43 Films & TV Shows Set In Asia During The 16th Century
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Otello
🇨🇾 Cyprus 🇮🇹 Italy The 16th CenturyBased on Shakespeare's play, Verdi's opera depicts the devastating effects of jealousy, "...the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds upon". Believing Otello has promoted the fast-rising Cassio over himself, Iago plots to destroy both Cassio and Otello. Iago convinces the jealous Otello that his beautiful wife Desdemona is unfaithful, and that Cassio is her lover. Jealousy is followed by tragedy, then retribution, "Has Heaven no more thunderbolts?"
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The Avenger with a Flute
🇰🇷 South Korea The 16th CenturyThis movie tells the story of Hong Kil Dong, a legendary 15th century Korean Robin Hood figure. It is a mildly entertaining action film with an anti-feudal message.
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Kagemusha
Yamanashi Prefecture The 16th CenturyAkira Kurosawa's lauded feudal epic presents the tale of a petty thief who is recruited to impersonate Shingen, an aging warlord, in order to avoid attacks by competing clans. When Shingen dies, his generals reluctantly agree to have the impostor take over as the powerful ruler. He soon begins to appreciate life as Shingen, but his commitment to the role is tested when he must lead his troops into battle against the forces of a rival warlord.
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Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession
🇷🇺 Russia The 1970s The 16th CenturyShurik Timofeev builds a working model of a time machine. By accident, Ivan Bunsha, an apartment complex manager, and George Miloslavsky, a petty burglar, are transferred to 16th century Moscow, while Tsar Ivan the Terrible goes into the year 1973.
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Othello
🇨🇾 Cyprus 🇮🇹 Italy The 16th CenturyThe greatest Othello ever by the greatest actor of our time — The 1965 version of the Shakespeare play.
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The Female Prince
🇨🇳 China The 16th CenturyThe husband-and-wife team of Ivy Ling Po and Chin Han returned to another Huangmei Opera classic after Lady General Hua Mu-Lan. Helmed by Chow Sze-loke and written by Chang Cheh, the story revolved around two intellectual siblings, Ching Feng-sheng (Chin Feng) and Ching Feng-hsiao (Ivy Ling Po), who were constantly abused by their stepmother Hsia (Kao Pao-shu). Feng-hsiao was engaged to Li Ru-lung (Chin Han) since birth, but the greedy Hsia forced him to forfeit the marriage. When Ru-lung refused, Hsia framed him for thievery and put him behind bars. To rescue her lover, Feng-hsiao dressed as a young man and went to the capital. She then used Ru-lung's name to enter the national exam and was ranked first place. Impressed by Feng-hsiao, the Emperor decided to let her wed the Princess (Fang Ying). On the wedding night, Feng-hsiao revealed the truth to the Princess...
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Mughal-e-Azam
🇮🇳 India The 16th CenturySet in the 16th century AD, the movie brings to life the tale of the doomed love affair between the Mughal Crown Prince Saleem and the beautiful, ill-fated court dancer, whose fervor and intensity perpetrates a war between the prince and his father the great Mughal Emperor Akbar, and threatens to bring an empire to its knees.
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The Kingdom and the Beauty
🇨🇳 China The 16th CenturyThis is a musical about a young emperor who is lured via stories told to a place called Kiang-Nan by his royal tutor. The empress mother has the tutor go to Kiang-Nan to bring him back.
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Black Cat Mansion
🇯🇵 Japan The 20th Century The 16th Century The 15th CenturyThe descendant of the servant of a cruel and vicious samurai returns to the town where she was born, only to find that a cat who is possessed by the spirits of those murdered by the samurai is trying to kill her.
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The Veils of Bagdad
🇮🇶 Iraq The 16th CenturyFor gold ! For glory ! For wild pagan lips ! — Antar is sent by Suleiman, head of the Ottoman Empire, to Bagdad to prevent Hammam, Pasha of Bagdad, from purchasing the services of local leader Mustapha to unite the hill tribes and overthrow the emperor. The intrigue mounts as Antar falls in love with dancer Selima, who tries to avenge her father's death against Hammam's right-hand-man Kasseim, whose wife Rosanna has fallen in love with Antar!
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Othello
🇨🇾 Cyprus 🇮🇹 Italy The 16th CenturyOrson Welles' magnificent screening of Shakespeare's immortal tragedy — When a secret marriage is planned between Othello, a Moorish general, and Desdemona, the daughter of Senator Brabantio, her old suitor Roderigo takes it hard. He allies himself with Iago, who has his own grudge against Othello, and the two conspire to bring Othello down. When their first plan, to have him accused of witchcraft, fails, they plant evidence intended to make him believe Desdemona is unfaithful.
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Felipe de Jesús
🇯🇵 Japan The 16th CenturyBiography of the first Catholic Saint to be born in Mexico.
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The King of the White Elephant
🇹🇭 Thailand The 16th CenturySet in the Ayutthaya Kingdom of the 16th century, King Chakra is going about his usual palace duties, granting audiences to his advisers, including his Lord Chamberlain, who is keen to see the king fulfill his royal duty of taking 366 wives, including, hopefully among them, the chamberlain's own daughter. Based on a novel and produced by Pridi Banomyong and released before Thailand's involvement in World War II, the English-language film carried a propaganda message from anti-war interests in Thailand, that Thailand should remain neutral, and only go to war to defend its sovereignty against foreign invaders.
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Othello
🇨🇾 Cyprus 🇮🇹 Italy The 16th CenturyEven without the benefit of sound, the 1922 German adaptation of Othello seems more operatic than Shakespearean. This may be due to the casting of Emil Jannings, to whom restraint and subtlety were strangers. Werner Krauss, of Cabinet of Dr. Caligari fame, is on hand as the duplicitous Iago. Appearing as the unfortunate Desdemona is Lea Von Lenkeffy, better known as Lya de Putti. Produced on an elaborate scale, Othello may not be true to the letter of Shakespeare, but is undeniably a smorgasbord of visual delights.
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Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
🇮🇶 Iraq 🇮🇹 Italy The 1910s The 1st Century The 16th CenturyThe Cruel Hand of Intolerance — The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.
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Marakkar - Arabikadalinte Simham
🇮🇳 India Indian Ocean The 16th CenturyThe Lion of the Arabian Sea — ‘Marakkar Lion of the Arabian Sea’ portrays the courageous life-events of a rebellious naval chief, Kunjali Marakkar the fourth, who fought against the Portuguese in the ancient times. He was the fourth naval chief of the Calicut Zamorin. The film revolves around him who was also the first Indian Naval Commander and Indian freedom fighter for the war against the Portuguese. He is said to have won 16 such battles with his impeccable strategies and fighting skills.
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Ivan the Terrible
🇵🇱 Poland 🇷🇺 Russia The 16th CenturySergei Eisenstein’s final film, was a projected three-part historical epic/biopic on Czar Ivan Grozny commissioned by Joseph Stalin, documenting the tyrannical tsar’s rise to power and descent into paranoia and madness. Eisenstein managed to complete the first two parts of the trilogy, but the second film was banned by the USSR until 1958, halting production of the Part III. After Eisenstein’s death in 1948, most of what was filmed for Part III was seized and destroyed.