249 Films & TV Shows Set In Asia During The 1930s
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Back to 1942
Henan Province The 1940s The 1930sHistory should never be forgotten โ In 1942, Henan Province was devastated by the most tragic famine in modern Chinese history, resulting in the deaths of at least three million men, women and children. Although the primary cause of the famine was a severe drought, it was exacerbated by locusts, windstorms, earthquakes, epidemic disease and the corruption of the ruling Kuomintang government.
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Hotel Lux
๐ท๐บ Russia The 1930sIn 1938 Hans Zeisig, an apolitical comedian, impersonator and cabaret actor, flees with a Russian passport (instead of American, which he would have preferred) from Nazi-Berlin, and finds himself in the legendary Hotel Lux, the 'lost paradise' of the Comintern, in Moscow. Everyone believes that Zeisig is a man named Hansen, Hitler's personal astrologer. But Zeisig quickly realizes that he's gone from the frying pan into the fire. In the Hotel Lux he meets his friends Frida and later Meyer again, still passionate communists. For the three idealists an adventure between love and death begins to run his course.
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The Flowers of War
๐จ๐ณ China The 1930s The 1940sFighting for freedom โ A Westerner finds refuge with a group of women in a church during Japan's rape of Nanking in 1937. Posing as a priest, he attempts to lead the women to safety.
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Black Gold
Middle East - General The 1930sOn the Arabian Peninsula in the 1930s, two warring leaders come face to face. The victorious Nesib, Emir of Hobeika, lays down his peace terms to rival Amar, Sultan of Salmaah. The two men agree that neither can lay claim to the area of no manโs land between them called The Yellow Belt. In return, Nesib adopts Amarโs two boys Saleeh and Auda as a guarantee against invasion. Twelve years later, Saleeh and Auda have grown into young men. Saleeh, the warrior, itches to escape his gilded cage and return to his fatherโs land. Auda cares only for books and the pursuit of knowledge. One day, their adopted father Nesib is visited by an American from Texas. He tells the Emir that his land is blessed with oil and promises him riches beyond his wildest imagination. Nesib imagines a realm of infinite possibility, a kingdom with roads, schools and hospitals all paid for by the black gold beneath the barren sand. There is only one problem. The precious oil is located in the Yellow Belt.
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Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale - Part 1: The Sun Flag
๐น๐ผ Taiwan The 1930sA man rises up to lead his people in a brave and risky struggle for freedom in this epic-scale historical drama. โ Mouna Rudo was born and raised among the Seediq people, an indigenous tribe in Taiwan, and as he grew to be a man he became a member of the Seediq Bale, a courageous band of native warriors. However, Rudo's way of life is threatened under the yoke of occupying forces from Japan, who took over the nation in 1895. As Rudo sees the traditions and honor of his people stripped away, he realizes the time has come to fight back, and in 1930 he brings together a group of former Seediq Bale soldiers, many of whom have been reduced to infighting, and molds them into a revolutionary army. Rudo and his comrades make their stand when they confront Japanese occupation troops at a youth athletic event, leading to a violent confrontation between the Seediq forces and their oppressors. Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale - Part 1: The Sun Flag is Part one of the two-part, four-hour Taiwanese edition of the film Warriors of the Rainbow.
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Shanghai
Shanghai ๐น๐ญ Thailand The 1940s The 1930sAn American man returns to a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor and discovers his friend has been killed. While he unravels the mysteries of the death, he falls in love and discovers a much larger secret that his own government is hiding.
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Veda - Atatรผrk
๐น๐ท Turkey The 1930s The 1920s The 1910s The 1900sA friendship started in childhood in Thessaloniki firstly turned into being comrade in arms and then a half-century brotherhood and fraternity following the same ideals until the death upon proclamation of the Republic; Ataturk & Salih Bozok Veda Ataturk (The Farewell Ataturk) is the story of a brotherhood, portrayal of milestones in Ataturk's life and the story of a commander commanding a generation that challenged the death to save the homeland.
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Caterpillar
๐จ๐ณ China The 1930s The 1940sDuring the Second Sino-Japanese War, in 1940, Lieutenant Kurokawa returns home as a honored and decorated soldier but deprived of his arms and legs lost in battle. All hopes, from the villagers and women to close family members, turn to Shigeko, the Lieutenant's wife. She must honor the Emperor and the country in setting an example for all by fulfilling her duty and taking care of the 'god soldier'. Kurokawa prior to leaving to fight in the war regularly beat and berated his wife for her barrenness and inability to bring him a son. When he returns home as an amputee with no hearing and no speech, his wife dutifully attends to him, even though he shows little appreciation for her dedicated care. His main concerns are getting fed and getting sex. Even in his own degraded condition, he manages to berate his wife. Eventually, though, his own memories infiltrate and he is haunted by his horrible, sadistic deeds, performed while in the duty of the Japanese military.
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Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen
๐ซ๐ท France Shanghai The 1920s The 1910s The 1930s The 1940sSeven years after the apparent death of Chen Zhen, who was shot after discovering who was responsible for his teacher's death (Huo Yuanjia) in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. A mysterious stranger arrives from overseas and befriends a local mafia boss. That man is a disguised Chen Zhen, who intends to infiltrate the mob when they form an alliance with the Japanese. Disguising himself as a caped fighter by night, Chen intends to take out everyone involved as well as get his hands on an assassination list prepared by the Japanese.
