and is overjoyed with the news of him getting the part. Kathi hopes that her father will take the chance and become as good as he once was. She is especially pleased with him slowing down on drinking.

One day when Kathi tries to buy new furniture for their apartment, she finds out that Thomas has large debts because of his drinking. She finds herself courted by Robert, who has fallen in love with her. She tells him she has hopes of a family but that she is scared of passing on her handicap to her children.

Thomas is offered a main part in a production of King Lear, but gets cold feet because of all the hard work he will have to put in. Kathi is overjoyed with the offer and tries to encourage him the best she can. Robert puts off a job in Hollywood to help arrange the music for the play.

Robert visits the doctor who delivered Kathi many years ago, and learns that her foot was damaged when Thomas dropped her when she was only a few months old. The doctor lied about the cause of the lameness to spare Thomas the guilt. This information enables Kathi to accept Robert's proposal.

Thomas improves greatly during rehearsals, and the engaged couple decide to wait until after opening night to tell him about their plans to move to Hollywood. He finds out by chance when the city clerk calls to fix the time of the marriage for the next day. He goes on a bender, thinking that Kathi is deserting him. He arrives drunk to the theater on the opening night and on top of everything else, Kathi is mad at him and reveals that he caused her lameness.

After their argument, Kathi feels guilty and regrets the decision to move to Hollywood. She talks to Robert and convinces him to stay in New York. Thomas overhears the conversation and realizes it is time she started a life of her own. He writes her a letter, urging her to move ahead as planned, then goes directly to Alma's home and accepts her proposal of marriage.

The episode starts with a newsreel from the 1940s detailing how Sgt. Savage, a war hero awarded with the Medal of Honor in the World War II European theater, dies along with his entire company in a failed raid against a German scientific facility. Later, such place is discovered by a news team in the middle 1990s, it turns out that Savage survived. His frozen body is discovered, and is given to the Joes for further research. A robotic trooper invades the Joes' scientific facility, but Savage awakens in the nick of time to destroy it.

According to Savage, the raid where all his company died was spoiled by a traitor amongst his ranks. Later, a scientist called Dr. Garret Stromm announces to the Joes that a new super advanced space platform is about to be deployed. Savage identifies the scientist as Lt. Garrison Kreiger, the traitor himself. Savage also learns that during World War II he was Kreiger's guinea pig in genetic experiments and now he possesses super strength and increased reflexes, these "powers", as his whole physical condition wanes from time to time. Savage is then introduced to his new team, a squad of 6 experts in different scientific fields, all well seasoned sergeants, but unable to follow direct orders, after a brief skirmish, Savage takes control of them, now calling themselves the "Screaming Eagles".

Kreiger is later seen communicating to Cobra Commander that the ties between their two organizations no longer bind, how he helped the Cobra Command formation and how he will destroy them if he interferes with his plans. At the same time, the Eagles are checking the invading robot's remains, and they realize that the space platform Kreiger, who now calls himself "General Blitz" helped to build is really a Doomsday device meant to control every computer system on the planet (aiming mainly at the Strategic Defense Initiative), so Savage and his team go forth to stop Blitz, his plans, and his new, completely robotic I.R.O.N. Troopers.

When a dancer's partner becomes pregnant, a nationwide search is instituted to find a replacement from among college women. A perfect choice is found, but she is not in school, resulting in various hijinks.

Butch, Davis, and Angel are teenagers who have been sentenced to Enola Vale juvenile detention center in Montana. The focus is on Butch, who has been imprisoned for attacking and blinding a correctional officer.

Goodyear, a tough but fair officer, urges the new inmates to follow the rules and quietly serve their time so they can earn a second chance on the outside. At first Butch attempts to conform to the rules, but soon he and his friends are attacked by the chief bully Banks and his thugs, Eckersley and Looney.

Refusing to reveal the names of his attackers, Butch is sent to solitary confinement. Once out, he immediately exacts revenge on Banks, Eckersley, and Looney. Butch saves the worst for Banks, who is savagely beaten. The beatings establish his rank among the inmates and offers temporary protection to his friends, Davis and Angel.

During a routine painting job, Angel and Goodyear get into a physical altercation; Angel is thrown against a wall by Goodyear and dies instantly. Butch, who was a witness to the altercation, is placed in solitary confinement while an investigation takes place.

Without Butch's protection, Davis is raped by Looney and Eckersley. Davis tries to contact his mother during the night, but an officer denies his request, telling him he'll have to wait until morning. Feeling helpless, Davis goes back to his bunk, eventually committing suicide by slitting his wrists.

The deaths of both Angel and Davis result in their dormitory going on a hunger strike during breakfast. After a stare-down in the cafeteria where tempers flare, Butch loses control, throws a chair and instigates a full blown prison riot where he brutally attacks Looney. The detention officers are overwhelmed and return to the cafeteria in riot gear, using tear gas and plastic bullets in an attempt to end the riot. During the riot, Butch tries to escape the building, but is caught and beaten by the prison officers moments later.

When the participants of an internet chat room are brutally murdered in succession, one person's past holds the key to the gruesome mystery.

Shortly after entering high school, Konoha Inoue (Miyu Irino) is recruited into the literature club by Tohko Amano (Kana Hanazawa), the president and sole member of the club, after he witnesses her ripping out a page of a book and eating it. Instead of eating actual food, Tohko can only eat stories by consuming the paper they are printed on. Konoha spends his days after school writing short stories for Tohko as "snacks". Tohko had previously set up a birdhouse on the school grounds so anyone could ask the literature club to help them in matters of love by submitting letters. Tohko and Konoha find a piece of paper in the birdhouse one day, but there is only a childish illustration on it. Tohko recognizes the drawing to be from the original manuscript of Kenji Miyazawa's poem "Songs of a Defeated Young Man". When Tohko finds the same image in the birdhouse five days in a row, they decide to stake out the scene at night, and they find Chia Takeda (Aki Toyosaki), a friend of Konoha's classmate Nanase Kotobuki (Nana Mizuki). She tells Konoha that the pictures are from Miu Asakura (Aya Hirano).

After New Years, Konoha goes to see Nanase in the hospital, who had fallen down the stairs. There, he finds Nanase confronting Miu, who had previously attempted to kill herself when she and Konoha were in junior high school. This was due in part to Konoha winning a new author's contest with his novel ''Similar to the Sky'', which he wrote under the pen name Miu Inoue. Miu had wanted to enter and win, though in the end she only sent in blank sheets to make Konoha believe she had participated. Miu eventually tells Konoha that she hates him. Later, she escapes from the hospital, and Konoha goes to find her at the roof of their junior high school, where she had tried to kill herself. After explaining her reasons for doing so (that she wants Konoha to herself since she has no one but him and he has left her alone). She influences Konoha to jump from the roof with her to which he agrees. Just as they are about to fall, Tohko arrives and Konoha manages to prevent Miu from jumping. However, back on street level, Miu jumps in front of a truck and gets hit. Afterward, Miu seemingly believes to be a third grader and has lost most mobility in her arms and legs. Konoha had dropped school in order to take care of Miu always and also resignes from the literature club, to which Tohko replies she'll be waiting for his stories (as he decides never to write again). In the hospital, it is out screened that Miu has been acting as a mentally affected person for Konoha (by Nanase).

Tohko takes them to a planetarium and draws parallels between Konoha and Miu and the main characters in ''Similar to the Sky''. Miu had always wanted to make people happy because her parents were always fighting as she grew up. Konoha tells Miu that he wrote the novel to tell her how much he loved her. Realizing that someone had loved her, Miu apologizes for everything she did to Konoha. When he realizes Tohko has disappeared, Konoha races to the train station and finds her there. She tells him that she got accepted to the university in Hokkaidō and that she can no longer eat his stories anymore. On the train, Tohko explains that she wants him to become everyone's author instead of keeping him all to herself. After Konoha departs the train, they have a final goodbye kiss and Tohko departs on the train. Years later, Konoha has put out his second novel titled ''Book Girl'', and an editor comes to his house to read his newest work before it gets released. Konoha knows the editor as she is the library girl (Tohko).

Julius Caesar lands in Britain, where a small village still holds out bravely against the Roman legions. But the situation becomes critical and the villagers have not got long to live; that's when Anticlimax, one of the villagers seeks volunteers to go seek help from his second-cousin Asterix the Gaul and bring back a barrel of "magic potion" from the Breton village of the indomitable heroes.

On the morning of his thirty-seventh birthday, Michael Brown (Adam Scott) receives a telephone call from his estranged brother Tobey (Joel Bissonnette). The two set off on a day-long odyssey in Michael's old BMW across a wild and weird Los Angeles in search of Tobey's “reason for living.” They encounter a series of surprising, comical characters and reach an unexpected, magical destination.

It is a fairy drama, the chief human character of which is Heinrich, a master bellfounder who has completed his crowning work, a bell which is to be hung in a church on a mountain inhabited by sprites. Through the hostility of the sprites, the wagon bearing the bell is overthrown and the latter is sunk in a mountain lake. Heinrich is injured and is nursed by the chief personage of the drama, Rautendelein, half child, half fairy, whose love changes Heinrich's standards and brings about the death of his wife.

White Bull, a young Sioux, captures a wild stallion he names Tonka, and trains him. He must give the horse to his bad-tempered cousin, Yellow Bull, who abuses Tonka to try and break his spirit. White Bull lets the horse escape, and Tonka is captured by the U.S. Cavalry. Captain Keogh rides Tonka at the Battle of Little Big Horn, and the horse is the only survivor of the massacre. When Captain Keogh is killed Tonka rises up and kills Keogh's killer. White Bull joins the cavalry, and is given the duty of looking after Tonka, who has received an honorable discharge from further battle duties.

Niko, a young reindeer, is told by Oona, his mother, that his father is one of the "Flying Forces", Santa's flying reindeer. For years, Niko has dreamed of joining his father in the Flying Forces, but he himself is unable to fly and even has a fear of heights. While trying to fly with the encouragement of Julius, a flying squirrel, the other young reindeer teased Niko. To avoid further teasing, Niko and his friend Saga leave their protected valley so Niko can practice without any disruptions. However, they are spotted by wolves and flee back to the herd in panic, but wind up luring the wolf pack to the valley. As the herd flees, Saga's father, the herd's leader battles and defeats a wolf, but is wounded in the process. Later, Niko overhears others talking of how his actions have damaged the herd, and decides to leave the herd in an attempt to find his father and Santa's Fell.

When Niko is discovered missing, Julius chooses to look for Niko, since he can search without leaving a trail as fresh snow is falling. Once he finds him, Julius is unable to convince Niko to return to the herd, and reluctantly joins him in the search for Santa's secret location. Meanwhile, Essie, a lost pet poodle, stumbles upon the wolf pack and is about to be eaten, but suggests to Black Wolf, the alpha wolf, the idea of killing Santa's reindeer. Essie is considered Black Wolf's good luck charm for this idea and is spared, but is also forced to join the pack. Niko and Julius discover Wilma, a weasel, stuck in a small tree branch and rescue her. She reluctantly joins Niko and Julius, believing she is indebted to them. Julius and Niko later get separated in a sudden blizzard and Niko wakes up under a pile of snow, unnoticed by the nearby wolf pack. Niko overhears Black Wolf resolving to kill Santa as well and take his place so he could also eat children.

When Niko is discovered, he flees and finds Julius, but the two are cornered between rock cliffs. Wilma saves them by triggering an avalanche with her singing, then guides Niko and Julius to safety. She then continues to follow them, since she knows the way to Santa's home due to having previously worked there as a singer. Eventually, Niko tries to cross a dangerous river by flying with Wilma's help, but fails and falls once he looks down. Thinking they are dead, the wolves head for Santa's home. At the same time, Julius and Wilma save Niko from going over a high waterfall.

While waiting for Niko to recover, Julius recounts how his real family was taken by wolves, and says that he has viewed Niko like a son now. Once they arrive at Santa's place, Niko is almost hit by the Flying Forces while standing on the runway. Niko tells them of Black Wolf's plan, but they doubt a wolf would discover Santa's secret valley. As they celebrate at their bar before heading out on Christmas Eve, Wilma sings them a song that asks them the identity of Niko's father. None of the reindeer respond, but they decide to do a "flying test" to see if Niko has the genetics to fly and thus prove if his claim is true. Upon realizing the potential danger of this, Julius yells at Niko while he is in midflight, so he falls again but is saved by Dasher. After this, the wolves find their way into the valley and the scared reindeer lose their power of flight. Black Wolf chooses to pursue Niko and corners him up a tall tree.

Meanwhile, as the other reindeer are cornered on the runway by the other wolves, Julius convinces the reindeer that they can fly, allowing them to save Niko using the sleigh. Black Wolf latches onto the sleigh, but Julius dislodges the part he is holding on to. In order to save Julius from falling as well, Niko jumps off the sleigh, only to realize that he can finally fly, and successfully saves Julius as Black Wolf falls to his seeming death. Niko, backed up by the Flying Forces, send the wolves fleeing when they realize Black Wolf's defeat. Prancer, congratulating Niko on his bravery, reveals that he is his father. Afterwards, Niko meets Santa, who invites him to join the Flying Forces. However, after Julius leaves to update Niko's mother and the herd on his well-being, Niko chooses to stay with his mother and Julius, but intends to visit Prancer. Niko and Julius then take the herd to a new valley.

The doctor Don Middleton (Joel McCrea) is so immersed in his work that he neglects his wife, Elsa (Rosemary Ames), who begins spending more time with her husband's best friend. The two develop an intimate attraction. Don and Elsa decide to divorce, ignorant of the effect on their daughter Molly (Shirley Temple). When Elsa decides to remarry, Molly runs away from home.

After last robbery, Olsen Gang went to Majorca, but without any money, as Benny and Kjeld accidentally threw loot to the garbage bin. Egon breaks to the local restaurant to get back on track with the finances, but on his dismay he's caught and whole gang returns to Denmark. After some time Egon is released; Kjeld and Benny are waiting for him but Egon abandons them: He has been hired by Stock Broker Holm Hansen to open a safe in Switzerland belonging to his deceased associate.

Egon demands 25% of the value equivalent of the contents of the safe as payment for his work. Holm Hansen agree, but has his Swiss henchman double-cross Egon once the safe is open and leave him at the mercy of the Swiss police. Egon escapes though, and makes it back to Denmark, where he reunites with Benny and Kjeld with a new plan to exact revenge and claim his payment. The safe held the Bedford Diamonds, an extremely valuable collection of jewelry, much sought-after as an inflation-proof investment for cash and wanted by police all over the world.

Holm Hansen sells the diamonds to an Arabian Oil Sheikh for 15 million dollars. Using a boat, a bus and one hundred balloons, the Gang manage to snatch the diamonds under the very nose of the Sheikh and his police escort. Egon, knowing that the diamonds cannot legally be sold, plan instead to use them to extort 50% of the 15 million from Holm Hansen, but is foiled by Yvonne, who has hidden the diamonds and replaced them with worthless souvenirs. Holm Hansen concludes that Egon is raving mad, but far too knowledgeable about his businesses and orders his henchman "Bøffen" to make Egon "disappear and stay gone forever".

