Ten-year-old Chihiro Ogino and her parents are traveling to their new home when her father takes a wrong turn. Thinking that they have found an abandoned amusement park, her father insists on exploring and they cross a dry riverbed. While Chihiro's parents eat at an empty restaurant stall, Chihiro finds an exquisite bathhouse. She meets a young boy, Haku, who warns her to return across the river before sunset. However, Chihiro discovers too late that her parents turned into pigs and she is unable to cross the flooded river.
After finding Chihiro, Haku has her ask for a job from the bathhouse's boiler-man, Kamaji, a spider yōkai commanding the susuwatari. Kamaji and the worker Lin send Chihiro to the witch Yubaba, who runs the bathhouse. Yubaba gives Chihiro a job but renames her Sen (千?). While visiting her parents' pigpen, Sen finds a goodbye card addressed to Chihiro and realizes that she has already forgotten her name. Haku warns her that Yubaba controls people by taking their names and that if she forgets hers like he has forgotten his, Chihiro cannot leave the spirit world. While working, Sen invites a silent masked creature named No-Face inside, believing him to be customer. A stink spirit arrives and is Sen's first customer. She discovers he is the spirit of a polluted river. In gratitude for cleaning him, he gives Sen a magic emetic dumpling. No-Face tempts a worker with gold, then swallows him. He demands food and begins tipping extensively.
Sen discovers paper shikigami attacking a dragon and recognizes it as Haku transformed. When Haku crashes into Yubaba's penthouse, Sen follows him upstairs. She reaches Haku, and a shikigami stowed away on her back transforms into Zeniba, Yubaba's twin sister. She transforms Yubaba's baby son Boh into a mouse, creates a decoy baby and turns Yubaba's bird creature into a tiny bird. Zeniba tells Sen that Haku has stolen a magic gold seal from her, and warns Sen that it carries a deadly curse. After Haku dives to the boiler room with Sen and Boh on his back, she feeds him part of the dumpling, causing him to vomit both the seal and a black slug, which Sen crushes under her foot.
Firming her resolve to return the seal and apologize for Haku, Sen confronts No-Face, who is now massive, and feeds him the rest of the dumpling. While vomiting, No-Face chases Sen out of the bathhouse before returning to his normal size. Sen, No-Face and Boh travel to Zeniba. Enraged at the damage caused by No-Face, Yubaba blames Sen for inviting him in and orders that her parents be slaughtered. After Haku reveals that Boh is missing, Yubaba promises to free Sen and her parents in exchange for retrieving Boh.
Sen, No-Face and Boh arrive at Zeniba's house. Zeniba reveals that Sen's love for Haku broke his curse, and Yubaba had used the black slug to control Haku. Haku appears in his dragon form and flies both Sen and Boh back to the bathhouse. On the way back, Sen recalls a memory from her youth in which she had fallen into the Kohaku River but was washed safely ashore. After correctly guessing that Haku is the spirit of the Kohaku River (and thus revealing his real name), Haku is completely freed from Yubaba's control. When they arrive at the bathhouse, Yubaba makes a deal with Sen that in order to break the curse on her parents, Sen must recognize them from among a group of pigs. After Sen correctly states that none of the pigs is either of her parents, Sen is given back her real name Chihiro. Haku takes Chihiro to the now dry riverbed and vows to meet her again. Chihiro crosses the river and reunites with her restored parents, who do not remember what happened. They walk back to their car and drive off.
In 1930s Italy, Guido Orefice (Benigni) is a funny and charismatic young Jewish man looking for work in a city. He falls in love with a local school teacher, Dora (portrayed by Benigni's actual wife Nicoletta Braschi), who is to be engaged to a rich but arrogant civil servant. Guido engineers further meetings with her, seizing on coincidental incidents to declare his affection for her, and finally wins her over. He steals her from her engagement party on a horse, humiliating her fiance and mother. Soon they are married and have a son, Giosuè (Giorgio Cantarini).
Through the first part, the movie depicts the changing political climate in Italy: Guido frequently imitates Nazi party members, skewering their racist logic and pseudoscientific reasoning (at one point, jumping onto a table to demonstrate his "perfect Aryan bellybutton"). However, the growing racist wave is also evident: the horse Guido steals Dora away on has been painted green and covered in antisemitic insults.
In 1945, after Dora and her mother (Marisa Paredes) are reconciled, Guido, his Uncle Eliseo and Giosuè are seized on Giosuè's birthday, forced onto a train and taken to a concentration camp. Despite being a non-Jew, Dora demands to be on the same train to join her family. In the camp, Guido hides their true situation from his son, convincing him that the camp is a complicated game in which Giosuè must perform the tasks Guido gives him, earning him points; the first team to reach one thousand points will win a tank. He tells him that if he cries, complains that he wants his mother, or says that he is hungry, he will lose points, while quiet boys who hide from the camp guards earn extra points.
Guido uses this game to explain features of the concentration camp that would otherwise be scary for a young child: the guards are mean only because they want the tank for themselves; the dwindling numbers of children (who are being killed by the camp guards) are only hiding in order to score more points than Giosuè so they can win the game. He puts off Giosuè's requests to end the game and return home by convincing him that they are in the lead for the tank, and need only wait a short while before they can return home with their tank. Despite being surrounded by the misery, sickness and death at the camp, Giosuè does not question this fiction because of his father's convincing performance and his own innocence.
