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Runaway Blues
Guangdong ProvinceBefore he was crowned one of the "Four Heavenly Kings", Andy Lau starred in the 1989 gangster film Runaway Blues. He plays Lam, a Taiwan gangster who flees to Hong Kong after killing a rival gangster. Hiding at his uncle gang boss Lip's place, he gets embroiled in more gang conflicts and is forced to be an informant for the police. Lam runs away to Guangzhou and Macau with Lip's mistress, causing an enraged Lip to be hot on his trail.
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A Chaos of Flowers
Liaoning Province The 1920s The 1900sSet in the Taisho era, which might be regarded as Japan's Hippie Phase, Hana no ran is a story about fashionable people without impulse control. Much of the action centers on a popular woman writer, the real-life poet Akiko Yosano, and her experiences among the literati of early 20th century Japan. Because of her independent, anti-war and often erotic poetry, she was a lightning rod for revolutionaries and other extremists, many of whom were destined to glamorous, yet ultimately pointless, deaths. The closest parallels might be the Byron/Shelley group or the people drawn to the Beat Generation.
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The Last Emperor
Beijing Shanghai The 1980s The 1960s The 1950s The 1940s The 1930s The 1920s The 1910s The 1900s1500 slaves. 353,260,000 royal subjects. Warlords. Concubines. And 2 wives. He was the loneliest boy in the world. — A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.
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Empire of the Sun
Shanghai The 1940s The 1930sTo survive in a world at war, he must find a strength greater than all the events that surround him. — Jamie Graham, a privileged English boy, is living in Shanghai when the Japanese invade and force all foreigners into prison camps. Jamie is captured with an American sailor, who looks out for him while they are in the camp together. Even though he is separated from his parents and in a hostile environment, Jamie maintains his dignity and youthful spirits, providing a beacon of hope for the others held captive with him.
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Red Sorghum
Shandong Province The 1930s The 1940sAn old leper who owned a remote sorghum winery dies. Jiu'er, the wife bought by the leper, and her lover, identified only as "my Grandpa" by the narrator, take over the winery and set up an idealized quasi-matriarchal community headed by Jiu'er. When the Japanese invaders subject the area to their rule and cut down the sorghum to make way for a road, the community rises up and resists as the sorghum grows anew.
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King of the Children
Yunnan ProvinceDuring the Cultural Revolution, an unschooled young man is labouring in the countryside when he is suddenly assigned to teach in a near-by village school. Gradually, he finds the confidence to ditch the Maoist textbook and encourage the barely literate kids to write about their own lives and feelings. At the same time, through a series of dream-like meetings with a young cowherd, he begins to sense the possibilities of a life beyond the parameters of traditional education.
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Fire on the Great Wall
Beijing The 1930s The 1940sHe who fights for freedom fears nothing! — Ninja Over the Great Wall takes place in the early nineteen-thirties when China was occupied by the Japanese imperial forces. Wa Chi Keung is a peasant who escaped the mass murder of his village by the Japanese. He joins his master in Bejing shortly before the old man's assassination by ninjas.
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King and Emperor
🇨🇳 China The 14th CenturyThe King meets the Emperor — Set in the 14th century, a brewing friendship between the Chinese Emperor Yong Le and the King of Sulu, Paduka Pahala is forged upon the latter's visit to China.
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Martial Arts of Shaolin
Henan ProvinceIn ancient China, Zhi Ming trains at the legendary Northern Shaolin temple to avenge the death of his father at the hands of a nefarious magistrate.
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Peking Opera Blues
Beijing The 1910sThe film is set in 1913 Beijing, during Yuan Shikai's presidency of the Republic of China. It depicts the adventures of a team of unlikely heroines: Tsao Wan, a patriotic rebel who dresses as a man; Sheung Hung, a woman in search of a missing box of jewels; and Pat Neil, the daughter of a Peking Opera impresario.
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The Horse Thief
TibetDevout Buddhists, Norbu and Dolma live with their young son Tashi in a clan in Tibet. Norbu is a highwayman. After Norbu is charged with stealing from the temple, he and his family are banished. Impoverished and marginalized, they can do little when their beloved son becomes ill. Tashi dies of a fever. After a second son is born, Norbu focuses his every action on keeping this child alive, seeking re-admission to the clan for his wife and child, then risking all to save them from isolation and starvation in winter.
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Shanghai Surprise
Shanghai The 1930s The 1940sA romantic adventure for the dangerous at heart. — Glendon Wasey is a fortune hunter looking for a fast track out of China. Gloria Tatlock is a missionary nurse seeking the curing powers of opium for her patients. Fate sets them on a hectic, exotic, and even romantic quest for stolen drugs. But they are up against every thug and smuggler in Shangai.