Bøffen captures Egon and attempts to drown him in the Copenhagen harbor, but Egon is saved in the nick of time by Benny and Kjeld. Egon how has a final plan. With Benny and Kjeld disguised as police officers and Egon playing captive, the Gang confronts Holm Hansen. With Holm Hansen distracted by Benny, Egon and Kjeld open his safe and replace the 15 million dollars with the diamonds. Realizing he has been played, Holm Hansen calls the real police, which promptly arrest him on finding the Bedford Diamonds in his possession. The Gang subsequently escapes to Majorca with the money.

The film tells the story of a small-town boy, Bobby, who hears about the wild nights of cruising Van Nuys Boulevard in California. He drives out there to check it out, and gets involved with drag racers, topless dancers and bikers.

After some establishing scenes in which two men destroy each other's cars, Greg hooks up with a female biker, "Chooch" is arrested for running a red light after being mooned, and Bobby and Moon are arrested for drag racing, the main characters meet in jail and make plans to go to an amusement park. Chooch gets sick, but Bobby learns to dance and Greg and his dream girl Camille hit it off. Wanda, after hooking up with Bobby in his van, resists the attentions of police officer "Zass," and escapes by handcuffing him to his police car. After a visit to the doctor after Greg gets lockjaw, Chooch meets Wanda and they play air hockey. After everyone is paired off, Chooch admits his name is "Leon" and he and Wanda decide to leave and get married, and Greg and Camille are a couple, but Bobby stills needs to prove his manhood by beating Moon in a drag race in their respective vans. He wins, but Moon leaves him because he loves his van instead of her. To prove he loves her more, Bobby jumps clear as his van goes over a cliff. Moon, confused by his crazy behavior, drives off, but comes back and hugs Bobby as Greg, Camille, Leon, and Wanda circle them in cars.

Because director William Sachs' style is often rather absurdist, a number of comedic scenes in the B plot of police officer Zass on the beach, being handcuffed to his car, show a gradually more and more absurd tone as the film progresses. In the course of the film, he gets approached by a mysterious biker stealing his possessions, a dog and ultimately, towards the end of the film, his own mother who is worried about her boy while police searches for his location. The film ends with Zass buying Leon's car and getting harassed by another police officer himself for driving on Van Nuys Boulevard.

The film tells the story of a clumsy high school boy named Rex (Daniel Roebuck) who gets lost in a cave while on a class excursion. A crystal opens a time portal and sends him back in time to caveman times. There he meets "smokin' hot" Eba (Cynthia Thompson). The antics follow as Rex tries to get Eba to sleep with him.

For years, the tiny desert town of Lakeview, Arizona has been ruled by a vicious outlaw biker gang led by a man known as Angel. The residents have been terrified into submission, and the local Sheriff Gordon Cole hasn't been the same since the gang rape and murder of his fiancée Bridget for trying to bring evidence of their crimes to the FBI. Tormented by grief and alcoholism, he no longer has the will to stand against them.

One day, a mysterious young woman dressed in black leather rides into town on a motorcycle and promptly starts killing members of Angel's gang. When Cole attempts to question her about the murders, he notices her striking resemblance to his fiancée and is instantly attracted to her, much to the chagrin of local shopkeeper Sally Womack, who has wanted Cole for herself ever since Bridget's demise.

Fearing retaliation from Angel (who is currently out of town) for the deaths of his men, Sally implores Cole to arrest the woman, but he refuses to take any action against her. Undeterred, Sally enlists the help of Cole's corrupt Deputy Steve Stowe and the Mayor of Lakeview to capture her, but their plan ultimately backfires resulting in Stowe's death. Meanwhile, the woman, a skilled hand-to-hand combatant, continues to eliminate the bikers one by one as she awaits Angel's return.

During her time in Lakeview, the woman gets acquainted with several of the townspeople, most notably Bridget's younger sister Gordet, who has been living as a vagrant ever since witnessing her sister's brutal death. After hearing her story, the woman takes the emotionally shattered girl under her wing and tries to help her reclaim her life.

Eventually, Cole becomes romantically involved with the woman but is unable to learn anything about her origin. She is undoubtedly the mirror image of his fiancée Bridget, but if the two are related, the woman gives no indication. However, when the subject of Angel is brought up, she angrily admonishes Cole for his inaction, causing him to storm off in a rage. When he tries to confess his love to her, she cryptically responds that he's "in love with a ghost."

With Angel's return imminent, the residents of Lakeview begin a full-scale evacuation. Though Sally tries to convince Cole to leave with her, he chooses to stay behind and help the woman defend the town. With Gordet acting as a lookout, Cole and the woman are able to work together to dispatch the few remaining members of Angel's gang. Finally, the woman meets Angel face to face on the street, where they fight to the death. Victorious, the woman bids farewell to Cole and Gordet and rides off into the sunset, leaving both of them and the audience to speculate about her identity.

Hiver Laurant, a child who died prematurely in the womb, was given a funeral that lasted from daybreak till dusk. To make sure Hiver would not be alone in his grave, his mother has him buried with twin dolls that were named Violette and Hortense. But Hiver's spirit gives the dolls life so they travel the world and can gather stories of the world that their owner would never come to know.

The Unseen Arm

There were two men both named Laurant: One with blond hair and one with red hair. Years ago, the two Laurants faced each other in battle and the redhead took the blonde Laurant's arm. The Blonde Laurant sworn revenge as his loss of arm and phantom pain lead to him losing his job and then his family. The blonde Laurant found the redhead Laurant at a local bar one day, only to find himself unable to kill the man upon seeing him drunk and without an eye. The two then realize that they both were living meaningless lives, before the blonde Laurant was awestruck to find his former enemy killed before his eyes by a revenge-driven youth named Laurencin. The Blonde Laurant did nothing but observe while eventually realizing that his arm being cut off had its own meaning along with his life.

Other Stories

1. 呪われし宝石 (Norowareshi Houseki - The Cursed Jewel) There existed a 30-carat diamond named "Reine Michèle" (Queen of Death Michèle). This jewel always curse its owner by evoking human greed. It had passed through countless owners and being stolen countless times.

There was a man named Hiver, presumably related to Hiver Laurant. He left home to the mines in order to find something valuable enough for his sister, Noël to be wed. But, right when Hiver dug up the diamond, while holding the jewel in his hands and trembling in happiness, he was hit over the head by the owner of the mine. He died immediately, and the mining crew killed each other for the diamond. Noël, seemingly unaware of what happened, refused to marry just to wait for her brother, who would never again have a chance to come back.

1. 星屑の革紐 (Hoshikuzu no Kawahimo - The Leash of Stardust) Etoile (whose name means "star" in French) is a blind little girl. One day, her father brought home a black dog named Pleut ("it's raining" in French), who would be her lifetime friend (it's a kind of guide dog for blind people). They lived together happily as a real family till one day, Pleut became so old, weak and couldn't even move. Etoile cried so much because she knew it was dying, but from Pleut's frozen cold body she could feel a warmth. She recognized that the dog was pregnant, and would soon give birth to many more little puppies.

2. 緋色の風車 (Hiiro no Fuusha - The Scarlet Windmill) A couple was escaping from their home, ravaged by war. Quickly pursued, they ran into the forest. The pursuers were able to catch up to them and take the girl. The boy ran away without her, her frightened eyes burning into his memory. The boy, regretting his actions, promises to stay by her side to the end if they were to be reborn.

While it is never stated who the boy is, it is implied that he is a younger Laurencin, the man who would come and kill the red haired Laurant.

1. 天使の彫像 (Tenshi no Chouzou - The Sculpture of Angel) Auguste Laurant is a famous artisan, and his last creation was an angel sculpture. He took inspiration from his deceased wife who had died when giving birth to their child. Auguste couldn't overcome such great loss, that's why he sent his child into an orphanage and sworn that they would never meet again. But in the end he couldn't take it, and he often secretly entered the orphanage just to be able to hear the innocent laughters of the children.

2. 美しきもの (Utsukushiki Mono - Beautiful Things) A girl was singing about her deceased little brother. According to her singing, the meaning of "being born" is to come to this world to search for "beauty" and the meaning of "death" is also to depart to another world to search for "beauty."

The "beauty" she was singing is the peaceful sceneries of her village, and the colors of each season that passed by. Her pure singing voice and her bright harmonica sound would forever continue her little brother's song.

The deceased little brother's name is Laurant.

1. 歓びと哀しみの葡萄酒 (Yorokobi to Kanashimi no Budoushu - The Wine of Joy and Sadness) Loraine de Saint-Laurent is the daughter of a noble family traditionally manufacturing grape wine. However, she fell in love with a servant whose name she didn't even know. Meanwhile, her stepmother only cared about fashions and banquets and didn't care at all about the family's future. To ensure the family's future, Loraine's father arranged a marriage between her and an even richer family. Unable to stand that, Loraine and her servant arranged an escape but they were caught. The servant was killed right away.

Back at home, Loraine escaped again, and on the way she found the person who killed her lover, and killed him. Since then, she spent the rest of her life taking care of the grape trees just like what her loved servant had done.

1. 黄昏の賢者 (Tasogare no Kenja - The Sage of Twilight) This song is about an encounter between Chloe, a young woman troubled over deciding whether or not to give birth, and a mysterious nobleman named "Savant" ("sage" in French). Savant's real name was Christophe Jean-Jacques Saint-Laurent. He gave her many hard-to-understand advices that were as mysterious as himself. Those advices are the key to solve Roman's "Dark" side. Could it be because twilight is the moment between Light and Darkness, and thus Savant is a wise man who stands in this interval and understands everything about all Roman regardless of "Light" and "Dark" sides?

"As the "Windmill" keeps revolving, quietly weaving "Beautiful" illusions Under the flickering "Flame" those fools who extended their "Arms" Trying to seize the "Jewel" but then kept wandering in the interval of "Morning and Night" Even though the "Stardust" glitters, the "Wine" continues to invoke people into its intoxicated dream From the cage in which the "Sage" escapes, the true meaning of the "Message" is being questioned As the "Angel" sings farewell song, the Fifth Roman will be explained by the "Horizon""

1. １１文字の伝言 (11 Moji no Dengon - The 11-letter Message) There are two explanations for this song. It could be about a mother singing for her deceased son, or about a mother who is already dead after giving birth to her son. Nevertheless, the setting is the same - a cold Winter morning ("Hiver" means "Winter" in French).

This song is the key to solve Roman's "Light" side.

The plot starts from where it stopped in ''Vengeance of Orion''. Orion awakes in a temple after being transported to the Neolithic era by the Creators. He then sees Anya whom he had been looking for throughout the previous novel in the series. As they leave the temple together, he spies a statue of Set initially taking it to be a man wearing a totem mask. They enter a garden and as Orion tries to take a fruit, Anya stops him warning him of Set who owns the garden. She then tells him of their mission which is to assess the situation and then come back for more equipment. As they walk on they encounter a group of slaves been guarded by a dinosaur. Orion with the help of Anya, then saves the baby from been killed and eaten by the dinosaur. The slaves been cowed warn of the retribution from their masters. Orion then decides to take them along till they get to the forest. Upon arrival in the forest, Anya tries to contact the rest of the Creators only to discover that her access has been blocked by Set thus trapping them in that era without any help. They however, try to settle down in the area and look for game to kill so as to survive. Anya, then encourages Orion to try to initiate contact maybe he would be successful.

This serves as a beacon for Set now locates them and promises to send them punishment for killing his creature. They then move deep inside the forest where, they hide and encounter another group of humans, who already live there, led by Kraal. Orion then suggests the merging of the two groups under Kraal's leadership which he reluctantly agrees to. However, that same night, Set sends huge gigantic snakes which attack them and kill quite a number of them. This almost weakens Kraal's resolve to unite his people to stand against Set. Orion however, convinces him and together with Anya, they try to unite the tribes to stand against Set. Their work is unfortunately undone by Reeva, one of the slaves whose baby Orion saved from the dinosaur and now Kraal's wife, sells Anya and Orion out to Set. They are both captured and taken to Set's fortress. Set tries to torture them in order to find out about a particular time nexus. They succeed in escaping but are unable to fight their way out. They then jump into Set's time warp device and try to use it to escape.

They find out that the time warp is too strong to be over ridden and find themselves in the Cretaceous. They try to discover what Set's plan is for that era. They are eventually captured and Set deals with Anya who with her fellow Creators abandon both the earth and Orion to Set's devilish plans in order to save their skin. However, Set plans to send Orion to a time before the Creators became aware of him to murder, them all. He almost succeeds but Orion manages to break free of his control and he allows himself to be used by the creators to destroy Sheol the sun of Set's home planet Shaydan. This sets of a cataclysm wherein the debris of Shaydan then pelts the earth with meteors which wipe out the dinosaurs leaving only mammals. However, Set survives and is hiding on earth in the Neolithic.

Orion also awakes back in the Neolithic and is intent upon revenge. He goes back into the Dark Ages and brings along the army of Subotai, general of Ogotai's Mongolian army. He then goes to Set's fortress himself to confront him. He succeeds in throwing Set's fortress into chaos. However, Set proves too strong for him until he is helped by the Creators coming out of their hiding place. Set is then thrown into a time stasis where he is left to roast forever in the flames of hell.

Category:1990 American novels Category:American science fiction novels Category:Novels by Ben Bova Category:Tor Books books

An ironic life review of Rosa von Praunheim based on a fictional story about his murder. For a sensational story about the victim, an idiosyncratic TV reporter tries to unravel details about the director's life. Meanwhile, the police are groping in the dark trying to solve the case. But as always when it comes to the murder of a gay man, the officers are certain that the killer is to be found in the gay scene.

A young woman, whose mother died giving birth to her, is facing eternal life in either Heaven or Hell. She must make the choice whom to listen to, her guardian angel, whom she met when she was a child, or the evil ones.

The film uses a nonlinear narrative, alternating between J. Edgar Hoover's role in establishing the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and his later years trying to safeguard it against perceived threats. As a frame story, the aging Hoover narrates the events of the Bureau's early years to a series of agents he has assigned to ghostwrite a book about it.

In 1919, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer survives an assassination attempt by anarchists and assigns Justice Department employee Hoover to a division dedicated to purging radicals. Helen Gandy rejects Hoover's awkward advances, but becomes his personal secretary and confidant. By arranging to make the anarchist Emma Goldman eligible for deportation, Hoover creates legal precedent to deport numerous other radicals. Following the Palmer Raids, Palmer loses his job and his successor, Harlan F. Stone, appoints Hoover as director of the department's Bureau of Investigation. Hoover has Gandy create a confidential file in which he collects incriminating information on people in power.

With the First Red Scare over, Hoover focuses the Bureau on fighting gangsters. When the Lindbergh kidnapping captures national attention in 1932, he urges passage of the Federal Kidnapping Act, increasing the Bureau's power. He establishes the FBI Laboratory, applying forensic science techniques to the investigation, and has the registration numbers on the ransom bills monitored. Though Charles Lindbergh Jr. is found dead, these techniques lead to the arrest and conviction of Bruno Richard Hauptmann for the crime.

