Lighting up the Stars Similar Movies

The changes in Chinese society from the 1980s to the present day, as experienced by two families.

A story about a karaoke-addicted old woman struggling with her self-worth and a sense of betrayal at her long-lost husband's funeral where she encounters his younger and more sophisticated girlfriend while she finds out her kids might have been secretly in touch with her late husband all these years.

Thirty-year-old college lecturer Shu Qiao is about to marry her long-term boyfriend and fiancé, successful banker Hu. The future has been written for her. However, during a visiting scholar programme to Europe, Shu encounters theatre director Fan in Prague, with whom she falls hopelessly in love.

Gu Wentong, a middle-aged food critic, is drifting through the local eateries of vibrant Beijing with his younger photographer colleague Oyang. A divorcé with a 6-year-old daughter and estranged from his father for decades, he is looking for a new perspective on life while reconsidering his failings as a father, a son, and a lover. While the seasons come and go, people get together and move apart. Only one thing will remain the same: The White Pagoda where they all meet sooner or later.

19-year-old girl Ming is a loner who works at night shift in a convenience store. One day near the spring festival, her unacquainted neighbor Rui invites her for a special dinner, which summons up her unspeakable past.

Juliane, a police commissioner in Paris, is a woman with great moral integrity. But when she discovers her husband’s double life, she starts committing acts she never would have thought herself capable of.

Zhao Li manages a Sichuan Opera troupe that lives and performs together in a rundown theatre in the outskirts of Chengdu. When she receives an order of demolition, she hides the news, fearing that this could spell their end. Secretly, she wouldn’t mind stopping since their life has become harder over the years. But what else can she do? She also worries that her niece Dan Dan, their star, will leave them for a better future in the city. To keep her troupe “family” together, Zhao Li begins a search for a new theatre for them to both sing and live in. As she struggles with bureaucracy, the characters from the opera world that she uses to escape her troubles begin to seep into her real life…

Nian is trying to get into shape for the state Gaokao exam. Her chances of getting a spot at university depend on her score and the constant bullying of her classmates is not helping much. Bei’s world is the street, with all its dark corners. A night-time encounter brings the shy schoolgirl together with the street-savvy trickster, Bei. When Nian’s school nemesis turns up dead, the new allies come under suspicion.

Ma and Guiying lead lives that are similarly sheltered and difficult. He is a reticent farmer, the last of his family to remain unmarried; she is disabled and infertile, and long past what is considered to be marrying age in rural China. Their arranged marriage, uniting two people who are accustomed to isolation and humiliation, would appear to force them into a relationship that will make life worse for both of them. But instead, they seize the opportunity to rise above themselves and discover their shared destiny. They learn how to become close companions, how to speak up, how to care for each other and even how to smile. All this in spite of the hard work required of them by their quintessential bond with the land and the trials that await them on their common path.