Guido maintains this story right until the end when, in the chaos of shutting down the camp as the Americans approach, he tells his son to stay in a sweatbox until everybody has left, this being the final competition before the tank is his. Guido tries to find Dora, but is caught and executed by a Nazi soldier. As he is marched off to be executed, he maintains the fiction of the game by deliberately marching in an exaggerated goose-step.
The next morning, Giosuè emerges from the sweatbox as the camp is occupied by an American armored division. They let him ride in the tank until, later that day, he sees Dora in the crowd of people streaming out of the camp. In the film, Giosuè is four and a half years old; however, both the beginning and ending of the film are narrated by an older Giosuè recalling his father's story of sacrifice for his family.
Heinrich Harrer (Pitt) and his pregnant wife Ingrid (Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė) are being driven to the train station in Graz, for Harrer's departure on an expedition to Nanga Parbat in the Himalayas. Harrer, Aufschnaiter (the leader, whom Harrer resents), and the expedition group arrive and begin climbing the mountain. After an avalanche, Aufschnaiter orders the group to retreat back to the base, despite Harrer's determination to reach the summit. On reaching the base, they learn that Britain has declared war on Germany, so they are arrested by British Indian authorities and taken by truck to Dehra Dun prison camp. Ingrid writes to Harrer with divorce papers. After several unsuccessful escape attempts, Aufschnaiter manages to steal a British uniform and several of the prisoners escape. The members of the group go separate ways, with Harrer heading for northern India.
The rest of the group, apart from Aufschnaiter, have been recaptured. Aufschnaiter plans to travel to eastern China to find work. However, he joins group with Harrer and the two cross the border into Tibet and set out east, but are intercepted by two men on horseback who tell them that foreigners are strictly forbidden in Tibet because of an ominous prophecy from the 13th Dalai Lama. They are brought back to India, but they escape and climb up the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Harrer and Aufschnaiter join pilgrims traveling to Lhasa, covering their faces to avoid recognition as foreigners. When they try to steal food, Kungo Tsarong (Mako) invites them to stay at his home. At the guest quarters of Tsarong's home a Tibetan tailor named Pema Lhaki arrives to measure the two men; though both Aufschnaiter and Harrer take interest in her, Aufschnaiter wins her over and subsequently marries her.
The foreigners are observed through a telescope by the young Dalai Lama from the nearby Potala Palace. The Tibetan regent, Ngawang Jigme (B. D. Wong), on orders of the suspicious government in Lhasa, visits the Chinese embassy in the city and tells the officials there to stop subsidizing the monasteries. A Chinese official offers to bribe Ngawang Jigme, but he refuses. The Dalai Lama's mother (Jetsun Pema) instructs Harrer on courtesy when meeting the Dalai Lama. Harrer enters the interior halls of the Potala Palace. At the Dalai Lama's request, Harrer begins tutoring the Dalai Lama in world geography and the ways of the west.
While Harrer and Afschnaiter are attending a party, a Tibetan turns on the radio and a Chinese announcer proclaims that they plan to invade Tibet. At a meeting with the cabinet, the regent issues an order to banish all Chinese people from Tibet. That night, the Dalai Lama has a prophetic nightmare of Chinese atrocities near the Tibetan border in Taktser, his birthplace, with monasteries being burnt down.
Three Chinese generals fly to Lhasa to speak with the Dalai Lama, but they are visibly contemptuous of him and the leader of the delegation tells Ngawang Jigme that "religion is poison". The Dalai Lama sends Ngawang Jigme to lead the Tibetan army at the border town of Chamdo to halt a Chinese advance, but Ngawang Jigme surrenders and then blows up the Tibetan ammunitions dump after a sadly one-sided battle in which hundreds of Tibetans are slaughtered by better equipped and trained Chinese troops. During a treaty signing in Lhasa, Kungo Tsarong tells Harrer that if Jigme had not destroyed the weapons supply, Tibetan guerillas could have held the mountain passes, buying time to appeal to other nations for help. As the Chinese take control of Tibet, Harrer visits Ngawang Jigme to menace him about "betraying his culture".
The Dalai Lama, now fifteen years old, is formally enthroned as the spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet. Harrer pays a final visit to the Lama on top of the Potala and prays with him. Harrer bids farewell to Aufschnaiter and Pema and returns to Austria in 1951 to visit his son Rolf, now a young boy. His son refused to meet with him. Harrer left the music box that was given by the Dalai Lama when he departed Tibet. Harrer and Rolf are seen mountain-climbing, suggested he did mend his relationship with his son at the end of the film.
The film ends with a series of title cards that list figures that quantify the death and destruction as a result of Chinese occupation. Harrer kept a good relationship with Dalai Lama after he fled from Tibet to India.
In 1981, Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) waits at a bus stop and begins telling his life story to strangers on his bench sitting next to him. The story begins with the leg braces he had to wear as a child, which resulted in him being bullied by children. He lives with his mother (Sally Field), who tells him that "stupid is as stupid does". Forrest teaches one of their guests, a young Elvis Presley, a hip-swinging dance. On a bus for his first day of school, Forrest meets Jenny (Robin Wright), with whom he immediately falls in love, and they become best friends. Forrest discovers that he can run very fast which, despite his below-average intelligence, earns him a scholarship to the University of Alabama from Bear Bryant. While in college, he witnesses George Wallace's Stand in the Schoolhouse Door, is named an All-American football player, and meets President John F. Kennedy.