Well into adulthood, Hoover continues to live with his mother, who is his moral guide. He hires Clyde Tolson to the Bureau in 1930; the two develop a close personal relationship, and Hoover promotes Tolson to Associate Director. When Hoover confesses to his mother that he is uncomfortable in romantic situations with women, she says she would rather he be dead than gay. When Tolson tells Hoover that he loves him, Hoover panics and claims that he wants to marry actress Dorothy Lamour. Tolson becomes infuriated and the two fight, culminating in Tolson kissing Hoover and threatening to end their association if Hoover ever talks about another woman again. Hoover's mother dies, and he is grief-stricken.

Following an embarrassing line of questioning by Senate Appropriations Committee chair Kenneth McKellar in 1933, Hoover becomes increasingly vengeful against those who challenge his reputation and the Bureau's. He uses covert listening devices to collect compromising information which he uses to blackmail key political figures over the years, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, protecting his position and increasing the Bureau's power. He starts an illegal counterintelligence program to fight radicals and communists of the 1960s, culminating in his unsuccessful attempt to blackmail Martin Luther King Jr. into declining the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 via the FBI–King suicide letter.

Tolson suffers a stroke, and Hoover's strength declines with age. Fearing that President Richard Nixon will acquire his confidential files and use them to ruin the FBI's reputation, he asks Gandy to keep them out of Nixon's hands. Tolson urges Hoover to retire and accuses him of exaggerating his involvement with key events in the Bureau's history. Hoover admits his feelings for Tolson before dying at home. Gandy destroys Hoover's files before Nixon's men can seize them.

At the Dunphy house, Phil (Ty Burrell) and Claire (Julie Bowen) become worried that Alex (Ariel Winter) is studying too much. The two attempt to get her to take a break and eventually have to force her to do so. Alex eventually gets the second-highest grade in the class, behind a classmate named Sanjay Patel. Alex believes this is due to the fact that Sanjay has a doctor and a professor for parents, while she must do her best with what she was given. This statement offends Phil and Claire, with Claire starting to think they are holding their children back.

Later when they go to the movies, they run into Sanjay's parents who are there to see a French movie. Phil and Claire decide to follow them to encourage their kids. Midway through the movie Phil leaves to watch ''Croctopus 3D'', the film they originally intended to see, since they both are fans of cheesy horror films involving monsters. Phil has fun at his movie while Claire falls asleep at the highly acclaimed French one. After waking her up, Phil tells her that Alex still had one of the highest grades in the class, and dumb parents do not have kids that smart. Claire is reassured and they leave for home after seeing that the "bright Dr. Patel" cannot validate his parking ticket.

Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) bump into Mitchell's ex-girlfriend, Tracy (Mary Lynn Rajskub) at a mall. Mitchell suggest hanging out, but she decides against it. Later, they see Tracy with what appears to be an eight-year-old red-headed child (seen only from behind), whose approximate age would match the last time Tracy and Mitchell saw each other (and the only time Mitchell had sex with a woman). Mitchell tells this to Cameron at dinner, making him anxious. He eventually agrees with Mitchell that they should meet the child, who they are sure is his son. However, they then realize that he actually is a little person (Mark Povinelli) and Tracy's husband. The situation becomes more awkward when he opens his present from Mitchell and Cameron, a "Little Slugger" baseball glove.

Meanwhile, the Hoffmans, a couple that Gloria (Sofía Vergara) and Jay (Ed O'Neill) Pritchett met on a vacation, come to visit them much to Jay's openly (and Gloria's more discreet) chagrin. He eventually tells them his true feelings not knowing that they were spending the night at their house. The couple decides to leave in a cab, as Gloria comes down to apologize they give her a copy of Gabriel García Márquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" that they had signed by the author specially for her, so she convinces them to stay by telling them that Jay's "mind is going away". In the morning, Jay decides to apologize to the Hoffmans; however, during his apology he drinks from a prank glass that Manny gave him, ending in him being covered in orange juice. The Hoffmans leave believing that Jay is mad and admiring Gloria for enduring such a situation.

The story begins at the Shelter, a massive underground bunker, where a small tribe of humans prepare to send off a young man named Tim Meredith on the yearly pilgrimage. Walter Kent, the Tribe Leader, tells Meredith that if he makes it back to the Shelter, he will be the first in fifty years to do so. The journey is to a highly intelligent computer—the Great C. It was constructed by the greatest scientists and soon grew too powerful, ultimately causing a nuclear holocaust called the Smash to prove its strength to humans. The Great C now demands a tribute every year using the threat of a second Smash. This tribute must ask the Great C three questions and, if it cannot answer the questions, it will forever leave the humans alone. If it can answer the questions, the young tribute will be killed.

Tim Meredith reaches the Great C in the ruins of Federal Research Station 7. He asks the three questions his tribe spent all year devising:

• Where does the rain come from?
• What keeps the sun moving through the sky?
• How did the world begin?

The Great C answers all three questions with ease. Meredith is then commanded to jump into the machine's vat of hydrochloric acid where his body's nutrients will be used as fuel to power the Great C. Meredith's bones and metal helmet are expelled, joining the pile of refuse from the previous fifty. The Great C awaits for the next year.

Back at the Shelter, the tribe discusses Meredith's death and hope for the day when the Great C will not be able to answer a question. They immediately start preparing for the next year, attempting to come up with difficult questions.

Written by Hong Kong veteran storyteller Cheng Jieyin (程洁茵) and Singaporean writer Koh Teng Liang (许声亮), The Teochew Family tells the story of Chaozhou rice merchant Cai Qingyang (Kenneth Tsang), owns Tai Feng Zhan (泰丰栈). Cai has two brothers, one of them who died early. Another is the useless playboy Cai Qingan (Wang Changli). Cai also has a sister, Cai Chuning (Zeng Huifen), who is a female scholar and a teacher. Cai Qingyang decides to arrange a marriage between his second brother's widow (Hong Huifang) with a poor scholar Xiao Denglong (Chen Shucheng), who turns out to be Chuning's lover. Chuning tries to get Denglong to leave Chaozhou with her, but Denglong declines. Chuning then argues with her brother, and leaves Chaozhou alone.

In the late 1940s, the Chinese Civil War was about to break out, rice prices were going up, and there was severe flooding in Chaozhou. Cai Qingyang realises that his business might collapse soon and for his own family's sake. Cai leaves for Nanyang (Later known as Singapore) and would later reunite with his sister. Chuning has a new fiancee, the Hainanese Sailor Fu Yongbing (Zhu Houren). Qingyang decides to work with Yongbing to smuggle goods during the Korean War. Qingyang succeeds and manages to get some money to reopen his rice business. Great successes need great sacrifices, Yongbing was killed by the pirates in one trip. This causes Chuning to be furious at Qingyang, and she vows to never forgive him for his death. Chuning also adopted Yongbing's godson Hong San (Chew Chor Meng). Hong San however has a brain tumour that causes him to collapse, Chuning knowing that she would never have enough money to pay for Hong San's condition begs Qingyang to help Hong San. Qingyang, who had felt guilty over Yongbing's death agrees. Soon, Qingyang manages to bring the whole family down to Singapore except for his wife Zhang Yalan (Li Yinzhu) who stayed to protect the ancestral home.

As Cai continues to expand his business over the years to become the rice tycoon, the drama then turns its attention to the second generation with the romances of Cai Meina, Qingyang's niece (Zoe Tay) and Hong San (Chew Chor Meng), Cai Chongwu (Qian Hanqun) and Mai Xiaodong (Lina Ng).

As the years go by, Cai Qingyang suffers multiple tragedies, the death of his eldest son Cai Chongwen (Wu Kaishen), his son Chongwu gone mad, Qingyang now has to fight with Meina, who has decided to change the way the family business is being run, to keep up with the times.

Low-income government employee Fayza is sexually assaulted on her way home from work, first in a taxi and then a bus. At home, she resists her husband's attempts to be intimate. She attends a free weekly self-defence class, but instructor Seba forces her to leave because she denies being sexually harassed due to shame. On her way home, Nasr attempts to grope Fayza and she defends herself with a pin from her hijab, causing her to be removed from the bus.

After attending a football game, Seba is separated from her physician husband in the crowd and sexually assaulted. Her husband becomes distant due to guilt while her mother discourages her from reporting the assault due to shame and the likelihood that her attackers would not be prosecuted. The next morning she finds that she is having a miscarriage and separates from her husband due to lack of emotional support.

Nelly Roushdy is a young stand-up comedian. At a show, her fiancé Omar belittles her and turns the largely male audience against her. During her day job at a call centre, she is verbally harassed by a customer. Later, while crossing a street to visit her mother, a driver grabs her through his truck window, gropes her, and drags her alongside his vehicle. Aided by witnesses, she pulls the driver from the truck and delivers him to the police. The police file a report only due to Omar's insistence, and won't include a harassment charge. Nelly files the first sexual harassment lawsuit in Egypt. While Nelly is interviewed on television, she is congratulated by a female caller while a male caller victim blames and slut shames her. Omar supports Nelly but their families encourage her to drop the lawsuit, believing that it will harm their reputations.

On Fayza's next bus trip, she is attacked by Nasr again and stabs him in the groin before leaving the bus. Police detective Essam investigates the incident and accuses Nasr of groping. Fayza's husband confronts her about their lack of intimacy but she won't admit to the reason. Fayza stabs another assaulter on the street. The media begin to report a mysterious vigilante who targets molesters, and Fayza becomes more comfortable riding the bus. Seba's self-defence course has grown and moved to a venue that hosts comedy shows, bringing the three women into contact. They plan another attack but the opportunity doesn't present itself.

Essam identifies Fayza as a suspect and summons the three women to the police station. He tells them that Fayza will receive a life sentence if he arrests her, but believes that this will inspire other women to commit copycat crimes. He releases them with a warning.

Fayza begins walking to work. Her husband gives her flowers but she continues to rebuke his attempts at romance. Seba is harassed by a young boy who she catches and assaults. She tells her husband that she wants a divorce, revealing that she had a miscarriage and blaming him. Essam's wife dies in childbirth. Nelly tells Seba and Fayza that she will take responsibility for the stabbings. As they argue, Fayza gets angry and blames the other women for not wearing hijabs and appearing promiscuous. Seba says that this is backward thinking and cuts her long hair. Nelly tells the story of her assault at her next comedy show. On a bus, Fayza witnesses a woman being assaulted and does not intervene. Seba sees a man groping a woman and attacks him with a razor blade – Fayza confronts the man, her husband, over what he had done. Seba confesses to Essam but he releases her as no complaint was made.

At the hearing for Nelly's sexual assault lawsuit, Omar responds to the judge by shouting from the gallery that she will not drop her case. Essam, Seba and Fayza are also there, and the film ends with Seba and Fayza making peace.

The book recounts the children's adventures as they live by the rules of their community and come into conflict with the city's residents. It begins by introducing some of the children. Branko's father is a traveling fiddler, so Branko used to live with his mother, who worked in a tobacco plant. But she has died, leaving Branko homeless. He finds a fish on the ground at the market, picks it up and is arrested for theft. Zora frees him through the window of the prison and takes him to the castle, which the gang has made their home. After passing a test of his courage, Branko is accepted into the gang of outlaws along with Nicola, Pavle and Duro.

The city residents persecute the children, who play pranks on them in retaliation. In one episode, the gang steals a chicken from the old fisherman Gorian, who is honest, poor and works hard. Branko and Zora feel sorry for him and try to repay him with chickens stolen from the wealthy Karaman. Gorian catches them and insists that they return the stolen chickens. The children promise to help Gorian by working for him when he is short-handed. They help him in his conflicts with a large fishery.

An employee, called Kozyavin, receives an assignment from his boss to find another employee called Sidorov. Without any questions, he soon left the office to search for Sidorov. Encountering traffic, he walked instead through sewer. He then arrived a wall, which was destroyed soon by a construction machine. There he met a builder and touched his shoulders. The builder turned to him and Kozyavin asked him, but he didn't hear anything he said close his ears. The builder took a little red flag from his suit and waved with it, until every builder stopped work, together with the machines. Kozyavin asked one more time, if he saw Sidorov. After a surprising action, he walked further to search for Sidorov. An active ramp in the building site, which worked intermittently up and down, didn't frighten up Kozyavin.

Without taking any break, Kozyavin continued to walk. On a fair, he walked upon a pole. The children, who were amazed about his acrobatic skills, were questioned by Kozyavin. After no reaction by them, the employee Kozyavin pursued his way with an optimistic view to comply with the task. The second person Kozyavin met was a violinist, who played a composition. Kozyavin asked the violinist if he saw Sidorov. Without any response, Kozyavin nudged him and took his violin bow. Walking on surrealistic stairs, he opened the door to a commission building.

Kozyavin sparked a light and went through paintings and antiques and finally saw two people, who looked like thieves. Kozyavin was oblivious that they were going to steal the items from this building. However, Kozyavin touched one of the man's shoulders and asked the same question as before. Surprised, they helped Kozyavin by giving directions to Sidorov.

Early next day he pursued the same direction. He entered a pipeline on the ground, in which curves were unrealistically smoothed by Kozyavin himself. He jumped from the pipeline onto the ground and trod on a dry veld. Determined to meet with Sidorov, Kozyavin went throughout the veld, until he climbed up to a mountain. With a good view, he watched everything around him. Unfortunately he didn't find anyone and continued to move forward. He arrived at a desert and got a view of a giant skeleton of a prehistoric animal. Walking through its backbone like a stair, he saw an archaeologist, who was researching the skeleton, and asked him the common question. With no reply and no regret about the destroyed skeleton by the archaeologist, Kozyavin continued walking. A body of stagnant water didn't block him to accomplish the task the boss gave him, so Kozyavin swam, until he reached Antarctica. Kozyavin walked around the world, until he arrived his office after failing to accomplish his boss's instruction to find Sidorov. Kozyavin answered it with a shrug and went back to his room.

A single mother whose faith in love died with her former husband learns that Christmas miracles can still happen in director Harvey Frost's warmhearted tale of winter magic. Beth Sawtelle (Crystal Bernard) is a devoted single mother and advertising executive whose current campaign could put her on the fast track to the big time. The holiday season is here, and in order to sell the latest in video game technology, Beth's campaign needs the perfect Santa Claus. As Beth burns the midnight oil night after night and attempts to convince her young son Jake (Dominic Scott Kay) never to have faith in fantasies, the wistful young man pens a letter to Santa asking for a new dad for the holidays. It seems that up in the North Pole the time has come for Saint Nick to pass along the seasonal responsibilities to his son Nick (Steve Guttenberg), but in order to take the position, Nick must have a Mrs. Claus before Christmas Eve. Upon receiving the Christmas request from young Jake, Nick sets his sights on Los Angeles, and Beth Sawtelle in particular. Despite his best intentions, it's going to take more than a Christmas miracle to convince the dejected widow that love can still conquer all.

Charles comes out of prison after serving five years for attempted robbery. His wife wants him to go legit but he immediately starts making plans for robbing the gambling casino at Cannes. Charles hires two assistants: Francis, a young man whom he met in prison, and Francis' brother-in-law, Louis. Francis is a petty thief discontented with his working-class background, while Louis is a humble mechanic, almost completely honest to a fault.

