APEC is here and you’re not invited. But you sense it’s your duty to feel internationalist, part of the world family, at least while APEC-apalooza is in swing.

This short list of movies that you can rent, buy or watch via on-demand Web streaming might fit the bill. One of things they have in common is that virtually none has been released digitally in quality transfers. If movies are the storytelling medium of this century, it would help if there were international standards of digital quality. You hear me, APEC dudes?

» "The Year of Living Dangerously" — Directed by Peter Weir, this ambitious 1982 Australian film is adapted from a novel about the Indonesian overthrow of President Sukarno and the way foreign journalists get co-opted by local power plays. It’s set up as a romance between Sigourney Weaver’s British embassy functionary and Mel Gibson’s immature Aussie correspondent, although the real relationship in the film is between Gibson and Indonesian photography courier Billy Kwan, a dwarf who grows increasingly despairing about the country’s political problems. (Kwan, a male role, was played by American actress Linda Hunt, who won an Academy Award for her performance.) The film hit so close to home in Indonesia that it was banned for nearly two decades. This is the movie that made Mel Gibson a breakout romantic star.

» "Dersu Uzala" — Famed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa stepped out of his comfort zone with this 1975 filming of a 1923 memoir by a Russian explorer, Vladimir Arsenyev, who encountered a native hunter in deepest Siberia at the turn of the century. Dersu Uzala is a cantankerous old man made fun of by Arsenyev’s fellow explorers before they gradually realize he is a man perfectly in tune with his environment, the vast, brooding and wild taiga. Uzala’s canny skills often rescue them. But when Uzala is placed in a city, he’s out of his element and flees. This is a lovely film about two people of vastly different cultures forming a friendship based on mutual respect.

» "Raise the Red Lantern" — Not many films strike such a deep chord within a nation that they’re spun off as a ballet. "Raise the Red Lantern," directed by Zhang Yimou in 1991 — based on a novel released just the year before — stars the extraordinary Gong Li as a junior concubine of a rich profiteer during the warlord era in China, although the story is largely interior and luridly emotional. It could be taking place almost any time in history when women were treated as chattel. The struggle of the culturally powerless against harsh authoritarianism resonates within all cultures. However, "Lantern" made Chinese censors nervous, and the film was banned there while it won raves overseas.

» "Whale Rider" — Imagine that you’re the granddaughter of a Maori chief and your twin brother and mother died while giving you birth. Your grandfather, and by extension, nearly the whole community, considers you worthless. That’s the situation young Paikea is in, and the feckless manner in which she manages to overcome rejection and claim her destiny is one of the great film journeys. A breakthrough New Zealand feature film in 2002, "Whale Rider" earned an Academy Award nomination for actress Keisha Castle-Hughes, in her first role.

» "The Last Emperor" — A 1987 Italian film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci with an international cast about the drawdown of the creaky Chinese empire and the forced institution of cold bureaucracy, filmed in gorgeous color and sweeping just about every film award available — what’s not to love? Keep in mind, though, that despite the rich trappings, huge cast and multilayered storytelling, this is at heart the tale of a lonely human being dogged by fate and circumstance. Although it’s largely a true story about a famous person, Emperor Puyi, the tale has resonance for any person trying to live a full life.

For a Korean selection, we defer to Jeff Chung, general manager of KBFD TV:

» "Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War" — Director Je-Kyu Kang’s 2004 drama, praised by critics for its epic (and extremely graphic) combat scenes, focuses on two brothers caught up in the war that tore apart their country in the early 1950s. The older brother, Jin-tae, is a brawny shoe shiner who joins the army to protect his younger, weaker sibling, Jin-seok. Jin-tae makes a deal with his commander to win a combat medal in exchange for his brother’s release from the military. As Jin-tae grows to revel in the violence of the battlefield, his relationship with Jin-seok deteriorates, with tragic results.