After graduating, Forrest enlists in the United States Army, where he becomes friends with Benjamin Buford "Bubba" Blue (Mykelti Williamson), and they agree to go into the shrimping business together. They are sent to Vietnam, and on 7th June 1965, their platoon is ambushed, Forrest saves many of the men in his platoon, including platoon leader 2nd Lt. Dan Taylor (Gary Sinise), but Bubba dies after receiving a gunshot wound to his chest. Forrest himself is injured and receives the Medal of Honor from President Lyndon B. Johnson. While recovering from his injuries Forrest meets Dan Taylor again. Now an amputee, he is furious at Forrest for leaving him a "cripple" and cheating him out of his destiny to die in battle like his ancestors. In Washington, Forrest is swept up in an anti-war rally at the National Mall and is reunited with Jenny, who is now part of the hippie counterculture movement. They spend the night walking around the capital, but she leaves with her abusive boyfriend the following day.
Forrest discovers an aptitude for ping pong and begins playing for the U.S. Army team, eventually competing against Chinese teams on a goodwill tour. He goes to the White House again and meets President Richard Nixon who provides him a room at the Watergate hotel, where Forrest inadvertently helps expose the Watergate scandal. After the Fall of Saigon Forrest is discharged from the military. For his numerous accomplishments, Forrest is invited onto The Dick Cavett Show alongside John Lennon. He again encounters Dan Taylor, now an embittered drunk living on welfare. Dan is scornful of Forrest's plans to enter the shrimping business and mockingly promises to be Forrest's first mate if he ever succeeds.
Using money from a ping pong endorsement, Forrest buys a shrimping boat, fulfilling his wartime promise to Bubba. Dan keeps his own promise and joins Forrest as first mate. They initially have little luck; but, after Hurricane Carmen destroys every other shrimping boat in the region, the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company becomes a huge success due to the elimination of competition. Having had an epiphany during the hurricane, Dan finally thanks Forrest for saving his life. Forrest then returns home to care for his ailing mother, who dies soon afterwards. Forrest leaves the company in the hands of Dan, who invests their wealth in shares of Apple, making them both millionaires.
Jenny returns to visit Forrest and stays with him. Forrest asks her to marry him, but she declines and slips away early one morning after the pair make love. Distraught, Forrest decides to go for a run, which turns into a three-year coast-to-coast marathon. Forrest becomes a celebrity and attracts followers. One day he stops suddenly and returns home. He receives a letter from Jenny asking to meet, which brings him to the bus stop where he began telling his story. Once he and Jenny are reunited, Forrest discovers they have a young son, also named Forrest (Haley Joel Osment). Jenny reveals that she is suffering from an unknown virus. She proposes to him and he accepts. They return to Alabama with Forrest Jr. and marry. Their joy is short lived however, when Jenny dies on 22nd March 1982. At the end of the film, Forrest waits with Forrest Jr. for the bus to pick him up for his first day of school. As the bus drives away, Forrest sits on the same tree stump where his mother sat on his first day of school and watches his feather bookmark float off in the wind.
Starting out in the 1940s, the story finds the elder Sorn bed-ridden. To an old friend, he recalls his childhood growing up in 1880s Siam, during the reign of King Chulalongkorn and the action flashes back to that time.
Sorn's brother was a gifted classical musician, so gifted in fact that it caused a rivalry with other musicians that ended in Sorn's brother's death. Because of that, Sorn's father bars the boy from taking up the ranad-ek (Thai xylophone). However, Sorn, who has shown a talent for the instrument since an early age, defies his father and sneaks off to practice playing in an abandoned temple in the jungle.
Eventually, he becomes so skilled at the instrument that his father lets him play after he speaks to a monk who advises him that he should not deny him the right to play ranad-ek. Sorn excels in his studies to the point where he is noticed by other bands. They ask for his presence to complete. He becomes arrogant and misses practice telling his father that his faith isn't misplaced. His father teaches his place by putting him on the Kong-wong. At the competition, the competitor scares his uncle (the substitute on ranad-ek) and becomes clear that the competitor has superior skill. As their playing, the judge realises that Sorn isn't playing on the ranad-ek and calls the teacher out on the fact that if they have a good player, might as well bring out the good material because then you can lose with dignity. The band starts over and plays the same song, but it is obvious that Sorn is skilled. He wins every competition as a boy. So One day, in a local village, Sorn and his ensemble are set up to perform in a courtyard. Across the courtyard is another ensemble, led by a fierce-looking bearded ranad-ek player dressed in black. As the rival player starts to perform, a storm whips up adding to the ominous mood of the setting. Sorn is disturbed by his fiery ability to play and wants to learn like him.
But Sorn's talent does not go unnoticed and he is soon chosen to play for a local nobleman and is sent to the palace for more formal music training. There he meets an older man that he thinks is a palace caretaker, or some type of lowly person that does not know about music. However, later, when Sorn is to meet his new teacher, Master Tian, it is revealed to be the old man he met earlier. Tian turns out to be a strict teacher and instructs Sorn on all the instruments of the Thai classical music ensemble. At one point, Sorn is punished for being too flashy a player and is made to relinquish the ranad-ek to an inferior player, much to the dismay of other members in his ensemble, as well as a high palace official watching the performance.