Charles orders Francis to go to the casino ahead of him, create a cover story as an affluent high-roller, and find a means to get access to the backstage, which will be crucial in the route to the elevator shaft that is the sole means to the basement vault in which the casino proceeds are kept. Francis does this by beginning a romance with dancer Brigitte. However, enjoying his affluent facade, he gets so caught up in the wooing of Brigitte he frequently ignores Charles' communications, which almost leads to the robbery being cancelled until Francis assures him he can stick to the intricate plan. Meanwhile, Louis tells Charles he will forgo his share of the money, fearing that he will be seduced by the luxuries it can buy him and that it will lead to more illegal behavior.

On the night of the robbery, Francis cavalierly breaks up with Brigitte, but watches her performance. After the show ends, he hides backstage, goes to the casino roof and lowers himself down first into the casino ventilation system, and ultimately the elevator shaft. He penetrates the counting room, subdues the head cashier and his assistants, then lets in Charles, who puts the money in a pair of bags. The two of them leave with a billion francs. Francis hides the money in a swimming pool locker room.

The next day Charles unexpectedly sends Louis on a train out of town, and demands to meet with Francis immediately. He shows Francis the front page of the newspaper – there is a photograph with Francis in it, taken the night before as he had been watching the stage show. Charles tells Francis he's too risky, and thus he will leave the resort quickly and send Francis his share later. He orders him to get the bags and return them to him in an outdoor swap near the pool. Francis retrieves the bags, but finds police are everywhere in the pool area, making it difficult to pass the money to Charles, who is waiting at a table. Francis then overhears the cashier telling detectives he remembers the look of the suitcases used to carry out the money.

Desperate, Francis places the bags in the pool. One bag breaks open, and Francis and Charles look on helplessly as the money inside floats to the top of the pool.

The plot centres on the character Belphegor, a nobleman by birth whose life circumstances change and who is forced to take up the life of a traveling showman.

The unexpected death of a highly disciplined and successful army member of ''Camp San Marcial'' is officially explained as suicide. Major Olmedo had always followed the letter of the law and never questioned orders through the army hierarchy. He only broke the law in one respect and that was to carry an unauthorized pistol, since his name had appeared on a terrorist organization's hit-list.

Major Olmedo had recently completed a report which was commissioned by the Ministry of Defence in Madrid. In it, he recommended the closure of Camp San Marcial as an efficiency measure. This highlighted the growing cleavage between his own generation and style of troop which were dedicated to peace-keeping and winning wars with technology; vis-a-vis the older, Francoists, who still believed in numbers and yearned for a reinstatement of the recently abolished compulsory military service.

When he gets shot there is an internal inquiry which results in a verdict of suicide. Marina, the Major's daughter, is not satisfied with this outcome and hires a private detective, Ricardo Cupido. Cupido sets about investigating the "crime" scene with rigour and a professional manner. The scene itself simply is the pistol and a note in hurried handwriting saying two words, ''Forgive me'' scrawled on one of the Major's business cards.

Cupido questions each of the suspects and mulls over this problem even where Marina gives up on learning the truth because of the strain it is putting on her and dismisses him. Cupido does get to the bottom of the mystery.

The film is "(a) tale of chivalry in modern times, involving a Glasgow grocer and a Russian princess imprisoned in a deserted castle" according to the British Film Institute.

The film starts with a depiction of Tom's current life. A businessman, he is lost in his deals and betrays his wife with a Buddhist girlfriend of his. When his wife threatens to leave him, he loses control and beats her violently. He is sentenced to 6 months in prison.

After being released and having spent some time with his mother and his brother, who live in a trailer park in absence of the early deceased father, he decides to move to London. Overcoming initial problems with the agent regarding his criminal record, he finally moves into a flat in Bloomsbury.

Self-doubt and loneliness now seem to dominate his days. He eventually befriends a young girl called PJ. A friendship develops, which helps Tom regaining a bit of warmth and colour in life. But then Tom meets his beautiful French neighbour Inès. A tender connection develops among them.

This quietly mysterious woman intrigues Tom. When he finds out about her life, it finally puts everything in Tom’s own story into perspective. There might be damage, but there is always hope.

The circus group performs at the Shanfa Circus when a huge load of bombs crash on the stage and the performers try to find a home to live and get money for food.

A story of the relationship between father and son, John and Eamon Doyle. Based on a short story by John McGahern, it is set in rural Ireland during the 50's, a period of mass emigration and social change. Young Irish emigrants, on arriving in America, have been enlisted and sent to fight in the Korean war. One of those emigrants, Luke Moran, dies in Korea and his home village is awash with rumours about the compensation the Moran family received on Luke's death. John Doyle hears the rumours but remains silent. Ben Moran is John's arch-enemy, a feud traced back to the Civil War. Eamon comforts and falls in love with Una Moran.

Haller is called on to defend a long-standing client, Lisa Trammel, when she is suspected of murdering wealthy Mitchell Bondurant. According to forensic evidence, the victim, who was six-foot-two, had been murdered with a hammer blow from behind, on the very top of his head, while standing up.

Haller and his staff (including his ex-wife, Lorna Taylor, and his investigator and Lorna's husband, Dennis "Cisco" Wojciechowski) work on demolishing the prosecution case, led by Andrea Freeman, against whom Haller has never won. On discovering the probable involvement of the murder victim with organized crime, Haller concentrates on establishing alternative suspects as well as relying on the forensic evidence which suggests that Trammel is physically incapable of the crime.

Haller's case hinges on the testimony of a witness whom he manoeuvres into taking the Fifth Amendment on the witness stand, thus creating a plausible alternate killer for the jury (making him both the fifth witness in sequence and the "Fifth" witness). Before Haller can detail Opparizio's crime connections in open court, the witness takes the Fifth, ending his testimony. The judge instructs the jury to disregard the entire testimony, but Haller's last witness, Cisco, presents evidence that causes the jury to acquit Trammel.

In a final twist that introduces "a moral dimension" into the case, Haller realizes that Trammel is guilty. He confronts her, and is shaken by her indifferent response. Three weeks later, Haller's law practice is booming as a result of the trial, when he gets a call from Trammel, in which she both accuses him of tipping off the police to dig up her garden and begs him to represent her when she is tried for her husband's murder. He refuses, telling her that he has just filed to run for Los Angeles County district attorney because he no longer wishes to associate with people like her.

At the North Pole, while celebrating his birthday, Santa Claus receives a letter and gift from New York City, informing him of the passing of old friend and toy store owner Mr. Hucklebuckle, who was an ambassador for "The Santa Cause", an organization of delegates who embrace and encourage Christmas spirit around the world. To cheer Santa up, his head elf Eli uses the great Christmas icicle to bring the gift, a stuffed dog, to life. Santa names the puppy Paws, telling him that they will be best friends for all eternity.

In New York, recently-orphaned Quinn arrives at an orphanage run by Ms. Stout, an strict and abusive woman who disapproves of anything that the children love, often confiscating and destroying them in her incinerator in the house's basement. Quinn befriends the other girls, including Willamina "Will", who has lost her Christmas spirit since the death of her own parents when she was Quinn's age.

Meanwhile, Mr. Hucklebuckle's grandson James, a CPA from Los Angeles and his wife Kate arrive at his toy store and are informed by Mr. Stewart (Bill Cobbs) that they must run the store profitably for one Christmas season in order to gain ownership. They decide to hire a store Santa to bring in customers, intending to sell the store once they have ownership.

Santa and Paws decide to travel to New York to visit Hucklebuckle's store, landing in Central Park. On the streets, Santa bumps into Ms. Stout, falls into the street and is hit by a cab. Paws tries to ask for help, which leads to him and Santa getting separated. Santa is hospitalized and his magical crystal is stolen by homeless man Gus. He recovers, but has amnesia, and when nobody appears to claim him, James and Kate take him in and give him a job as their store Santa, where he quickly becomes popular with the public.

Learning of the situation, Eli and Eddy the uncanny elf dog go to New York City, where they recruit local Boy Scout Jimmy to help. Eventually, they find Gus and get him to return Santa's crystal to them. However, Santa soon lands back in the hospital after being without his crystal too long. Meanwhile, Paws meets Quinn and is brought back to the orphanage, where he befriends the girls and uses his crystal's magic to give them Christmas cheer.

However, Ms. Stout discovers this and locks Paws and Will (who takes the fall for Quinn) in the basement, confiscating Quinn's mother's ornament and Paws's crystal. As a result, Paws reverts to stuffed animal form by the next morning. When Ms. Stout discovers this, she assumes Paws escaped and attempts to throw him into the incinerator, but he is narrowly saved by Quinn. Eli, Eddy, and Jimmy then arrive and reunite Paws with his crystal, restoring him to life.

After explaining the situation to everyone, Will and Quinn leave with them to help Santa. After arriving at the hospital and finding Santa near death, they reunite him with his crystal, but its magic has been too used up to work. Paws then sacrifices his crystal's magic to restore Santa's, reverting him to stuffed animal form once more while saving Santa's life. Santa, Eli and Eddy rush back to the North Pole and reach the main crystal just in time. Paws returns to life as a full-grown dog named Santa Paws and the holiday is saved.

Back in New York, much to the excitement of the girls, Ms. Stout is sacked and evicted from the orphanage after Eli reports her misconduct and abusive nature to Quinn's social worker Mrs. Gibson, who then takes over and later invites Gus to spend the holiday at the orphanage. Santa and Santa Paws reunite with Quinn, Will, James and Kate on Christmas Eve, returning Quinn's mother's ornament to her before continuing their deliveries. Mr. Stewart returns on Christmas Day and James and Kate tell him that they ran the store profitably, and they decide to keep the store and continue the Hucklebuckle legacy after introducing him to the girls, whom they have adopted.

''Last Man Standing: Killbook of a Bounty Hunter'' tells the story of Gabriel, a genetically engineered soldier. He is a warrior of supernatural strength, anointed as the guardian of Amerika and its people. Admired and celebrated by most, Gabriel's world takes a sudden turn when he finds himself framed by the terrorist group Pandemonium, for a series of atrocious crimes that he had no part in. For these alleged crimes, Gabriel is sent to the treacherous Level-9 Prison Facility and incarcerated with the very scum he helped put away. After nine years of torture and agony, the once famed hero kills his captors and escapes the 9 levels of hell he has been condemned to. From here on forward, Gabriel embarks on a journey into the heart of darkness; the New Amerika, a world filled with colorful and deadly characters that will either help or try to eliminate him – neither of which motive is always apparent. As the once invincible hero digs deep to unravel the true reason behind his framing, he also discovers a problem he never had to face before: he's beginning to lose what once made him who he is, and fast.

The film opens with a framing device set in post-Second World War Britain. When a young man comes to aged Anton Marek (Albert Lieven) for romantic advice, Marek tells him a story from his own past, which leads to a flashback.

In the days leading up to the First World War, Lieutenant Marek is assigned to an Austro-Hungarian cavalry regiment stationed in a small town. There he meets Baroness Edith de Kekesfalva (Lilli Palmer), a young woman who is a paraplegic as the result of a horse riding accident. Noticing how the young man has cheered up his depressed daughter, Baron Emil de Kekesfalva (Ernest Thesiger) asks him to spend time with her. Marek finds her company pleasant enough and agrees.

The baron has consulted many renowned doctors in vain; none hold out any hope for his daughter's recovery. Finally, in desperation, he has turned to hardworking, dedicated Dr. Albert Condor (Cedric Hardwicke), who at least refuses to give up. Condor notices a great improvement in Edith's attitude, which he accurately ascribes to her falling in love with Marek. Marek remains unaware of Edith's feelings for him.

One day, Marek tells the family about a promising treatment in Switzerland, despite Condor's warning to wait until he has had a chance to investigate. Condor later informs him that it cannot help Edith, but by then the damage is done. With the hope of being able to walk again unassisted, Edith reveals her love for Marek. Guilt-ridden, the young man pretends to love her and agrees to marry her after she is cured.

However, when rumors of the engagement leak out, Marek angrily denies them to his questioning, disapproving fellow officers. When he is confronted by his commanding officer, Marek admits the truth. To minimize the scandal, his commander immediately arranges his transfer to another unit far away.

Marek goes to see Condor before he leaves, but the doctor is away. Instead, Condor's blind wife Klara (Gladys Cooper) speaks with him. She gets him to recognize that he may love Edith after all. He tries to telephone Edith, but the lines are barred from civilian use because of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that same day. Marek must take the train to report for duty with his new unit, but Klara assures him she will see Edith and clear things up.

When Klara visits Edith, she finds her alone on the rooftop terrace of her family's mountainside mansion. Edith has heard about Marek's public denial of their engagement and no longer trusts anyone. With Klara powerless to stop her, she wheels herself to the edge and flings herself over to her death.

The story is about a wife who spends most of her time in the garden with her duck, reading and meditating, while the duck is chasing spiders to eat. Her husband is inside the house all the time. One day, the woman gives birth to their son, and the man, tired of the duck, kills it. A few years later, the man is uncertain whether he is the father of the son, since the boy seems to be in the garden all the time. The boy asks his father if he wants to play with him in the garden, and the father agrees, only to find the boy is eating spiders.

In this story, told in the first person, the narrator undertakes a journey from the city of Destruction to the Celestial City. The journey, taken by the narrator due to curiosity and free time, can now be made by train instead of on foot. He immediately meets a fellow traveler, Mr. Smooth-it-away, a native of Destruction, who seems to know all about the Celestial City, despite having never been there before. Their train passes by several landmarks, including the Slough of Despond, the House of the Interpreter, the Palace Beautiful, and the Valley of the Shadow of Death. The train does not stop at these locations, however.

At the end of their journey, they exit the train and prepare to board a ferry-boat that will cross the river to the Celestial City. Mr. Smooth-it-away, however, does not accompany the narrator, who seems surprised. Mr. Smooth-it-away admits that he never intended to go to the Celestial City and only joined the narrator for his "pleasant company". Then, laughing, smoke comes out of his mouth and nostrils and flames dart out of his eyes as he reveals his true form as an "impudent fiend". The narrator then wakes up and realizes his journey has been a dream.

''Slights'' is a first-person narrative by a troubled woman, Stevie, who lost her father when she was nine, and her mother when she was 18. Her father, a police officer, was killed during a mysterious shooting incident on the job, and her mother died when Stevie crashed their car while driving recklessly. The accident left Stevie badly injured and she had a near-death experience in which she found herself in a dark room filled with angry people threatening her. Usually nothing frightened Stevie, but that room terrified her, and she was relieved when she was revived in hospital.

From an early age Stevie was anti-social and soon earned herself a bad reputation. After her mother's death she had the house to herself and began digging in the backyard, an activity her father had often indulged in. She stopped cleaning the house, and herself, and berated and abused most people she encountered. Her indifference to herself and others led to a suicide attempt when she was 21. She returned to that dark room filled with angry people clawing and tearing at her, and she was very grateful when someone found her unconscious and took her to hospital. While the room frightened her, she was intrigued by it and realised that the people in it were those she had slighted at some point in her life. She wanted to find out what other people's rooms were like and took a job at a local hospice to be close to people near death, but was frustrated when she could not get the information she wanted. Then she resorted to picking up strangers and bringing them home. She would get them drunk or drug them, and start killing them, but revive them as they lost consciousness so she could interrogate them. She never got much out of them and they all died. She buried the bodies in the backyard amongst her father's secrets. Stevie's backyard excavations had uncovered toys and trinkets from her childhood, but also objects she had never seen before, and bones.