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The Big Parade
Beijing The 1980sArmy volunteers train for places in China's 1984 National Day parade, where they are expected to be a perfect marching unit.
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Disciples of the 36th Chamber
🇨🇳 China The 18th CenturyFong Sai Yuk's uninhibited arrogance toward a Manchu lord forces him to seek refuge in a Shaolin temple. Although abundantly trained in the martial arts, he is no match for Master San Te, the creator of the 36th Chamber of Shaolin, who constantly overpowers his younger, more agile disciples in matters of both body and mind. Exhausted by his frequent defeats, Fong seeks to escape his prison and crosses paths with a governor, who rewards him with a yellow robe granting immunity from any Manchu. But what are the governor's true intentions? Will Fong feed his foolish ego and betray the Shaolin Temple?
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Mafia Vs. Ninja
ShanghaiThe Mob finally meets its match! — Sewage workers Jack and Charlie get involved in an international Asian gang war when Jack helps the boss of a Shanghai gang against one of his rebellious underlings. This underling then strikes a deal with the Japanese Yakuza in the hopes of toppling his boss and become the leader of Shanghai himself. When the Yakuza assassinate the Shanghai boss, Jack pledges to avenge his new friend's death. As he seeks out those ultimately responsible, he does battle with a variety of ninjas and mercenaries from around the world.
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The Monkey King Conquers the Demon
🇨🇳 China The 7th CenturyIn the heart of wild mountains, a dreadful devil, disguised as a pretty young woman, tries to seize Xuan Zang to devour him. The holy monk is an easy prey because, naive and good, he is easily misled by appearances. But fortunately he is accompanied by the Monkey King, who is clairvoyant.
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Jin ling zhi ye
🇨🇳 China The 1920sThe adventure in Nanjing of the legendary CCP undercover Qian Zhuangfei.
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Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Shanghai The 1930sIf adventure has a name... it must be Indiana Jones. — After arriving in India, Indiana Jones is asked by a desperate village to find a mystical stone. He agrees – and stumbles upon a secret cult plotting a terrible plan in the catacombs of an ancient palace.
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Gwendoline
🇨🇳 ChinaA beautiful woman hires an intrepid adventurer to help find her father, who has disappeared in the jungle while searching for a rare and priceless butterfly. Along the way they run into cannibals, a race of Amazon warriors and all the usual attractions one would expect to find in a lost jungle.
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Opium and the Kung Fu Master
Guangdong ProvinceA small town is protected by one of the famous Ten Tigers of Kwangtung. The town is very safe as Ti Lung and his Kung Fu students patrol for criminals. Enter the rival Kung Fu school whom Ti Lung's students have beaten in a lion dance competition and then humiliated in a brawl. The rival school is joined by an opium dealing Kung Fu master who plans to turn the town into a community of addicts!
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Kids From Shaolin
Henan ProvinceRomance blossoms between two rival families practicing Shaolin and Wudang kungfu respectively. despite familial opposition - until they overcome a gang of scheming bandits together.
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Secret Service of the Imperial Court
🇨🇳 China The 15th CenturySecret Service of the Imperial Court was one of the last kung fu/swordplay films to be made at Hong Kong's Shaw Bros. studio. Set in the Ming Dynasty, it makes excellent use of the studio's vast array of sprawling sets and colorful costumes to give a real period flavor. It has a good cast, lots of large-scale fight action and an exciting storyline about a conflict between an honorable officer and a corrupt Eunuch.
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Shanghai 13
Shanghai The 1930s The 1940sA patriot finds evidence that the government is collaborating with a foreign power. If the people knew about the deception, they would revolt and overthrow the corrupt government. One patriot in office steals the proof and must make it out of the country. He gets assistance from a local rebel leader who is in charge of a motley group of fighters called the Shanghai 13. Not all of them can be trusted, as some of them will turn in the government official. Our weak protagonist must run a gauntlet of the who's who already mentioned.
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Yellow Earth
Shaanxi Province The 1930s The 1940sYellow earth focuses on the story of a Communist soldier who is sent to the countryside to collect folk songs for the Communist Revolution. There he stays with a peasant family and learns that the happy songs he was sent to collect do not exist; the songs he finds are about hardship and suffering. He returns to the Army, but promises to come back for the young girl, Cuiqiao, who has been spellbound by his talk of the freedom women have under Communist rule and who wants to join the Communist Army.