So when it comes time for the kingdom's musical competition, it is Sorn who is again the lead player. However, Sorn must overcome his fear at the competition, because he must again face the fierce, bearded ranad-ek performer.
The story flashes back forward to the 1940s again, showing Sorn as a respected teacher. One day Sorn's son has a piano moved into his father's studio. The expectation is that his father will be furious at having a newfangled Western instrument brought into his house. But instead of being mad, he instructs his son to play a tune on the piano. The elder Sorn then takes up his ranad-ek mallets and improvises with his son, blending Thai and Western music.
This is during the rule of the dictator, Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsonggram, whose government called for the accelerated modernisation of Thailand. As a result, performances of traditional Thai music, dance and theatre were frowned upon. In Sorn's neighbourhood, the orders are enforced by Lieutenant-Colonel Veera.
Sorn teaches the Lieutenant a nation can only withstand outside forces if their nation is strong. For that to happen, they must believe in themselves. No matter what, they must protect their heritage and honor it regardless of what they are to become. Sorn plays not only to defy the rules, but to teach a lesson about culture and heritage.
The film opens on September 25, 1945, shortly after the end of World War II, at Sannomiya Station where Seita (清太?), a 14-year-old boy, is seen dying of starvation. Later that night, a janitor digs through his possessions, and finds a candy tin containing ashes and bones, which he throws away into a nearby field. From the tin spring the spirits of Seita and his younger sister Setsuko (節子?), as well as a cloud of fireflies. The spirit of Seita continues to narrate their story, which is, in effect, an extended flashback to Japan in the final months of World War II, during the firebombing of the city of Kobe.
The flashback begins with a fleet of American B-29 Superfortress bombers flying overhead. Setsuko and Seita, the two siblings, are left to secure the house and their belongings, allowing their mother, who suffers from a heart condition, to reach a bomb shelter. They are caught off-guard as the bombers begin to drop hundreds of incendiary bomblets, which start huge fires that quickly destroy their neighbourhood and most of the city. Although they survive unscathed, their mother is caught in the air raid and is horribly burned. She is taken to a makeshift clinic in a school, but dies a short time later. Having nowhere else to go, Setsuko and Seita move in with a distant aunt, who allows them to stay but convinces Seita to sell his mother's kimonos for rice. While living with their relatives, Seita goes out to retrieve leftover supplies he had buried in the ground before the bombing. He gives all of it to his aunt, but hides a small tin of fruit drops, which becomes a recurrent icon throughout the film. Their aunt continues to shelter them, but as their food rations continue to shrink due to the war, she becomes increasingly resentful. She openly remarks on how they do nothing to earn the food she cooks.
Seita and Setsuko finally decide to leave and move into an abandoned bomb shelter. They release fireflies into the shelter for light, but Setsuko is horrified to find that the next day they are all dead. She digs them a grave and buries them all, asking why they have to die, and why her mother had to die. What begins as a new lease on life grows grim as they run out of rice, and Seita is forced to steal from local farmers and loot homes during air raids. When he is caught, he realizes his desperation and takes an increasingly ill Setsuko to a doctor, who informs him that Setsuko is suffering from malnutrition but offers no help. In a panic, Seita withdraws all the money remaining in their mother's bank account, but as he leaves the bank, he becomes distraught when he learns from a nearby crowd that Japan has surrendered unconditionally to the Allied Powers and that his father, a Captain in the Imperial Japanese Navy is probably dead, since nearly all of Japan's navy is now at the bottom of the ocean. He returns to the shelter with large quantities of food, only to find a dying Setsuko hallucinating. Seita hurries to cook, but Setsuko dies shortly thereafter. Seita cremates Setsuko, and puts her ashes in the fruit tin which he carries with his father's photograph, until his own death from malnutrition in Sannomiya Station a few weeks later.
In the movie's final scene, the spirits of Seita and Setsuko are seen healthy, well-dressed and happy as they sit together, surrounded by fireflies, and look down on modern city of Kobe.
The film tells the story of a perfect violin known as the "Red Violin." At the film's beginning, the violin is being auctioned in Canada. As the bidding starts, the violin's history is revealed, showing that the violin has been in existence for over 300 years, having been made in 1681.
Its history is told in five stories set in different locations around the world—Cremona, Vienna, Oxford, Shanghai, and Montreal. These stories are told in chronological order except for the Cremona and Montreal stories, which are intersected into the others with each change of location and as the tarot reading and the auction develop. The 1997 auction is used as a framing device for the first four stories in the film. After the fourth story, we see the complicated resolution to the auction sequence with no further cutaways to the other four stories.
To its owners, the violin causes anger, betrayal, love, and sacrifice. In each setting the dialogue is spoken in the appropriate language. Also, a variation of the movie's signature violin solo by composer John Corigliano is played at least once in the period it is played, with the exception of Cremona, where the solo is being hummed by Anna herself. Throughout the movie, the solos are played by noted violinist Joshua Bell.
The movie starts with Charles Morritz (Jackson) arriving at Duval's auction house to witness the sale of the Red Violin. Throughout the movie, we see the various parties representing the different eras as seen in the film vying for the Red Violin. When the scene does finally shift to Montreal, we see a flashback of the events leading up to the auction.