Indifferent to life and her fascination with death led to several more suicide attempts and trips to her dark room. Each time Stevie was discovered and revived. But when she was 35 she hung herself and no one found her in time to save her. She had learnt that her father had been under investigation for the deaths of several people, and with the reported disappearances of those she had murdered, it was only a matter of time before the police arrived at her house. For a very long time she lay in her dark room and endured the biting and scratching of those she had slighted. Then suddenly her tormentors were finished with her and left the room, and after a while Stevie heard her mother and father's voices and she began to rise along a "golden path".

Make-up artist Sammy (Louis Koo) is hired by Dream (Yan Ni) as the director of a cosmetic company with Claire (Cecilia Cheung) being the only colleague who is willing to assist him. Sammy invites Arnold (Donnie Yen), a fellow make-up artist, to join him. Though Arnold might appear to be a woman's magnet, his heart still lingers with his first love Mona (Carina Lau), a frustrated writer. A minor incident in the new product commercial ties the friendship among Sammy, Arnold and the yacht billionaire Syd (Chapman To). Syd meets Claire and aims to pursue her. Having grown up in a poor family, Claire seizes this as a golden opportunity to live a prosperous life and asks Sammy for help to fulfill her dream, without realising that she has fallen in love with Sammy.

Natasha and her grandfather live in a cottage near Moscow, making hats for Madame Irène. Madame and her husband have told the housing committee that Natasha rents a room from them; this fiddle gives Madame's lazy husband a room for lounging. The local railroad clerk, Fogelev, loves Natasha but she takes a shine to Ilya, a clumsy student who sleeps in the train station. To help Ilya, Natasha marries him and takes him to Madame's to live in the room the house committee thinks is hers. Meanwhile, Madame's husband pays Natasha with a lottery ticket he thinks is a loser, and when it comes up big, just as Ilya and Natasha are falling in love, everything gets complicated...

Raj (an engineered man, trained to deliver humanity from the final cataclysm) and Laurie (a woman raised by a machine, but she alone knew the power of love) are sent in a gigantic sentient starship to search space for a place to start a new life cycle. Having come across a derelict starship, belonging to an unknown people said to have been dead for fifty thousand years, Raj decides to take a look around. He comes across a gigantic robotic cleaner, which attacks Raj and he ends up hanging from an edge. Laurie arrives to help, driving a vehicle with four legs. Raj instructs her to get back to their ship, but she refuses and engages the robot in combat. Laurie pushes the robot towards the edge, with the robot fighting to not go over it.

Two military agents are taking readings on Mount Lincoln near the town of Ascension. There is a quake and the woman, Agent O'Neil, dies with marks on her face. The man, Agent McKewan, also dies after being crushed. Elsewhere, a man is injured in a work crew and dies for no apparent reason. It later appears the quakes on the mountain are producing a layer of carbon dioxide gas, suffocating those who descend to its altitude. A woman named Emily, studying Mt. Lincoln, visits the mountain to repair two machines.

In the adjacent town, an old man named William is considered an eccentric for believing that the mountain contains Behemoth. Emily meets with William's son and her old friend, Thomas. Satellite images show movement under the mountain, which they attribute to volcanism. Thomas's sister Grace and her boyfriend ascend the mountain, and Thomas is persuaded to go as guide to government agent Jack Murray. They meet Emily, who is running because part of a mountain suddenly exploded; whereas Grace and her boyfriend are startled by a monstrous eye and accompanying tentacle.

After she and Thomas have discovered Agent O'Neil's body, Emily has persuaded the Sheriff to evacuate the town, but Thomas and Emily ascend the mountain to look for the missing couple. They find Jack injured on the mountain, and Behemoth kills Jack immediately after revelation that the troubles at Mt. Lincoln were felt all over the world six months ago, and a missing box may be their only chance against Behemoth (lost when the agents were killed). William goes to the local diner to get the waitress, Zoe, to safety.

However, an earthquake damages the town, and the diner sinks into the ground with William and Zoe still inside. The box is recovered; but the monster consumes the boyfriend, while Thomas pulls Grace to safety. Behemoth then emerges from the mountain, whereupon Thomas opens the box and fires a shoulder-launched missile into Behemoth's throat, destroying it. William and Zoe escape from the diner in a sinkhole, and all five survivors are reunited.

In 1764 Pennsylvania, a young white boy raised by Native Americans is forced to return to white society following the signing of a peace treaty.

The story is of a dog who becomes lost and injured, and recounts the many people whom he came across in his journey home, some who took him in and nursed him, others who took their boot to him.

The play begins with Hitler giving a speech to the people of Germany, during which his two friends Krupp and Röhm come in to watch the speech. They talk to each other and discuss the "iron bouquet" Krupp metaphorically used to set into motion great advancements in human history, including shaping Hitler into a better leader.

Later in the play, Strasser enters the scene. He has a bad relationship with Röhm. Krupp describes their relationship as that of a "cat and dog". Strasser then argues that the war profits need to be returned to the country. Röhm gets mad, calling him a socialist. After the speech is finished, Hitler returns to the group awaiting him and gets their reports about the peoples' reaction to the speech, all of them telling him it was outstanding, even calling Hitler an artist.

Hitler then talks to Röhm alone about how they were so close to each other, but now that he is so busy running the country and doesn't have the time anymore to talk about the "good old days" with one of his trusted friends. Hitler then decides to get away from his political life for the day. And so Röhm decides to train Hitler on everything he needs to know about being a military leader.

Pilot "Flash" Norris is always getting into trouble with his fists, and his quick temper. His girl, Lila, tries to get him to simmer down; and, convinces her father to give him a job in his bank. When the bank won’t invest in his old friend, George Taylor’s airline, Flash quits the bank.

But, when money goes missing, from the bank, it’s up to Flash to prove his innocence, recover the money, and catch up with the bank’s Vice President Baker and his girlfriend Mazie, before their ship takes them to a jurisdiction, without an extradition treaty. Lila doesn’t give up hope, waiting for Flash, and her ship to come in.

''Habibi'' takes place in the present day, albeit in a fictional "Orientalist landscape" named Wanatolia. The story begins with Dodola, a nine-year old girl who is sold into marriage by her poverty-stricken parents. Her husband rapes her on their wedding night. He teaches her how to read and write, which allows Dodola to understand and find appreciation for the Qur'an. However, one day, their home is broken into by thieves who murder Dodola's husband and kidnap her to be sold as a slave. During this captured period, Dodola witnesses the thieves preparing to kill a young boy - who she saves by claiming him to be her brother despite their evident ethnic differences.

This child is the character known to be Zam. Prior to being sold into the slave market, Dodola and Zam escape from their captors and find refuge within an abandoned boat in the desert. However, in order to survive and earn money towards food and clothing, Dodola scavenges the desert and prostitutes herself to passing travelers, which eventually earns her the title of “phantom courtesan of the desert”. As Zam grows older, he becomes increasingly reluctant to stay hidden within the boat until one day he decides to follow Dodola. Zam witnesses Dodola being raped by a passing traveler and Zam is beset by guilt. In an attempt to contribute, Zam goes off to search for water at a reservoir.

Dodola, however, is found alone in the boat by a group of men who kidnap her for the Sultan of Wanatolia's harem. The Sultan, aware of her reputation and allure, makes a deal with Dodola claiming that he would grant her one wish if she is able to please him for seventy nights - otherwise, he would execute her. Dodola takes upon the conditions of the agreement and is bound to sexual servitude for seventy nights. However, on the very last night, the Sultan claims that he is not pleased by her and imprisons Dodola.

Throughout this episode, Zam is stuck in desert and is confronted with starvation and thirst. In an attempt to retrieve some water, Zam journeys back to the reservoir where he is assaulted by the tradesmen. Zam befriends a eunuch in the nearby village and begins to undertake random tasks and jobs in order to survive. He eventually becomes a eunuch for the Sultan's court where he is finally reunited with Dodola. They escape from the Sultan's palace and attempt to find another place for refuge.

Zam and Dodola come across their abandoned boat in a garbage dump. Rather than live in the garbage dump, they decide to move to another place upon seeing the impoverished conditions of the individuals scavenging the garbage dump for survival. They sneak onto a garbage truck, which takes them into the city of Wanatolia - an area that is extremely developed and filled with high-rise buildings. They feign being a married couple and Zam finds work within the city as a factory worker. Despite their ameliorated condition, Zam's conscience is disturbed by Dodola's previous treatment and his status as a eunuch to the point where he contemplates suicide. The novel concludes with Dodola and Zam saving and adopted a slave girl to prevent her from being subject to the same fate as Dodola and with them making plans to move out of the city.

Charlie Chan is proud of his oldest son, swimmer Lee (Keye Luke), being chosen to represent the United States at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. Meanwhile, over the skies of Chan's Honolulu, the "Hopkins plane" is demonstrating an improvement of remote radio control to the US military. The aircraft is hijacked by a concealed stowaway, the device stolen, and the test pilot murdered. When Chan and his astute second son, Charlie Jr. (Layne Tom Jr.), identify the stowaway, he finds only the man's body.

On the passenger list of the only aircraft to leave Honolulu for the mainland after the incident are Richard Masters (Allan Lane) and Yvonne Roland (Katherine DeMille). Masters was the intended test pilot, but injured his shoulder and had to be replaced. He left on the Pan Am Clipper to travel to the Olympics himself as a competitor. Perusing the list, Hopkins (Jonathan Hale) recognizes the name of arms dealer Arthur Hughes (C. Henry Gordon). Several of the suspects head for Germany on with the US Olympic team. Chan, Hughes, and the inventor Cartwright arrive before them by taking the Zeppelin ''Hindenburg''.

Aboard ''Manhattan'', Lee Chan suspects Roland of being an "adventuress". He spots her putting a piece of paper in her book, and Hughes taking it. He confides in fellow Olympian Betty Adams (Pauline Moore), Masters' girlfriend.

When the ship docks, German Inspector Strasser, Chan, and Hopkins go to question Roland, only to find her gone and her cabin rifled. Chan is reunited with his son Lee when the latter sneaks into the cabin through a porthole to play detective.

On the train trip to Berlin, Chan learns that Lee saw Roland borrow a camera from Adams. Hughes overhears the pair speculate that the invention was smuggled off the ship in it. Hughes advises Chan to stop investigating, then spots a gun barrel in a passing car and pushes the pair to safety. A shot strikes their compartment window. Later, Hughes arranges for Adams' camera to be stolen, but finds nothing inside.

A hotel maid tries to steal the invention, hidden in Adams' candy box, but is foiled by Chan and Strasser. When she runs to the window to warn her accomplices, Charlie substitutes a book for the device without being noticed. Hopkins insists on keeping the candy box in his hotel suite, where he is visited by Hughes. Chan and a policeman break in when they hear gunfire. They find Cartwright on the floor. He claims Hughes accused Hopkins of taking the device to double-cross the stockholders of his company, then after Hughes left, Hopkins took the invention at gunpoint and slugged him.

Roland takes the candy box to her employer, diplomat the Honorable Charles Zaraka (Morgan Wallace). When they discover the substitution, Roland surmises that Chan has the device. Zaraka sends Chan a ticket to the Olympic opening ceremony. While Chan verbally spars with him and Roland, Lee is kidnapped.

Chan allows himself to be taken to Zaraka to exchange the device for his son. Hopkins is brought in to verify it is the invention; he does (even though it is an imitation with a radio beacon inside). Satisfied, Zaraka orders his men to dispose of the Chans when Hughes and his men burst in. Hughes threatens to kill Lee if Chan does not produce the real equipment, but the police arrive just in time to rescue the detective. Hopkins is found unconscious from a gunshot in another room. Cartwright accuses Hughes of the shooting, but Chan proves that Cartwright was responsible for that and also the murder of his accomplice back in Honolulu. Afterward, Lee wins the 100 meter swim.

Bolbol wakes up in a full-body cast after a mysterious accident shattered every last bone in his body. He's lying in a hospital bed, where he'll probably spend the next few weeks, and with him is Dr. Amal, a dedicated physician taking care of his needs. Bolbol warms up to the perky doctor and shares with her his story with her in painstaking detail.

As the owner of a small ad agency, he first meets Yasmin, a harmonica playing member of a rock band. At first Bolbol is smitten by her carefree attitude and lack of jealousy until the novelty wears off. Just as his fondness turns into frustration towards Yasmin, in walks Hala, a helpless girl who is in many ways the polar opposite of Yasmin.

Bolbol spends more and more time with Hala, ultimately falling for her, but at the same time he can't shake off his love for Yasmin. Both women seem to have something that Bolbol desires, and our poor hero is torn between the two. And therein lies his predicament: should Bolbol go for the independent, self-empowered though occasionally cold Yasmin? Or is the submissive and helpless Hala a better fit for his traditionalist values, even though she can be very overbearing?

Molly Morris, a private investigator based in Dallas, takes photos of cheating men. During one of her investigations, FBI Agent Armon Ranford offers her a job with the FBI, to watch over Alex Patrone, the daughter of a Senator, who was involved in an organized-crime case. Molly is reluctant at first but ultimately decides to accept Ranford's offer. She goes undercover as a sorority student named Brook Stonebridge and receives help from her father.

She meets Sasha Stolezinsky, the head of the sorority, and other members, including Becky, Cotton, Hunter, and Alex, whom she has been hired to protect. At first, she thinks that Sasha may be a suspect, but as it turns out, she only changed her identity from Suzy Walters so she could start a new life rather than continue to be an outcast. Molly also meets her love interest, Nicholas Dexter, another student at the college. Molly begins to suspect one of her professors, Professor Talloway, when she discovers that Alex secretly goes off to his home on a lake. She continuously reports back to Ranford, who at one point tells Molly that Nicholas Dexter, her love interest, is not his real name.

She initially believes him, locking Nicholas up and knocking him out one night. Molly follows Alex to Talloway's home, only to discover that her professor is actually a federal agent. She encounters a gunman, from whom she escapes. She figures out that Ranford is actually behind the mask, who drives off with a kidnapped Alex, and soon finds Talloway injured from a gunshot wound outside his home. When she returns to the sorority house, she encounters two federal agents working on the case. They are hesitant to believe her at first, but Morris convinces them to help solve the case with the help of her sorority sisters. They execute the plan, rescue Alex, and corner Ranford, who is arrested. Alex hands over an SD card, with the evidence in her father's case, to Molly, who hands it over to the FBI.

The FBI is pleased with Molly's work, and she is offered to continue working for them. She declines and instead wants to continue going to college. Two months pass, and she is taking photos of a guy Cotton is dating. Nicholas comes up to her, revealing they are dating and they kiss as the film ends.