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Hong Kong 1941
🇨🇳 China The 1930s The 1940sYears later, a woman narrates her personal story of the Japanese takeover of Hong Kong in 1941. She's Nam, young, attractive, daughter of a wealthy rice merchant, and prey to painful, disabling seizures. Her boyhood friend is Coolie Keung, whose family used to have wealth; he's now impoverished, a tough kid, a leader, in love with her. Into the mix steps Fay, cool and resourceful, an actor from the north, intent on getting to Gold Mountain in the US or Australia. They form a threesome, but the day they are to leave Hong Kong, the invasion stops them. Fay must rescue Keung from collaborators, Nam falls in love with Fay, and danger awaits their next attempt to escape. Written by
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Shanghai Blues
🇨🇳 China The 1930s The 1940sIn 1937 Shanghai, a soon-to-depart soldier meets a young woman under a bridge during a Japanese air raid. They vow to meet after the war ends, but they don't know each other's name or face. Ten years later, the young woman, a nightclub singer, takes in a naive girl fresh from the country. The country girl falls in love with the would-be song-writer upstairs who, unbeknownst to the singer, is none other than the soldier from the bridge.
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Shanghai Vance King
Shanghai The 1930sSwingin’ & Jazz Musical Show — Set in the 1930s in the international city of Shanghai, the film follows the extravagant life and times of a group of jazz musicians, living from one advance paycheck to the next, as the country teeters over the brink into the Second Sino-Japanese War.
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Runaway
🇨🇳 China The 20th CenturySong Ryul returns to the countryside to see his ill father. After his cousin conspires with the Japanese occupiers to sell their crop, Song Ryul is forced to emigrate to Kando (Jiandao) in Manchuria. His family faces numerous adversities there and after a row with a local pharmacist, he is imprisoned. The prison is raided by Kim Il-sung and his guerrillas, who free the inmates, who take revenge on the Japanese by blowing up a railway.
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High Road to China
🇨🇳 China The 1920sTom Selleck takes you on a high adventure! — A biplane pilot is saddled with a spoiled industrialist's daughter on a search for her missing father through Asia that eventually involves them in a struggle against a Chinese warlord.
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Little Dragon Maiden
🇨🇳 China The 13th CenturyWhen Hong Kong's new wave, gravity-defying action-look hit the scene in the early 1980's, so did a new wave of actors; Canto-pop stars. Little Dragon Maiden intelligently mixed the old with the new to create pure golden magic as kung-fu fighting veterans Chen Kuan-tai and Lo Lieh joined relative newcomer Leslie Cheung in a far-out, costume-action love story that really cooks. Cheung garnered international recognition in John Woo's A Better Tomorrow.
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One And Eight
🇨🇳 China The 1930s The 1940sDirector Zhang Junzhao's superbly tense revisionist war film (featuring striking cinematography from future Fifth Generation standard bearer Zhang Yimou) is widely considered to be the first work of Mainland Fifth Generation cinema.
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Burning of the Imperial Palace
Beijing The 1860sDramatization of events from the Second Opium War which culminated in the looting and destruction of imperial estate "Yuan Ming Yuan", AKA the Old Summer Palace by invading English and French troops.
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Qiu Jin
Beijing Zhejiang Province The 1890s The 1900sBiopic of Qiu Jin (1877-1907), early Chinese feminist and martyred revolutionary.
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Shaolin Temple
Henan Province The 7th CenturyThe Tang emperor is betrayed by one of his generals, who installs himself as emperor in the East Capital. The son of one of his slave workers escapes to the Shaolin Temple, learns kung fu, and sets out to kill the traitor who killed his father.
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House of Traps
🇨🇳 China The 11th CenturyIt all started with The Five Venoms, the internationally loved kung-fu thriller. It continued through more than a dozen bloody good entertainments featuring the same actors in different roles. This is considered the last official "Venoms" movie, but what a film it is. There's one plasma-spurting attack after another as heroes and rogues alike try to solve the secrets of this hell house. The core Venoms themselves choreograph the gory fun in this fond farewell to their worldwide film series sensation!
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The Brave Archer and His Mate
🇨🇳 China The 13th CenturyGuo Jing and Huang Rong return to Peach Blossom Island and are shocked to see that Guo's first martial arts teachers, the "Seven Freaks of Jiangnan", have all been murdered except for Ke Zhen'e. Guo Jing is tricked into believing that Huang Rong's father, Huang Yaoshi, is responsible for the murders and he attempts to avenge his teachers by fighting Huang Yaoshi. The intelligent Huang Rong eventually uncovers the truth and reveals that the murders are actually part of a plot masterminded by Ouyang Feng and Yang Kang. Ouyang and Yang want to make Guo Jing and Huang Yaoshi kill each other and Yang can learn Ouyang's newly mastered skills from the fake copy of the Nine Yin Manual.