1681, Cremona
The Moon Tarot Card
Nicolò Bussotti (Cecchi) is a violin maker who is married to Anna Rudolfi (Grazioli), pregnant with their first child. Anna is worried about her own health, as she believes her age may complicate her pregnancy and birth, but Nicolo is confident, saying that he has the best people available when she is due for delivery. Anna asks her servant Cesca (Laurenzi) to foretell her unborn child's future. Cesca cannot determine the future of someone not born, but she does offer to read Anna's future using a form of tarot cards. Anna chooses five cards, and Cesca tells her that the first card (The Moon) signifies that Anna will live a long life.
In the meantime, Nicolò has fashioned a new violin, one that he considers his masterpiece, with the hopes that their child will become a musician. He is about to varnish this violin when he is summoned to the bedside of his wife to find that both Anna and the baby have died during the birth of the child. Distraught, Nicolò carries her body back to his violin shop and begins varnishing the violin he had created for their child, mixing Anna's red blood with the varnish. It is later revealed that this violin is the last one Nicolò would make.
The violin is donated to an orphanage in Austria where a succession of choirboys play this violin for at least the next 100 years. Throughout the film, we see Cesca telling Anna about her future as revealed by each tarot card, when in fact, Cesca reveals the journey Anna's blood will make as it travels on the Red Violin.
1793, Vienna
The Hanged Man Tarot Card
Cesca predicts the second card (The hanged man) means disease and suffering for those around Anna.
At the orphanage, the violin comes under the possession of Kaspar Weiss (Koncz), a young but brilliant violin prodigy. A violin instructor, Poussin (Bideau), arrives to assess the boy's talents and he is asked by the monks at the orphanage to adopt the boy to further his development. Weiss and the violin travel to Vienna, where Poussin introduces him to his wife, who complains that they cannot afford to raise the boy. Poussin is convinced that Weiss's talents would mean prosperity for Poussin's household: Prince Mannsfeld (Denberg) is due to visit Vienna and is looking for a prodigy to accompany him on his way to Prussia. Such a trip would likely mean success for Weiss and a generous payment for Poussin from the monarchy. To prepare for the recital, Poussin has Weiss undergo a strict practice regimen assisted by a device Poussin calls his "Poussin Meter" (which in fact is a primitive metronome). Poussin has Weiss practice his piece slowly, then builds up the tempo of the piece to the point where he can play it at a fast tempo.
However, Weiss has a heart defect, the strict practice regimens are taking a toll on him, and he is attached to his violin to the point of sleeping with it. When Poussin tells the boy not to sleep with his violin, his heart starts to have problems and a doctor is summoned, Weiss's heart stopping for a full minute. On the day of the recital, Mannsfeld shows an interest in the violin instead of the child to the point of offering to purchase it, but allows the child to play to assess his talents. Just as he is to start playing his piece, Weiss's heart gives out from the stress and he collapses, dead.
Weiss is buried at the orphanage he grew up in, and Poussin inquires about the violin, seeing how he would like to sell it to Mannsfeld. The monks explain that the violin was buried with Weiss so he "could play it in heaven". The violin is later stolen by grave robbers travelling in a gypsy procession, where it is handed down, and played by several generations of gypsies, spanning another century before being taken to England.
In the present day in 1997 the monks of the orphanage want to return the violin to where it was first played. They attempt to bid via telephone on the violin when it goes on sale at an auction house, but pull out when the bidding price reaches $500,000.
Late 1890s, Oxford,
The Devil Tarot Card
Cesca's third card is Il Diavolo (the devil), and she explains that Anna will meet a handsome and intelligent man, that will seduce her "with his talent and worse".
Frederick Pope (Flemyng) comes across the gypsy procession setting up camp in his own backyard, with a female gypsy playing the violin. The gypsies rush to leave immediately, but Frederick has a different idea; he wants the violin instead, and offers sanctuary for the gypsy procession in addition to viewing one of his concerts. However, on the day of the concert, Frederick is having trouble coming up with a piece to play at the concert and sends for his girlfriend, Victoria Byrd (Scacchi). Frederick requires carnal inspiration, and Victoria serves as his fleshly muse, which inspires him to come up with a new piece. Victoria, an author, obtains her inspirations for her work through travel, and announces to Frederick that she needs to leave on a journey to Russia to seed a novel she is working on.
After Victoria leaves, the two lovers write letters to each other but while Victoria is finding much scope for creativity, Frederick has lost his inspiration to compose. He begins to deteriorate, bedridden, smoking opium. Frederick starts to cancel concerts soon afterwards as he has lost his will to play, and stops writing letters to Victoria. When Victoria does not receive his letters for a full week, she resolves to return immediately and sends one more letter stating so, but Frederick has stopped reading her letters. When Victoria arrives at Frederick's residence and hears him playing passionately, she knows he is getting his inspiration in someone else's arms. With gun in hand, Victoria bursts into Frederick's room to find him in the arms of a new muse, the female gypsy violinist. In a moment of rage, Victoria shoots the violin, the bullet grazing and damaging the neck of the violin. The tail-piece and strings come loose as the red violin spins out of Pope's hand. Victoria rushes out.
Frederick's final letter to Victoria states that he will be committing suicide and that he is leaving his entire estate to her. The violin however, ends up in the hands of Frederick's Chinese servant and he takes it back to Shanghai where he sells it to an antiques dealer. The violin is repaired, but a small jewel is removed from the violin's scroll work. It goes on display in the shop for over three decades, before being sold to a young woman with her daughter during the 1930s.