A group of animal activists, consisting of Dr. Nikki Riley, Gia, and Ben, breaks into a house and steals dozens of exotic pythons before setting them free into the Florida Everglades. Their actions inadvertently cause the snakes to grow into alarming sizes and threaten the ecosystem, as they kill over 72 alligators in a matter of days. Due to the threat of the invasive species, Park Ranger Terry O’Hara issues permits to the local hunters to exterminate the pythons – much to Nikki's dismay. However, the hunters themselves – including Terry's fiancé Justin – are quickly eliminated by the giant snakes. Vowing to avenge her fiancé's death, Terry and Angie take boxes of anabolic steroids from Angie's grandson Manny and inject them into dead chickens before feeding them to alligators. Among the steroids is an experimental serum that neutralizes muscle growth inhibitors with a side effect of increased aggression. Meanwhile, Nikki and her group set up cameras all over the Everglades to monitor Terry's activities. They catch and record Terry and Angie feeding the steroid-laced chickens to the alligators.

Several months later, Terry meets Dr. Diego Ortiz, who warns her that an all-out war between the giant pythons and the mutated alligators in the Everglades has begun. After seeing a python and an alligator battle each other, Diego urges Terry to cancel a fund-raising event that is to be held that night to help restore a nearby estuary, but his cries fall on deaf ears. As Nikki and her group walk around the forest to plant pheromones, they discover the skeleton of a dead giant python before they are attacked by a giant alligator, which eats Gia. In another part of the Everglades, Diego discovers that the alligators have laid hundreds of eggs – all of which are 20-30 times their normal size. He calls Terry and asks her to give him access to explosives to get rid of the eggs, but his request is denied. Flying a helicopter over a swamp, Diego rescues Nikki, but Ben is devoured by an alligator. He offers to fly her to the nearest hospital, but she tells him to bring her to her office immediately. After dropping her off, he returns to the site of the alligator eggs and destroys them with a pack of dynamite. He then finds a cave filled with thousands more eggs and calls Terry, telling her that if she does not evacuate the party nearby, he will call the governor and have him send the National Guard to the quarry.

At the fund-raising event, Nikki shows up at the VIP tent uninvited, threatening to blackmail Terry with a disc containing footage of her feeding the alligators. This leads to a fight between the two women that destroys the party. Meanwhile, as Nikki and Terry continue their fight in a swamp, the reptiles crash the event, devouring guest of honor Micky Dolenz and several other partygoers. However, Terry's friend Barbara Fine manages to survive and escape. Realizing that they will have to work together to stop this threat, Nikki and Terry, along with Angie and Diego, drive to Miami to get help and prevent the reptiles from invading the city, but are too late and Angie is devoured by a python as they flee from the city. Nikki comes up with a plan to save Florida; she plants explosives in the quarry while Terry and Diego fly over Miami in a crop duster and spray pheromones they acquired from Nikki's office, luring the reptiles to them. However, when their plane crashes on a highway after being hit by a python, Terry takes the remaining bottles of pheromones and drives an abandoned car to lure the reptiles away from the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant. Back in the cave, Nikki finds herself surrounded by an alligator and hundreds of hatchlings. Terry rescues her by driving her car with a lit container of gasoline toward the alligator. Surrounded by the remaining reptiles around the quarry, the two women lock themselves inside a supply shed, where Nikki admits to Terry that she released the snakes into the Everglades, to Terry's disgust. Diego arrives in a rescue helicopter and picks up Nikki, but is too late to save Terry, who is caught by an alligator and devoured, with Nikki and Diego helpless to save her. Nikki blows up the quarry, killing all of the reptiles in sight, but the explosion rocks the helicopter, throwing her off as she falls into a swamp. The helicopter circles back for Nikki while pieces of pythons and alligators rain around her, and she is eaten by a python head that is still alive (as snake heads can survive for up to an hour).

One year after the incident, Diego cuts a ribbon to inaugurate the O’Hara-Riley Estuary, named in memory of Terry and Nikki.

"Mamanyiika"

Some years ago, Abel (Ricky Davao) was incapacitated by a passing car while his wife Gail (Jackie Lou Blanco) was killed in a hit-and-run accident, after a serious fight, leaving Abel widowed with his two children, Ara (Shaina Magdayao) and Abigail (Elijah Alejo).

After visiting her mother's grave, Abigail picked up a seemingly-disposed-of doll in a nearby barrow. Ara, being suspicious of the doll, demanded her sister throw it away. This soon culminated in a sisterly fight, on which one instance, the doll sprang to life and comforted Abigail. It was thought that Gail's spirit possessed the doll.

Traumatized after being assaulted by the doll, Ara destroyed her little sister's toy, despite of Abigail watching the scene horribly. Abel, deciding this was the final straw for Ara, ordered the doll to be disposed of in the creek. Soon, the doll assassinated two garbage men and returned to the Federicos house, seeking vengeance against Abigail, who was given a new set of dolls by her father.

A subplot shows that the doll used to belong to Dorothy Cruz, an infertile woman who succumbed to insanity after learning her medical condition. Her husband Manuel (Jed Madela) refuses to give any comments to the doll. It was not Gail's spirit who was in the doll, but Dorothy's after all.

One night, the "mother doll" launched its final attack against the family, with Ara gaining the upper hand. Taunted by the doll imitating her mother's voice, Ara shot the doll squarely after it attempted to murder Abigail. The doll fell into the pool, but recovered and was taken by a homeless child.

"Isla"

A lost girl (Nina Jose) was separated from her friends while on a vacation. Lost in the woods, she was incapacitated by an unknown entity, which transforms her into an unimaginable creature.

In the present, Andrea (Andi Eigenmann) was accompanied by her friends Ces (Kristel Moreno) and Belle (Regine Angeles) on a vacation in a seemingly-remote island. Upon setting foot on the island, rumors circulated the trio that a man named Ray (Rayver Cruz) had lost his girlfriend during a holiday in the very same place. Dismissing the hearsay, the trio spent the night with a bonfire. Ces, who has a knowledge of the occult, performs a ritual to help the brokenhearted Andrea find the man for her.

Tensions rose as disappearances of Andrea startled the group, with their friend reappearing in the morning with muddy feet. Scenes showed that Andrea was led by fairies into a cave and was offered delicious food by an elemental or "engkanto" as well as asking her to stay and offering her to give her everything she wants if she decides to do so. Counseled by a "witch doctor", Malay (John Lapus), Andrea was the next target of the "engkanto" of the island, whom Malay said was the king of the isle. Afterwards, they met Ray himself. The girls seemed to be cold with the guy, as he was cold to them either.

No sooner than the disappearances worsen, a group of fairies dubbed as the "Lambana" attacked the group's cottage, assassinating Belle and Ces in the havoc. The engkanto, having a chance to permanently abduct Andrea, held the girl hostage, with Ray and Malay in hot pursuit. In the end, Malay was killed, but Ray managed to overpower the engkanto, saving Andrea's life.

In a post-plot scene, Andrea woke aboard a boat with Ray; however, she notices that the boat was not moving away from the island. It was revealed that it was just an illusion and that Andrea was still in the engkanto's cave with the engkanto as "Ray".

"Punerarya"

Dianne (Carla Abellana) works as a part-time tutor for the Gonzales', the owners of a local funeral parlor, which is said to be the lair of rumored werewolves.

On her first day, she met the patriarch Carlo (Sid Lucero), the children - Ryan (Nash Aguas) and Sarah (Anna Vicente) -, the family's butlers Aludia (Odette Khan) and Simeon (Jess Evardone), and the secretary Anna (Gaby dela Merced). After a series of successful tutorial sessions, it gradually became clear to Dianne the nature of the family: being photophobic, having a desire for human entrails, and, worst of all, the unusual activity in and out of the parlor.

Dennis (Mart Escudero), Dianne's brother, dismissed his sister's stories; meanwhile, Ryan was accused of divulging the truth to Dianne, creating a tension between Carlo and the tutor. However, Dianne could not brought herself to quit, not only because of being friends with Ryan, but also this was her only work for a living.

As a plot, the family lured Dennis, who was waiting for her sister outside. Unknown to him, he was used as a bait to force Diane to continue her work, but at the same time, sacrificing her life as prey to the human-dog creatures. Carlo then revealed that they were once part of an ancient tribe, whose homes were ravaged by fire. Desperate, he Carlo, being widowed, and his family set up the funeral parlor to cover up their true nature and to earn for a living. This explained their photophobic features and the fact of dismissing Dianne every evening before sundown.

Dianne confronted the group, demanding they surrender Dennis. Throwing formaldehyde and setting the parlor aflame as a diversion, Dianne and her brother narrowly escaped Sarah's and Carlo's assaults, while Ryan, the only aswang member of the family that refuses to harm anyone, begged to go with her. Left with no choice, Dianne brought Ryan home, as the funeral parlor burned to the ground.

As Dianne finds the first-aid kit to treat Dennis, she overhears his screams. She rushes to the den and finds Ryan eating Dennis' entrails. Ryan reveals that his family only eats living humans on their birthdays and just eats entrails from corpses to survive every day. However, Ryan wanted more and prefers to eat living humans every day. Dianne realizes that she was used by Ryan so that he can get rid of his family and their restrictions as he growls and pounces on her.

While Charlie Chan and his number one son, Lee, are aboard a New York-bound transatlantic liner returning from Germany in their previous adventure (''Charlie Chan at the Olympics''), they have a run-in with a mysterious woman, named Billie Bronson, who secretes a package in the trunk of the Chans. After the liner docks, Chan and Lee are met at the pier by Inspector Nelson and two rival reporters, Joan Wendall and Speed Patton. Bille, having left the country hurriedly a year ago when sought as a material witness in a political scandal, has returned to "blow the lid off the town." She follows the Chans to their hotel and attempts to regain her package from the trunk, only to be interrupted by Lee. She then goes to the "Hottentot Club", where "candid-camera night" is in full progress, followed by Lee. Already present are Joan and Speed. Billie is mysteriously murdered and Charlie is summoned from a police banquet in his honor. Present in the room with the body are club manager Johnny Burke; club dancer and Burke's girl-friend Marie Collins and the two reporters. While seeking a motive for the murder, a second killing is discovered in Charlie's hotel room, the package is missing from Charlie's trunk and it is realized that it must have contained her diary. Charlie neatly puts together a few scattered clues and then springs a trap to confirm the identity of the killer.

''The Cry of Jazz'' is set in Chicago at the meeting of a jazz appreciation club of musicians and intellectuals, both Black and White. It is broken up into seven parts. Parts one, three, five, and seven center around conversations among the jazz club members. Parts two, four, and six are done in a documentary style and utilize footage of life in Chicago as well as of Sun Ra's band performing the music. Alex, the film's main character, serves as narrator during these sections. Although the film is nominally about jazz, jazz is used primarily as a metaphor to understand the African American experience.Damon Locks, [http://thepopulation.wordpress.com/2009/04/10/the-cry-of-jazz-q-a-with-director-edward-bland/ "''The Cry of Jazz'': Q&A with Director Edward Bland"]

Part 1

As the majority of the attendees of the jazz club leave, the crowd that remains is composed of two White men, Bruce and John, two White women, Natalie and Faye, and three Black men, Alex, Louis, and Bob. Alex overhears Bruce telling Natalie that rock and roll is jazz, which prompts a discussion about what jazz is. When Bruce asserts "jazz is merely the Negro's cry of joy and suffering," the White characters protest, upset with Bruce's implication that only Black people could have created jazz. Alex elaborates on Bruce's point, explaining "the Negro was the only one with the necessary musical and human history to create jazz."

Part 2

Alex makes a direct comparison between the structure of jazz and the Black experience in the United States. Jazz plays over shots of Black neighborhoods of Chicago, an attempt to demonstrate the affinity between jazz and Black life. Alex continues to explain jazz as the "triumph of the Negro spirit" over the difficulties Black people face in a racist America. He links the restrictive form and changes of jazz to this limitation and suffering, and improvisation to an expression of joy and freedom within a restrictive society. Alex also argues that the sound of jazz reflects the "characteristic atmosphere, color, and sensuality" of Black life, just as the sound of jazz played by Whites reflects White life.

Part 3

Bruce and Natalie again express confusion with the claim that Blacks see America differently than Whites. Alex responds that Black people see America in a unique way because they have never been fully included in American society yet have found ways to survive. Alex and Louis then assert that slavery and continued racism constitute an erasure of the past, present, and future of Black people in America and that, through music, Black people have created a record of their history.

Part 4

Alex traces the history of jazz, including New Orleans jazz, swing, be-bop, and cool jazz. Footage of Sun Ra's band playing examples of each style accompanies the description of each type of jazz.

Part 5

A discussion arises concerning what it would take to achieve racial equality in America. From Alex and Louis's perspective, America must come to celebrate the story of joy and suffering told through jazz because it is a story that transcends national and ethnic boundaries. When Natalie then asks about the future of jazz, Alex claims that jazz is dead, startling all the characters.

Part 6

In Alex's opinion, jazz is dead because the form and the changes of jazz cannot evolve, and any alteration to the form and changes of jazz would not result in jazz. Alex claims that therefore, because jazz cannot grow, it is dead. While Alex asserts that this "jazz body" is dead, he maintains that the "spirit of jazz" is alive. He goes on to express that the "jazz body", which contains the restraining elements of jazz, must die because the social restraints on Black people in America must end.

Part 7

The White characters continue to contest the death of jazz. Alex suggests that the "spirit of jazz" will give rise to a new form of music. When Bruce then asks how Whites fit into this story, Louis and Alex proclaim that what happens to Black people in America concerns Whites because it implicates their morality and humanity. The film ends with Alex's assertion that the world's perceptions of the United States will depend on American society's treatment of black people.

Set somewhere in Vienna in the 1900s, the film opens with a successful surgeon (Morgan), feeing for the affection of his wife (Bruce). As does his brother, a concert conductor (Owen), for his flirtatious girl (Christians). Both women have something in common: they are in love with a philandering painter (Powell). The surgeon's wife contacts the artist and allows herself to be painted while only dressed in furs, with her face covered by a mask. The painting headlines the newspapers, and the entire city wonders who the mysterious masked lady is. The surgeon recognizes his brother's fiancee's furs in the painting, and is troubled. He is unaware that his own wife has borrowed the fur, though, and feels terribly sorry for his brother.

Together, the brothers decide to confront the artist, but he denies having met either of the men's wife. When the brothers challenge him to a duel if he does not tell them the name of the woman who posed for him, the artist randomly picks the name "Major". In the phone book, it turns out that one lady in Vienna is named Major: Leopoldine (Rainer). She is the companion of a socially prominent countess, and is startled by the claim that she was the model. The painter falls in love with her, but the prior affair with a married woman causes complications.

In New York City, Mary is a telephone operator who lives alone and is lonely. Jim is a factory worker who also lives alone, and feels disconnected from the world. During the Independence Day weekend, both Mary and Jim decide to visit Coney Island alone after finishing their Saturday half-day work shifts. The two board the same bus, mutually catching the other's attention, and again encounter each other once they arrive at the beach.

After the two spend some time together on the beach, Mary realizes she has lost the wedding ring she wears. Jim helps her locate it, but is disheartened, believing she is married. Mary reassures him after they find the ring that it is only her mother's wedding band. As night falls, Mary laments the fact that their day together is over, but Jim assures her it is not, and they continue to spend time together at the amusement park, visiting a fortune teller and riding amusement park rides. The two ride the Cyclone rollercoaster, but after one of the cars crashes, a melee ensues among the parkgoers, during which Mary and Jim are separated.

