Local TV variety show hosts put their comedic abilities on pause and turn on their softer sides to tell audiences a true story about the physical and emotional journeys that a married couple goes on after the woman is diagnosed with a degenerative genetic disease.

Don't be fooled by the title of Shu Qi's (舒淇) latest film “A Beautiful Life” (不再讓你孤單), a romantic tragicomedy that lures you into a false sense of security before pulling the chair from under you. What promises to be a light and airy romcom comes crashing down halfway in and a completely different film begins.

Gorgeous and ambitious, pretentious and baffling, tightly controlled yet free-flowing, “The Tree of Life” is unlike anything you've ever seen before.

Both geographically and dramatically, “The Human Resources Manager” covers a lot of territory.

Based on the autobiography of the same name, “Mao's Last Dancer” (末代舞者) is the biopic of Li Cunxin (李存信), who at the age of 11 was plucked from his impoverished village in northwestern China to study ballet in the capital.

We know we are in for a different kind of family values early in “Animal Kingdom” — right off the top, actually, as we watch a teenager sitting next to his passed-out mother on the couch while some inane game show blares on the television in the background.

Bollywood storytelling, in all of its butt-numbing glory, is much in evidence in “My Name is Khan,” an India-to-America odyssey with a “How Others See Us” message.

Playing the other woman in “The Other Woman” is an uncomfortable fit for Natalie Portman.

“Beastly” is just as superficial and obsessed with looks as the characters and the mindset it rails against, which would seem like a bitter, frustrating irony if it merited the emotional reaction to care that much.

A remake of Tsui Hark's (徐克) classic 1987 film starring the late Leslie Cheung (張國榮), “A Chinese Ghost Story 2011” (倩女幽魂) shifts the focus to a supporting character in an attempt to retell an oft-told tale. Alas, it was to no avail and despite the remake's multi-million dollar budget, it's still a poor man's version of the original.