In the present day in 1997 a representative from the Pope Foundation (dedicated to Pope's music) arrives at the auction hall to "reclaim" Lord Pope's violin. He attempts to win the auction on it but becomes the final bidder to pull out when the bidding reaches $2.4 million.
Late 1960s, Shanghai
Justice Tarot Card
Cesca predicts the fourth card (Justice) means tough times ahead, featuring a trial and persecution, where Anna shall be guilty.
With the Chinese Communist Party in power during the Cultural Revolution, all items deemed unsuitable (or "foreign") to the ideology of Mao Zedong are being burned. One of these items includes a violin owned by Chou Yan (Liu), a music teacher. He is given a political show trial and is berated for his fondness for western classical music. A political officer, Xiang Pei (Chang) attempts to defend Chou by suggesting he teach Chinese traditional music, since he also plays the huqin, a remark that arouses the suspicions of her party leader. Chou is forced to throw his violin into a bonfire containing other "unacceptable" cultural items.
Xiang returns to her residence and starts disposing of all of the classical music which she can no longer keep, due to her fear of the State. She uncovers the Red Violin which was a gift from her mother. At this point, her son Ming walks in to the room and Xiang starts to explain the violin to him, even playing a piece for him. She tells Ming not to tell anyone about its existence, and tells him to go find his father and tell him that she will be joining the meeting shortly after supper. Xiang realizes her secret is in clumsy hands. Ming finds his father, and inadvertently lets slip of the existence of the violin. Xiang's party leader and several Communist Party members arrive at her apartment intending to arrest her. However, they find Xiang gone, and all her "foreign" music burning in the wastebasket. They also find a photograph of Xiang's mother, who was an accomplished concert violinist.
Xiang arrives at Chou's house and pleads with him to take the violin to keep it safe. Believing that it is a trick to get him arrested or shot, Chou refuses until Xiang threatens to destroy the violin in front of him. He relents and vows to keep it hidden, while Xiang leaves to face possible prosecution from Communist Party officials.
Years later, Chou's home has become a "sanctuary" for dozens of musical instruments. The cache is discovered when police, acting on a complaint from a neighbour, find his dead body in his house. Upon this discovery, the present-day Government of China, far removed from the rule of Mao Zedong, ships these items to Montreal where they can be appraised and sold at auction.
A much older Ming arrives at the auction house in 1997, hoping to buy the violin which his mother once played for him. He pulls out when the bidding reaches $1.2 million.
1997, Montréal
Death Tarot Card
The final card (Death) Cesca sees does not predict death, but due to the positioning (the card is seen upside down), she sees it as something else, as a rebirth, where Anna will be pursued by many suitors and that there shall be lots of money involved.
Morritz arrives in Montreal as an appraiser for the violins sent by the Government of China. Almost immediately he notices the Red Violin and he has Evan Williams (McKellar) perform some work with it. To verify if it is the Red Violin, he has some varnish samples sent to the lab at the University of Montreal. Thinking that this may be the legendary last Violin of Nicolo Bussotti, he comes up with an idea to purchase a copy of the Red Violin from a private collection in London, the closest copy to the original available (apparently commissioned by Frederick Pope himself before his death). At the same time, a wealthy concert violinist named Ruselsky (Bogajewicz) samples some of the violins and spots the Red Violin and tries it out, but Morritz convinces him that it is not the Red Violin. It is then revealed in flashback that the varnish contains some of Bussotti's beloved wife's blood, giving it its distinctive red colour, and is painted with a brush made from her hair.[2]
When the varnish samples arrive, Morritz is shocked to realize that the violin's varnish contains blood. At the same time, the manager of the auction, Leroux (Mercure), and the lead auctioneer (Feore) confront Morritz about the expenses he has incurred and ask him the purpose of his inquiries. Morritz gives in and lets them know that the violin in question is indeed the Red Violin. Ruselsky is furious at this discovery as he believes that the violin should have been his.
Using his own funds, Morritz has Williams buy the copy from London, and it arrives in time for the auction, Williams authenticating that it is indeed the closest copy to the real thing. With this, Morritz heads to Duval's, passing by the Pope foundation member in the process (recreating one of the first scenes in the film). He sees Ruselsky and they exchange glances, Ruselsky still furious at Morritz's deception. As the auction for the previous item winds down, Morritz, with Williams acting as a distraction, switches the Red Violin for its copy, accidentally dropping the auction tag in its storage area. As the copy is being sent to be bid on, Leroux notices that the tag is missing and is about to call security when Williams finds the tag. As the monks in Austria, the Pope Foundation member, Ming, and Mr. Ruselsky bid on the copy, Morritz rushes out, nearly getting run down by a car in the process. Ruselsky eventually beats out the other three bidding competitors for the copy. On his way back to the airport, Morritz calls his wife at home in New York City and asks to speak to his daughter telling her he has a special present for her upon his return.
Amélie Poulain (Audrey Tautou) was raised by eccentric parents who—believing erroneously that she had a heart defect—prevented her from meeting other children; she was home schooled by her mother. She developed an active imagination and fantasy life to cope with her loneliness. After the death of her mother and her father's subsequent withdrawal from society, Amélie leaves home and becomes a waitress at Café des 2 Moulins in Montmartre, staffed and frequented by a collection of eccentrics. Spurning romantic relationships after a few disappointing efforts, she finds contentment in simple pleasures and letting her imagination roam free.