Only knowing each other's first name, and having only a small photo of each other, Jim and Mary are desperate to find each other. Jim attempts to locate Mary in the park, but a rainstorm causes further complications, sending the hundreds of park visitors scattering. A defeated Jim leaves Coney Island by train, as does Mary. Mary retreats to her apartment, where she begins to cry and beat her hands against the walls in despair. The noise catches the attention of Jim, who can hear it through the other wall—unbeknownst to either of them, the two are neighbors in their apartment building, but had never crossed paths prior. Jim opens the door to Mary's apartment and sees her standing before her bed. Shocked, but elated, the two embrace.

When the god of deception Loki (Richard Grieco) wipes off the city of Valhalla to steal the Hammer Of Invincibility, only the young hero Thor (Cody Deal) can recover the cities from evil. When Thor's father and older brother are killed in a futile attempt to retrieve the hammer from Loki, a Valkyrie named Jarnsaxa (Patricia Velásquez) attempts to train a naïve and inexperienced warrior Thor to fight Loki. This leads them on a short quest from their training camp, to the Tree of Inventory to collect a sword and shield and then to a small city where Loki attempts to hypnotize the refusing residents into serving as his minions by bringing on a wipeout with a small army of demon beasts. When Thor is about to be defeated, he must forge his own fate to save the city and reclaim the Hammer Of Invincibility from Loki once and for all.

In February 1942, U.S. armed forces defend Los Angeles from unidentified flying objects. Seventy years later, the alien invaders return to finish the attack.

In the near future, a large spaceship arrives and hovers over Los Angeles. A human fighter squadron is scrambled, but their missiles act erratically due to countermeasures being broadcast from the ship. The entire squadron is quickly destroyed, except for a female pilot named Lt. Solano, who ejects from her plane before it is destroyed.

Smaller alien craft suddenly attack a military base near Los Angeles. Marine Lt. Tyler Laughlin leads a group of survivors through the chaos following the attack, trying to find a safe haven. During their journey across the Los Angeles wasteland, Laughlin's group finds a surprisingly young World War II pilot named Captain Pete Rodgers. He claims his squadron was abducted by aliens back in 1942 while they were flying in the Bermuda Triangle. Rodgers joins Laughlin's group, as well as Lt. Solano. Soon, the group encounters a sword-wielding special agent named Karla Smaith who takes them to a top-secret underground bunker. She reveals that a secret branch of the government has held an alien captive for the past 60 years after his spaceship crashed. Just then, Rodgers reveals himself to be an android. He kills most of the base personnel and reveals the alien's plans for the colonization of Earth and the extermination of the human race.

After destroying Rodgers, Laughlin, Smaith and Solano escape using the captured alien's spacecraft. They travel to the alien mothership over the city, where they plan to destroy it and stop the alien invasion. Once on board the mothership, they encounter a large mollusk-like alien guarding the engines. The alien grabs Solano, and Smith and Laughlin try to save her, but she orders them not to and leave her, in order to concentrate on destroying the ship with planted explosives. They escape just as the ship explodes, crashing down on Los Angeles. Smaith and Laughlin watch the destruction, knowing the rest of Earth is safe.

Setting and themes

''Robotics;Notes'' is set in 2019 on Tanegashima, an island to the south of Kyūshū in southern Japan. The game's theme is robots and the question "What would happen if you really tried to make a giant robot?"

Story

In ''Robotics;Notes'', the player assumes the role of Kaito Yashio, someone who enjoys fighting games. He is in his school's robot club along with his childhood friend Akiho Senomiya. The story begins when Akiho decides to build a robot based on the Gunvarrel animated series she is a fan of, and she recruits Kaito to aid her. With the robot club short on members and on the verge of closure, Kaito heads out to try and recruit more members, eventually securing the support of professional robot battler Subaru Hidaka, karate practitioner Junna Daitoku, and the world renowned programmer Frau Kojiro. Together, they begin the process of building their replica of the titular Gunvarrel, the Gunbuild-1. However, reality quickly sets in when they realize the physical impossibility of completely replicating Gunvarrel, and are forced to make many design compromises. In addition to the relatively primitive Gunbuild-1, they also manage to build the more advanced Gunbuild-2. They also take advantage of the Iru-O system to change both Gunbuilds' appearances via augmented reality.

As Gunbuild-1 is being developed, Kaito also comes across the "Kimijima Reports", authored by the deceased scientist Kō Kimijima who claims an impending solar flare will wipe out all life on Earth. Kaito also encounters two AI personalities that inhabit Iru-O, Airi and Sister Centipede, who help him track down the other reports. Kaito follows the instructions in the reports in an effort to avert the solar flare, and in the process wakes up Airi Yukifune, the girl the AI Airi is based on, who was put into suspended animation due to a then incurable illness. However, Kaito discovers too late that the reports were a lie, and that it is Kimijima himself, now an AI living within the Iru-O system, attempting to trigger a solar flare on the behalf of the Committee of 300 in plan dubbed "Project Atum".

Moving on to the next stage of his plans, Kimijima deletes Airi and seizes control of Akiho's older sister Misaki, stealing an experimental battle robot called SUMERAGI and destroying the Gunbuild-2. Meanwhile, the Committee of 300 orchestrates mass robot rebellions all over Japan, plunging the country into chaos while a commando team seizes the Tanegashima Space Center with the help of SUMERAGI. The robotics club is then approached by Nae Tennouji and Toshiyuki Sawada, who reveal they are part of a secret group that resists against the Committee of 300, and that the Committee plans to use Tanegashima to launch a rocket containing bombs that will create a apocalyptic solar flare that will wipe out the majority of humanity, allowing the Committee to rule over the survivors and rebuild the world according to their will. Sawara provides the robotics club with a special code that can completely delete Kimijima, but requires them to be in close range to send it. Working together with the other Tanegashima residents, the robotics club upgrades Gunbuild-1 into the Super Gunbuild-1 and Kaito pilots it against SUMERAGI while Nae neutralizes the commandos. Kaito is able to force Misaki to exit her cockpit, leaving Kimijima vulnerable and allowing Kaito to delete him, though Kimijima boasts that another copy of himself will surely surface.

With Kimijima gone, Nae is able to abort the rocket launch and thwart the Committee's plan. The robotics club is then greeted by the Tanegashima residents who celebrate them as heroes.

Characters

; : :Kaito is the male protagonist who constantly plays the fighting game Kill-Ballad and is a member of his school's robotics club. After the MF Anemone Incident he suffers from spasms in which time seems to be moving extremely slow for him. He is not interested in robots, and is only a member of the club to be by Akiho's side, as Misaki left her to him before she left the island.

; : :Akiho is the main heroine and the only other member and chairman of the robotics club at the beginning. She is Kaito's childhood best friend. After the MF Anemone Incident she suffers from spasms in which time seems to be moving extremely fast for her. Her dream is to complete the giant robot Gunbuild-1 started by her older sister Misaki.

;
: :A second-year student in the same school as Kaito and Akiho. He won the Robo-One championship several years ago and as a result Akiho tries to get him to join the robotics club, but he refuses because his father got him to promise he'd stop playing with robots in high school and become a fisherman after graduating. Kaito blackmails him into joining the club with Mr. Pleiades' identity.

;
: :Creator of Kill-Ballad and daughter of director of Gunvarrel. It is revealed that Gunvarrel was a propaganda tool being used to brainwash the masses, and when the staff of Gunvarrel discovered this they were killed by the Committee of 300. All that Frau knows is that her mother went missing and was last seen in Tanegashima, and comes to the island in search of clues.

; : :One of the members of the Robotics Club and a former karate club member. She developed robophobia at a young age after a robot fell on top of her.

; : :An AI existing within Iru-O created by Kimijima, with another personality (Sister Centipede) that is used by him to collect information. She subconsciously spies on Kaito for Kimijima. She was originally a girl with an incurable illness whose body was put into deep sleep in hopes that she could be cured with future medical technology. When the Iru-O servers are rebooted on Christmas Airi's personality is erased and Sister Centipede returns to Kimijima's side.

; : :Akiho's sister. During the MF Anemone Incident she discovered what Kimijima was doing and killed him, but ever since has been brainwashed by his cyber-ghost.

; : :Misaki's best friend. After Kimijima was killed she discovered the body and hid it, which resulted in Misaki not being blamed for the murder. She dies when her HUG is driven berserk by the Committee of 300 and she falls off a cliff.

; : :Childhood friend of Misaki and Mizuka, and the teacher in charge of the robotics club.

; : :The head teacher of Kaito's school.

; : :Also known by the name "Doc". Owner of the shop "Robo Clinic" which deals in robot parts. Junna's grandfather. He creates most of the important components used in the Robot Club's creations.

; : :The author of the Kimijima Reports, who died several years ago. It turns out that he works for the Committee of 300 and caused the MF Anemone incident which was in fact an experiment that would have killed all the test subjects; This was stopped by Misaki who killed him. However before his death he uploaded his consciousness to the internet and lives on through Iru-o, and now plans to execute the Committee's plans by inducing a massive solar flare that will kill the majority of the population of Earth. He uses the Kimijima Reports to manipulate people, and he has Sister Centipede and Misaki (who was brainwashed by him) do his bidding in the virtual and real worlds respectively. In the end he is defeated by Kai using a virus created to destroy him by Daru.

; : :Akiho and Misaki's father and head of the local branch of JAXA.

; : :Mitsuhiko's uncle and president of Space Candy company. He funds the Gunbuild projects in exchange for publicity (the company name displayed on the robots).

; : :Subaru's father. Opposes his son's interest in robots and wants him to join him as a fisherman after graduation from high school.

; : :A son of a member of the Committee of 300, who actually works against them and has founded a secret organization which includes the characters of Steins;Gate and Chaos;Head to resist them.

; : :A returning character from ''Steins;Gate'' who is now 20 and works for JAXA.

;DaSH :Itaru Hashida, a returning character from ''Steins;Gate''. Like Nae as well as the other Steins;Gate and Chaos;Head characters, he now works for Sawada's secret organization. When it is revealed that Iru-o cannot be trusted as it was created by Kimijima, he creates a replacement, "DG297 3rd Edition ver.4.11". He also creates the virus which defeats Kimijima. He does not have any speaking roles, however, and is only mentioned in passing. As of 2019, he has already married Yuki Amane and had their daughter, Suzuha. "DaSH" is read "Daru the Super Hacker", but he temporarily calls himself "DaSP" ("Daru the Super Programmer") in the final chapter.

In the story, Johnny Lingo (played by MaKee K. Blaisdell) is a shrewd, honest, and well-liked Polynesian trader. Johnny has come home to bargain for a wife. Mahana (played by Naomi Kahoilua), the young woman he desires, is considered by her neighbors and even her father, Moki (played by Joseph Ah Quin), to be of little value—sullen, ugly, and undesirable. Blaming himself for not paying enough cows for Mahana's mother, her father treats her unkindly, such as yelling, "Mahana, you ugly!" As the bargaining is about to begin, women of the island brag about how many cows their husbands had paid for each of them (see bride price), and comment that Mahana's father will be lucky to be offered one cow for her.

The bargaining begins, and Moki asks Johnny Lingo for three cows, as Moki's counselor Me Hai advises. The islanders laugh derisively, then wait for Lingo to make his counter-offer, certain that he will make a devastating bargain. Johnny, pondering the offer, pronounces that "three cows are many... but not enough for Mahana!" He then offers the unheard-of price of ''eight'' cows for her hand in marriage. After the bargaining, Johnny visits Mr. Harris, an American shopkeeper on the island, to offer him a valuable shell in exchange for a mirror. In their conversation, Mr. Harris is convinced that Johnny only paid so much to look good and be remembered. The next day, Moki and Me Hai, while waiting for Johnny to deliver the cows, convince themselves that Johnny reconsidered his deal and will not show up. In the end, Johnny brings the cows and marries Mahana that night, enduring some mocking for paying so much for a seemingly undesirable wife while Moki revels in his newfound prosperity. Johnny and Mahana then leave the island for many months on their honeymoon, visiting many islands.

When they return, Harris discovers, to his astonishment, that Mahana is a beautiful, happy woman. Johnny recounts that Mahana's father had just accused Lingo of cheating him by saying, "[Mahana] is worth ten cows, if she's worth a hoof!" Johnny then explains that he has loved Mahana since they were children, and that he paid eight cows for Mahana, not to show off, but to make her happy and for her "to be an eight-cow woman." Johnny concludes with "Many things can happen to make a woman beautiful, but the thing that matters most is what she thinks of herself." Johnny leaves Harris, and he and Mahana walk on the beach together.

The film starts out with two students fighting over the inheritance of their deceased master's sword called the "Green Frost Sword". Eventually, Han kills the other student and takes the sword. Han then brings it back to the king.

Later, General Zhong Ki, his daughter Zhong Jiaolong, and her servant Geng Liuniang visit the king. The king later forces the general to make his daughter marry Prince Lu Tianxia. Then at night, Geng, revealing herself to be an expert martial artist, goes to steal the "Green Frost Sword". She brings Jiaolong away to save her from marrying the prince. The prince arrives with his henchmen and a big fight occurs in which Geng seriously wounds the prince. Geng and Jiaolong then go into hiding. Jiaolong becomes Geng's disciple where she teaches her kung fu.

The king sees his son wounded and that the "Green Frost Sword" is gone. Han knows who the culprit is and the king sends him to find the suspect.

The next day Geng leaves a note to Jiaolong and leaves, but Han finds her. Geng is then revealed to be the widow of the student Han killed in the beginning of the film. They then fight and Han overpowers Geng, heavily injuring her while taking the sword back. Han assumes that she is dead. Jiaolong sets out and manages to find her teacher.

One day, Jiaolong goes out and meets a good bandit named Luo Yihu. Jiaolong fights briefly with him before bringing him home where he finds out who her teacher is. Luo turns out to be the disciple of Geng's kung fu elder sister. The three of them revolt against the evil king and get the "Green Frost Sword" back. They also meet a rebellious nobleman Master Liu who joins them.

They engage in a big fight where Han is eventually killed but Prince Lu Tian Xia manages to get away. In the end, the heroes decide to retreat and hope to get the prince later.

Dell Ferris is a tomboy from the country town of Moonbi who is loved by English head stockman Tom. She goes to the city where sophisticated Margery Daw helps Dell spend her money in high society. Dell returns to Moonbi poorer but wiser and marries Tom.

The movie begins with a young girl, Julia Crichton, waking up from a dream about the day her family was forcibly taken from her home by soldiers beside her older brother Ashleigh, who is currently studying their parents' alchemy books. Ashleigh then shows his sister some pages and explains that with the alchemy in the book, he hopes to make a world that no one's seen before. Soon after discovering two strange rubbed-out pages, the siblings hear some strange noises and Ashleigh goes ahead to investigate, but a worried Julia follows to a room where she finds the bodies of her parents hung up and dripping blood. She watches in horror as her brother is attacked and presumably murdered to which she faints.