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Cat vs. Rat
🇨🇳 China The 11th CenturyChan Chiao a.k.a. The Cat (Adam Cheng) and Pai Yu-tang a.k.a. The Rat (Alexander Fu Sheng) compete in various flamboyantly choreographed duels before realizing that they must seek the judgment of their master (Lau Kar-wing). He disappoints them by ruling that their abilities are perfectly equal, then being so completely impartial as to give the Rat a nine-ringed sword which he can use to defeat the Cat, and giving the Cat a spear to defeat the sword which he just gave the Rat. A few more contests result in ties before a subplot gets underway involving a precious jade seal owned by the Emperor Yung Hsi (Gordon Lau) and the thieves out to steal it. This, finally, is what forces the Cat and Rat to work together and overcome their rivalry.
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The Postman Fights Back
🇨🇳 China The 1910sFour heroes embark on a secret mission for Dr Sun Yat Sen's Nationalist Guard. Relentlessly pursued by the warriors of notorious Warlord Yue Sai Hoi, they have seven days to reach the Lo Yang Pass with their secret cargo.
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Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils
🇨🇳 China The 11th CenturyA rather standard costume action/drama set in medieval China with a few fantasy overtones.
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Portrait of a Fanatic
🇨🇳 China The 1970s The 1960s The 1940s The 1930sIn 1949 when the Communist regime was established in China, the world-famed painter Ling Chen-kuang, believing his conviction for a new-born society had come true on his motherland, returned anxiously from the U.S., whither he had fled apprehension by lawmen when cracking down on rebellious activities he had actively engaged in out of cynicism and hostility – the feelings evolved from constant haunting by the memories of his childhood miserableness – to the then existing institutions in China. Alas, to his disillusion, the land he had so deeply loved, the society of which he had expected so much, should have turned out to be the hell on earth. Why? The enigma kept obsessing and puzzling him even to his dying moment.
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The Prodigal Son
Guangdong Province The 1850sThe fighting men in Chinese opera house — A rich man's son believes himself to be the best kung fu fighter in Canton. Unfortunately, his father, anxious for his son's safety, bribes all his opponents to lose. After a humiliating defeat at the hands of an actor in a traveling theatre company, the son resolves to find a better teacher.
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The Brave Archer 3
🇨🇳 China The 13th CenturyGuo Jing and Huang Rong pursue Yang Kang to Iron Palm Peak, where Qiu Qianren and the Iron Palm Sect is based. Huang is injured by Qiu in a fight and she escapes with Guo Jing's help. Guo brings her in search of a cure to heal her wounds and they stumble upon a house in a swamp, inhabited by a woman called Yinggu. Yinggu tells them that the only person who can save Huang Rong's life is Duan Zhixing, the former ruler of the Kingdom of Dali, who has become a monk now.
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The Sword Stained with Royal Blood
🇨🇳 China The 17th CenturyPhillip Kwok plays the orphaned son of a general disgraced and executed by his political enemies... which has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. Raised to be a righteous martial artist, Yuan kicks off the story proper by finding a cave containing a skeleton, a treasure map, and a manual teaching him the Golden Snake style. Obeying a request hidden in the manual to give a portion of the treasure to the Golden Snake's old girlfriend, Yuan begins to seek the woman out - on the way solving the riddle of the Golden Snake, and how he came to his end.
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If I Were for Real
ShanghaiTaiwanese film about the dark days of the Cultural Revolution and the young people who were destroyed by it, centered on a group of students who perform Nikolai Gogol’s play The Inspector General.
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The Coldest Winter in Peking
BeijingStory of a US-educated scientist who returned to China, and suffered during the years of the Cultural Revolution.
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The Xi'an Incident
🇨🇳 China The 1930s The 1940sMarshal Zhang Xueliang, Commander of the North Eastern Army, grows progressively disillusioned by Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek's policy to engage the Chinese Communist Party rather than fight the Japanese invaders which are occupying Manchuria. Despite numerous pleas, Chiang does not budge. After discussing with fellow general Yang Hucheng, the two take events into their own hands and place Chiang Kai-shek under arrest on December 12, 1936, forcing Chiang into a coalition with the CCP.
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Clan of the White Lotus
🇨🇳 China The 19th CenturyShaolin practitioners and brothers Wu and Hung kill the merciless Pai Mei. However, Pai Mei's even more merciless brother White Lotus takes revenge; killing most of the Shaolin disciples, including Wu and Hung's girlfriend, leaving only Wu's pregnant wife and Hung as the only remaining practitioners of Shaolin left to avenge the deaths. But Hung's kung-fu will not be powerful enough so he must learn feminine kung-fu techniques to help him try and defeat White Lotus.
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