On 31 August 1997, Amélie is startled by the news of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, causing her to drop a glass ball which in turn dislodges a loose bathroom tile. Behind the tile she finds an old metal box of childhood memorabilia hidden by a boy who lived in her apartment decades earlier. She resolves to track down the boy and return the box to him, and promises herself that if she finds him and it makes him happy, she will devote her life to bringing happiness to others.
She asks Mrs. Wallace, the concierge, about the boy. Wallace redirects her to the abusive greengrocer, Mr. Collignon, who redirects Amélie to his mother. Mrs. Collignon remembers the name "Dominique Bredoteau", but Amélie has no success finding the owner of the box. Amélie meets her reclusive neighbour, Raymond Dufayel (Serge Merlin), an artist who repaints Luncheon of the Boating Party by Pierre-Auguste Renoir every year. He remembers the boy also, but correctly recalls the name as "Bretodeau". Amélie quickly finds the man and surreptitiously passes him the box. Moved to tears by the discovery and the memories it holds, Bretodeau resolves to reconcile with his estranged daughter and the grandson he has never met. Amélie happily embarks on her new mission.
Amélie secretly executes complex schemes that affect the lives of those around her. She escorts a blind man to the Métro station, giving him a rich description of the street scenes he passes. She persuades her father to follow his dream of touring the world by stealing his garden gnome and having a flight attendant friend airmail pictures of it posing with landmarks from all over the world. She kindles a romance between a middle-aged co-worker and one of the customers in the bar. She convinces Mrs. Wallace that the husband who abandoned her had sent her a final conciliatory love letter just before his accidental death years before. She avenges Lucien, Mr. Collignon's meek monoplegic assistant and the target of his abuse, by playing practical jokes on Collignon until his arrogance is deflated.
While she is looking after others, Mr. Dufayel is observing her. He begins a conversation with her about his painting. Although he has copied the same painting 20 times, he has never quite captured the look of the girl drinking a glass of water. They discuss the meaning of this character, and over several conversations Amélie begins projecting her loneliness on to the image. Dufayel recognizes this, and uses the girl in the painting to push Amélie to examine her attraction to a quirky young man who collects the discarded photographs of strangers from passport photo booths. When Amélie bumps into the young man a second time, she realizes she is falling in love with him. He accidentally drops a photo album in the street. Amélie retrieves it. She discovers his name is Nino Quincampoix, and she plays a cat and mouse game with him around Paris before returning his treasured album anonymously. After orchestrating a proper meeting at the 2 Moulins, she is too shy to approach him and tries to deny her identity. Her co-worker, concerned for Amélie's well-being, screens Nino for her; a café patron's comment about this misleads Amélie to believe she has lost Nino to the co-worker. It takes Dufayel's insight to give her the courage to pursue Nino, resulting in a romantic night together and the beginning of a relationship.
The film is set in 859 AD. The once great Tang Dynasty is now in decline. Numerous rebel groups have formed, the largest of which is the House of Flying Daggers, based in Feng Tian county. The Flying Daggers steal from the rich and give to the poor, gaining the support of the locals.
The local deputies have managed to kill the leader of the Flying Daggers, but the rebel group only becomes stronger, due to a mysterious new leader. Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and Liu (Andy Lau), two police captains, are ordered to kill the new leader within ten days.
In order to accomplish this, they arrest Mei (Zhang Ziyi), a blind dancer who is suspected of being the daughter of the old leader of the Flying Daggers. While Mei is incarcerated, Jin and Liu decide to let her go to track the mastermind; Jin will pretend to be a lone warrior called Wind, and break her out of prison. This will gain her trust, and hopefully, Jin will be led to the headquarters of Flying Daggers. The plan works, but Mei and Jin fall in love on the way. They are followed at a distance by Liu; Jin and Liu meet secretly to discuss their plans. Jin jokes about his seduction of the girl; Liu warns him sternly against getting involved.
To add authenticity to the deception, Liu and his men ambush the pair: the fight is, however, a fake. Further on, they are attacked again, but this time their assailants are apparently for real: Jin and Mei battle for their lives, being saved only by the intervention of an unseen knife-thrower. Furious, Jin confronts Liu: Liu explains that he has reported the matter up the chain of command and his general has taken over the pursuit. Jin realizes that he is now expendable.
Once again, Jin and Mei are attacked by the General's men. They are hopelessly outnumbered; at the last minute they are saved when the House of Flying Daggers reveal themselves. Jin and Liu are captured and taken to their headquarters. At this point, a number of surprising revelations are made. Mei is not blind, nor is she the old leader's daughter - she was merely pretending to be. Liu is in fact an undercover agent for the House of Flying Daggers, which has engineered the whole chain of events in order to draw the General into a decisive battle. Furthermore, Liu is in love with Mei: he has waited for three years for her whilst working undercover.
Mei, however, cannot bring herself to love Liu: over the last few days she has fallen for Jin. But as Jin is now a liability, she is ordered by Nia, the leader of the House of Flying Daggers, to kill him. Instead Mei takes him away then frees him from his bonds before they make love in the field. Jin then begs Mei to flee with him, but she is torn between her love and her duty to the House, as well as guilt over Liu; Jin leaves alone.