Years later, a criminal breaks free from prison in Amestris, and the Elric brothers, Edward and Alphonse, join the effort to recapture him. The duo confronts the escapee who proves himself a dangerous opponent able to create ice and lightning from the alchemy circles drawn in blood on the palms of his hands. Despite the Elrics' efforts to capture the criminal, he ends up escaping, and after some investigation with Edward's superior [Roy Mustang] and his lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, they learn that the fugitive, Melvin Voyager, escaped with only six months remaining of his five-year sentence. Among his belongings, they find a newspaper page with a piece cut off, and comparing with an intact copy of the same page, they find that the missing piece is a photo of a young woman named Julia Crichton who was arrested while entering illegally in the remote Table City, set in the border between Amestris and Creta.

Intrigued by the alchemy used by the criminal and his connection with Julia, the Elrics board a train to Table City to investigate further, but the train is attacked by an unknown individual who transforms into a wolf-chimera and takes control of the locomotive. While trying to retake the train's control from the Wolf-Chimera, flying soldiers called the Black Bats attack the train, attempting to rescue what they think are ordinary citizens, but they fall back after finding out the prisoners were Amestrians posing as prisoners as a trap. Meanwhile, Melvin finds his opportunity and escapes, followed after by the Elric Brothers. Ed and Al arrive at a prison, where Melvin destroyed the prison walls to find Julia. Melvin attempts to retrieve Julia, but is interrupted by Miranda, the leader of the Black Bats, who tries to rescue Julia as well. Ed then challenges Melvin while Alphonse goes to save Julia. She and he fall into a village in a vast chasm (The Valley) that surrounds Table City, where Melvin follows and reveals his true identity as Julia's brother, Ashleigh Crichton. Ed then ventures down to The Valley in search of Alphonse, where he learns that Table City was originally the Hill of Milos, until Creta and later Amestris invaded the city and occupied it, forcing the Milosians to live in The Valley, in poverty.

Inside the Black Bats' secret base, Julia and Alphonse develop a friendship while Julia learns about Al and Ed's tragic past of human transmutation. Later, when Ed meets up with Al in the Black Bats base, they find themselves hunted down by wolf chimeras from the Cretan secret police dispatched by Colonel Herschel, the Cretan commander of the area, prompting them to retreat further. They and the Elrics arrive in a room with maps and locations of Table City, where Miranda explains to the Elrics their mission: to reclaim Milos by using the Sanguine Star to control a powerful heat source called Magma. Miranda also explains that the Sanguine Star was a 'red glowing stone of power'. Shocked by the description, the Elrics reveal that the Star might be a Philosopher's Stone, which requires human sacrifice to create. Though shocked at the revelation, Julia is determined to do anything to secure the Milosians' freedom, and Ashleigh agrees to help her.

Wanting to avoid a bloody war, Ed and Al return to Table City in an attempt to find the Star and destroy it. Later that night, the Black Bats begin their assault on Table City. Miranda, Ashleigh, and Julia then venture to the main tower, where, suddenly, Ashleigh fatally injures Miranda and explains to Julia that the use of Miranda's blood activates a three dimensional transmutation circle drawn in blood to create the Sanguine Star. Julia then realizes that he is an impostor, Security Chief Atlas, who was enveloped by alchemy's potential of creation and power and killed Julia's parents for it. He explains that he tore off the real Ashleigh's face and the skin from his lower left side to deceive Julia and create the Star. Ed and Al arrive to rescue Julia and confront Atlas, who escapes to the location of the Star. As Ed, Al, and Julia chase after Atlas, Herschel detonates a Cretan thermal power plant, pouring out a massive amount of lava towards the Valley. Al goes to help save the valley while Ed and Julia go after Atlas. Atlas nearly attempts to retrieve the Star, only to be confronted by Ed and Julia. Julia retrieves the star and decides to save the Valley by swallowing it to use its power.

Meanwhile, Alphonse's attempt to stop the lava are futile until Julia arrives to help him stop the lava. Atlas arrives to take back the Star, only to be confronted by Colonel Herschel, who reveals himself to be the real Ashleigh Crichton. He survived by swallowing a Star and using its power to heal his wounds. Ashleigh then kills Atlas in revenge for the death of his parents. Confirming his identity to Julia while apologizing for leaving her alone for so long to keep her safe from Atlas, Ashleigh tells Julia to come with him to Creta so they can make a world that no one had ever seen before. Julia refuses and decides to fight her brother, with Ed and Mustang arriving to provide assistance. Julia ends the fight by destroying one of Ashleigh's arms. Then, together with Ed and Al, she manages to stop the flow of magma into the Valley. With the Valley safe, Julia uses the rest of her power to heal Ashleigh, restoring his face and saving his life. However, both Ashleigh and Julia's Stars disintegrate, and Julia sacrifices her left leg and glimpses the Gate of Truth. Meanwhile, on the Cretan side of the border, Milosian resistance fighters seize Creta's main base and declare independence. Without Colonel Herschel to lead them, the Cretan forces retreat.

The next morning, Ashleigh wakes up in a hospital bed alongside Julia and is surprised to find his face restored. When Julia wakes up, she is informed that Ashleigh had already left, and is given an automail leg. She then meets Ed and Al as they prepare to leave Table City. Ed chastises Julia, saying that her decision to use the Star was wrong, but he doesn't think she's a bad person. Al promises to Julia that after he and his brother get their bodies back, they will be sure to visit. Julia tells them she will be waiting, as she must stay to lead the Milosians and preserve their newfound independence. Meanwhile, Ashleigh is seen donning his Cretan uniform and returning to Creta. Ed and Al then board a train to Central and take one last look at Table City before leaving.

The Dead End Kids ride a freight train through California. After the kids get arrested for vagrancy, members Tom and Pig are hired to work on a ranch owned by kindly Mama Posito. Tom learns that Posito hasn't seen her son in years, but believes that he may still be alive. In an attempt to steal her money, Tom decides to pose as her son. However, Posito's soon gets the best of Tom, and he decides to stay with her for love, rather than for greed.

On a flight to New York for an annual police convention, Chan encounters his old Scotland Yard friend, Hugh Drake (Frederick Worlock). Drake is now a member of military intelligence trying to track down what he believes is a sabotage ring led by a Paul Narvo. A bomber and its pilots crashed the day before. Chan offers his assistance.

Chan is welcomed at the airport by New York Police Inspector Vance (Donald McBride) and, to Chan's surprise, his number two son Jimmy Chan (Sen Yung).

Chan goes to see Drake the next day at the apartment of George Kirby (Ricardo Cortez), where a dinner party is in progress. He finds his friend dead of poison gas in Drake's library, where he had gone to do some work. Drake's briefcase, containing all the information he had gathered about the sabotage ring, is missing. The window is latched, so Chan concludes one of the guests is responsible. Chan discovers that Drake asked that his Oxford classmate Herbert Fenton (Melville Cooper), actress June Preston and Ralph Percy, chief designer at the Metropolitan Aircraft Corporation, be invited to the party. Kirby himself is the company president. The lost bomber crashed at the company's plant. Also present is stockbroker Keith Jeffery (John Sutton). A servant (Clarence Muse) reports chemist David Elliot (Robert Lowery) insisted on seeing Drake, so he showed him in.

Chan learns that Preston also spoke with Drake that night, on behalf of a friend, Patricia West (Marjorie Weaver). West, it turns out, married Narvo in India. When she found out Narvo was involved in sabotage, she fled, only to be pursued by her husband and his assistant, Ramullah.

Ramullah is eventually tracked down, with West's help, and taken into custody. (During a police lineup of Indians, Shorty McCoy, aka "The Canarsie Kid", [Shemp Howard] is revealed to be a faker, not a fakir.) Before Ramullah can be questioned, however, he is shot and killed. West narrowly avoids the same fate.

A coatroom attendant shows up and states Drake checked his briefcase at the club where he works. Chan and Vance wait to see who will claim it. It is Boggs, Kirby's butler. He claims that Kirby left him a note instructing him to get the briefcase. Upon close inspection, Chan concludes it is a forgery. He then discovers Kirby's body.

Chan decides to gather all the suspects at the airport the next day. The airplane, rigged the night before to release poison gas when it dives, takes off for a test flight with nearly everyone aboard. As the bomber starts to descend, Fenton grabs the falling glass globe containing the gas. When they land, he smashes the globe, gets out and locks the door. However, the police are waiting to apprehend him, and Chan and the rest emerge unscathed (the trap had been found during an inspection and rendered harmless). Fenton cannot be Narvo, as the latter is known to be a younger man. He refuses to identify his leader. When Chan asks for a glass of water for Fenton, Jeffrey gets it for him, falling into Chan's trap. The detective samples the water and identifies the same poison that was found in Kirby's brandy.

Charlie Chan is engaged by an heir to solve a mystery on a boat. Miss Nodbury seeks a pirate treasure on Cocos Island, and her ship has recently hosted a museum of pirate lore. For safety, she has split her map into four pieces, which she gave to some of the passengers whom she has invited, but tells no one who they are. When she is given a fright and succumbs to her heart disease, Chan must clear up the mystery while the ship is still at the dock.

This film has two versions, narrated in English and recited in Italian. The Italian version is recited in primitive Italian and Dante Alighieri's own words as he wrote the poem.

Dante gets lost in a dark wood, his way is blocked and he is threatened by three beasts: a lion, a lynx and a she-wolf. Beatrice descends from Heaven into Limbo to ask the poet Virgil to go to Dante's rescue and guide him through Inferno and Purgatorio. The film depicts a chronological descent to the nine circles of hell by Dante and Virgil through the exit into Purgatorio.

Surviving a murder attempt in Amsterdam, former undercover police officer Jack Adleth returns to London to seek revenge and settle some old scores, but he soon finds himself in danger not just from his former criminal associates, but his old police colleagues too. As he battles to stay alive, he must also deal with the guilt from the consequences of his undercover life.

An old woman's loneliness is amplified as she daily walks to the mailbox, only to find nothing there for her. Her neighbors and the mailman provide some relief, but her family doesn't seem to care.

The story is set during the first years of the First Indochina War. Mừng, a 12-year-old boy, illegally enters the war-torn city of Huế and sneaks into the then-Trần Cao Vân Regiment consisting of 30 boys around the same age as him, training to be spies and scouts. His purpose was to support the resistance, thus curing his mom, whom he deliberately ran away from in order to join the combat, from her terminal asthma.

After being accepted in the military, Mừng soon finds himself familiarized with fellow soldiers, notably Quỳnh, Lượm, Tư, Kim, Bồng. They take part in a series of battles in Huế, crippling French lines. Despite suffering casualties, the boys don't appear to be affected by PTSD. In fact, they seem to embrace the war. Mừng is later offered a trip to visit his mom on horseback. However, he didn't have the bravery to meet her, leaving the job to his comrade, who also sends her the herbs that Mừng gathered at the camp to improve her condition.

French reinforcements pour into Huế, forcing the Việt Minh to withdraw and set up a base in the mountainous region of Hoà Mỹ (now in Phong Điền).

A team consisting of Kim, Lượm, Tư and leader Đồng re-enters Huế to distribute revolutionary propaganda and newspapers to Huế citizens. Hence, French forces had to strengthen their positions in the city by putting it under martial law. The mission, nonetheless, carried on successfully until Kim encounters Trì, a former Viet Minh and close friend who betrayed the revolution and joined the French forces. Trì captures Kim and has him tortured, the latter succumbed to pain and reveals the entire mission to the enemy. Thus, Đồng was killed, Lượm was captured. Tư managed to run back to the base.

Lượm was imprisoned alongside Thúi, an innocent orphan around the same age as him who was mistaken for Tư. He attempted to escape prison twice, but failed, causing him to be jailed in Thừa Phủ - an infamous prison in Huế. Here, he befriends fellow guerillas and captured fighters, and flung into conflict with a gang of pickpockets and thieves, led by the infamous Lép. All hopes of fleeing seems to be fading for Lượm until he is selected to work in a French post office in Huế, thanks to his relatively good French. He plans to flee by replacing Thúi with a sympathetic worker. In addition, he cures Lép from cholera and makes friend with him. In favor of that, Lép gets rid of Lượm's dangerous co-worker Tụng, (who had been trying to do the same to Lượm) and replaces him. Together, at noon break, they drug the guard, steal an M1911 and an SMG, kill Trì (who spotted them en route) and plan to return to the base. Afterwards, their fates remain unknown.

Meanwhile, the resistance base in Phong Điền is still very busy. Mừng, despite being quite illiterate, is very good at maps and directions, and provided a good position for the army that can see the entire Hòa Mỹ-on a very high tree. He takes care of Quỳnh, who still needs medical attention from his infected wound. The latter appears to be a very good composer. Other members of the squad, such as Bồng, also scout other parts of Huế, raiding French strongholds and camps.

Quỳnh, whose father is, ironically, a very high-ranking official of Annam, is offered the chance to return home for a better life (Quỳnh was fascinated by revolutionary songs, much to his father's anger, thus he joined the Viet Minh). Despite a very promising and lucrative deal, Quỳnh pledged his loyalty to the Viet Minh. At the exact moment that he does so, which some of his relatives are present, he suffered a stroke from his wounds, and dies. He was given a very large funeral.

Kim returns to the base. He betrayed the Viet Minh and now returns as a mole, using Mừng's naïve nature to cover up his actions of espionage. But at the end, Mừng learned of Kim's activities and fights him in the jungle, while Kim was deserting. However, Kim overpowers Mừng, knocks him out and brings him to the enemy.

Mừng was able to re-enter Hòa Mỹ, but is captured immediately as he has been wanted for treason. In spite of solid evidence that he was indeed abducted by Kim, his cases are denied and he is jailed.

French forces gather up outside of Hòa Mỹ and besiege the base. After relentless fighting, the entire army had to withdraw southwards, leaving only a few men behind to hold off the enemy. Viet Minh forces intend to detonate a large land mine that could wipe out a large amount of French infantry and vehicles as they enter a pre-planned area. The boy scouts are ordered to spectate the fight from the position that Mừng provided to give the signal.

Mừng meets his mother in the base's makeshift hospital after she had volunteered to supply the army with rations and shot by the French. She had searched for Mừng around the province, only to find out in the end that her son is rumored to be an enemy spy. About to succumb to bleeding and wounds, she confesses to Mừng everything that she had hidden from him: that they are actually from Quảng Trị, Mừng was actually born out of wedlock, and his biological father had died before he was born – the abusive, treacherous man that he calls father is just a bully to his mom. Just as she finished, she passes away, and the hospital is bombed.

A devastated Mừng is freed from his escort as the latter took cover when a bomb stroke nearby. Suddenly knowing what to do, Mừng ignores his feelings and rushes to the watchtower. The entire crew sacrificed in a bombing. Hearing the noises from the radio above, Mừng climbs up the tree and gives the decisive signal that ignited the Vietnamese land mine, destroying large quantities of French troops. In the chaos, Mừng is suddenly sniped and critically wounded. As he was dying, he pleaded his commander to “stop suspecting” him, before finally collapsing.

In the end, the French had to abandon their positions in Hòa Mỹ. The Viet Minh also withdraw this base and head for Dương Hòa (now in Hương Thủy). Mừng is buried next to his mother on a mountain, which is named after them.