Mei finally decides to ride after Jin, but is ambushed by Liu who is embittered by her rejection and consumed by jealousy for Jin. Mei, not realizing that Liu has thrown two daggers stuck together, only manages to ward off one before the other strikes her in the chest. As Mei lies dying, Jin returns to find Liu, and they begin an epic battle of honor and revenge, fighting from autumn to winter. Mei, regaining consciousness, grabs the dagger in her chest and threatens to pull it out and to throw it in order to kill Liu if Liu kills Jin with his throwing dagger; in doing so Mei would sacrifice her own life, as it would enable the blood to flow and cause her to bleed to death. Jin begs her not to do it, willing to die rather than let her be killed. Infuriated, Liu throws his arm out as if to throw a knife at Jin, leading Mei to rip the dagger out of her own heart and throw it, not at Liu but instead in an attempt to deflect Liu's attack and save Jin. However, all her dagger does is deflect a droplet of blood, as Liu never let go of his dagger. Liu stumbles off into the blizzard as a grief-stricken Jin holds Mei's lifeless body, singing the song originally sung by Mei at the beginning of the film in the Peony Pavilion.
TOKYO
Makoto Segawa is a pretty hopeless commercial photographer. Hating to compromise his artistry, his work is often rejected by the trite concerns of his commerce. One day he gets into a fight with an ad. exec. throws caution to the wind and decks the client with a punch.
Out of work, his world is thrown into complete turmoil by the arrival of a letter from his ex-girlfriend, Shizuru, his first love from his student days...
Back then, Shizuru was "the" girl on campus. She seemed to know everyone, flirted with many and was chased by most. Then there were the rumours about her affair with her professor. Makoto, on the other hand, was a poor nobody harbouring dreams of becoming a professional photographer.
After a chance meeting, Shizuru asks Makoto to take a picture of her. They grow close, and eventually become lovers. A small rainbow at a water fountain, soap bubbles in a laundromat, a blinking traffic signal, a bright balloon caught on a wire... Makoto's mundane world becomes filled with small wonders. Regaining his passion to capture every moment of life, he launches himself back into photography.
Shizuru's mother passes away. It turns out she is the illegitimate child of the professor who she is rumoured to be sleeping with. It's a revenge ploy on her part. She confesses everything to Makoto and he glimpses beyond the strong front she has maintained to protect her mother. Shizuru's strength of will, refusal to pity herself and thirst for revenge against the professor's dishonesty, inspire him. For the first time in her life she allows someone near. They grow closer than ever and she moves in with him.
Graduation looms to interrupt their student idyll. Shizuru, having taken up photography to share something with the reticent Makoto, receives recognition in a photo competition. Makoto is bewildered by Shizuru's achievement. Unable to face up to his own shortcomings, he picks a fight. They end up separating with Shizuru extracting a promise from the sulky Makoto that he will come for her when he has fulfilled his dream of becoming a professional photographer.
That was all three years ago. The promise still not fulfilled, Makoto has been scraping together a living but every day has been a compromise of his vision.
Then comes the fight with his client. He breaks his camera, fractures bones in his hand and is on the verge of turning his back on everything.
At this point he learns that Shizuru was killed in New York, a year before. It makes no sense. According to the letter, things were fine. not only was she taking loads of pictures, she also invited Makoto to a private exhibition at an exclusive gallery. The postmark is only a week old.
Makoto leaves for New York to find out what the hell is going on. With Shizuru apparently on her way to success and Makoto at rock-bottom, theirs is sure to be a fateful encounter. It's time to deal with unfinished business.
NEW YORK
He begins his search. After being mugged he is taken in by a benevolent drug-dealer. With this guy's help he finds Shizuru's apartment and learns from a Japanese friend of hers that she has apparently left for a photo tour of Mexico. Her room is full of fabulous pictures of the people of New York and life on its bustling streets.
However there are contradictions that he can't figure out. It seems that Shizuru's claim to be holding a private exhibition might be a fiction concocted to scam money from unsuspecting benefactors...himself included.
He decides to puts his faith in her and continues to help putting on the exhibition in her absence. Almost without thinking, he resumes taking photographs. Inspired by her example, his feel for the small wonders of life is resurrected and through this process he aches for Shizuru's presence in his life once more.
He continues to pursue the mystery of Shizuru's whereabouts. Vital clues on an old roll of undeveloped film lead him and his drug dealer buddy to a place where the murder of an unknown Japanese girl is rumoured to have taken place some months before. No sooner do they begin their investigation when shots ring out!
When the smoke clears, Makoto will have all the pieces of the puzzle in his grasp and a knowledge of Shizuru's fate. She is indeed dead but he couldn't have imagined the culprit in his wildest dreams.
With Shizuru gone, he resolves to leave New York. Taking a last look over her apartment, he is dumbstruck to see Shizuru standing before him. "You've finally kept our promise. I waited a long time... You said you'd come for me when you made it as a professional photographer." She smiles. "Thank you... Makoto." And with these words, she is gone.
As Makoto heads through the airport to catch his plane for Japan, a stranger stops him. It seems that the exhibition went ahead without him thinking any further of it. In a fated case of mistaken identity, it seems he is credited with taking Shizuru's photographs.
Stalled for a moment, he is faced with the decision to right the misconception or pick up her life where it left off. In a testament to their love, he makes the most natural choice and binds their identities together forever. Shizuru and Makoto become one, at last.