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The Way Back
๐ต๐ฑ Poland ๐ท๐บ Russia ๐ฎ๐ณ India ๐จ๐ณ China ๐ฒ๐ณ Mongolia The 1980s The 1940s The 1930sTheir escape was just the beginning. โ At the dawn of WWII, several men escape from a Russian gulagโto take a perilous and uncertain journey to freedom as they cross deserts, mountains and several nations.
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Death and Glory in Changde
๐จ๐ณ China The 1930s The 1940sDirected by Shen Dong and starring Ray Lui, An Yixuan and Yuan Wenkang, Death and Glory in Changde recalls one of the most cruel and controversial battles during China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-45), Changde Battle, in November 1943.
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Once Upon a Time in Tibet
Tibet The 1930s The 1940sSet during the Second Sino-Japanese War(1937-1945), the US army brings supplies to China by flying over the Himalayas. A love story then ensues between an American pilot and a Tibetan girl who saved his life when his airplane crashed.
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Free Man
๐น๐ท Turkey The 1870s The 1880s The 1890s The 1900s The 1910s The 1920s The 1930s The 1950s The 1940she story is real story that tells about a man's life who has a very influential philosopher that had lived in between 1877-1960. His name is 'Said Nursi' and he is originally Kurdish. But, he speaks perfectly Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic, and Persian. He wrote and compiled too many books that had aimed to develop personal beliefs, the belief of faith, brotherhood, philanthropy, the loyalty of state, moreover, discovering the problems in Turkey; the reasons of weakness, poorness, ignorance, untutored, divisions in society, divergence, estrangement of ethics, religion. And to find the solutions of those problems.. And his struggle for doing this toward a secret committee..
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A Jewish Girl in Shanghai
Shanghai The 1940s The 1930sBased upon the popular graphic novel by Wu Lin, this is the first Chinese animated film to portray the Holocaust. The film centers around the warm friendship between Rina, a wide-eyed European Jewish schoolgirl and A-Gen, a Chinese pancake seller, who teach each other about their distant worlds as Shanghai struggles beneath its own cruelly portrayed Japanese occupation.
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John Rabe
๐จ๐ณ China The 1930s The 1940sHistory Needs Extraordinary Heroes โ A true-story account of a German businessman who saved more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38.
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Watchmen
New York District of Columbia Mars ๐ป๐ณ Vietnam ๐ฆ๐ถ Antarctica The 1970s The 1980s The 1960s The 1950s The 1940s The 1930sJustice is coming to all of us. No matter what we do. โ In a gritty and alternate 1985 the glory days of costumed vigilantes have been brought to a close by a government crackdown, but after one of the masked veterans is brutally murdered, an investigation into the killer is initiated. The reunited heroes set out to prevent their own destruction, but in doing so uncover a sinister plot that puts all of humanity in grave danger.
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City of Life and Death
๐จ๐ณ China The 1930s The 1940sCity of Life and Death takes place in 1937, during the height of the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Imperial Japanese Army has just captured the then-capital of the Republic of China, Nanjing. What followed was known as the Nanking Massacre, or the Rape of Nanking, a period of several weeks wherein tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed.
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The Message
๐จ๐ณ China The 1930s The 1940s1942, Nanjing (Nanking). Following a series of assassination attempts on officials of the Japanese-controlled puppet government, the Japanese spy chief gathers a group of suspects in a mansion house for questioning. A tense game of "cat and mouse" ensues as the Chinese code-breaker attempts to send out a crucial message while protecting his/her own identity.
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Cow
Shandong Province The 1930s The 1940sA Chinese peasant is given the responsibility of protecting his village's special dairy cow during a particularly harsh winter in 1940.
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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
New York Louisiana Florida ๐ซ๐ท France ๐ท๐บ Russia ๐ฎ๐ณ India The 1970s The 1980s The 1990s The 1960s The 1950s The 1940s The 1930s The 1920s The 1910s The 2000sLife isn't measured in minutes, but in moments. โ I was born under unusual circumstances. And so begins. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, adapted from the 1920s story by F. Scott Fitzgerald about a man who is born in his eighties and ages backwards: a man, like any of us, who is unable to stop time. We follow his story, set in New Orleans, from the end of World War I in 1918 into the 21st century, following his journey that is as unusual as any man's life can be. Directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett with Taraji P. Henson, Tilda Swinton, Jason Flemyng, Elias Koteas and Julia Ormond, Benjamin Button, is a grand tale of a not-so-ordinary man and the people and places he discovers along the way, the loves he finds, the joys of life and the sadness of death, and what lasts beyond time.
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The Children of Huang Shi
๐จ๐ณ China The 1940s The 1930sWar made them orphans, one man made them legends โ About young British journalist, George Hogg, who with the assistance of a courageous Australian nurse, saves a group of orphaned children during the Japanese occupation of China in 1937.
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Ip Man
Guangdong Province The 1940s The 1930sThe celebrated Kung Fu master of Bruce Lee. โ A semi-biographical account of Yip Man, the first martial arts master to teach the Chinese martial art of Wing Chun. The film focuses on events surrounding Ip that took place in the city of Foshan between the 1930s to 1940s during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Directed by Wilson Yip, the film stars Donnie Yen in the lead role, and features fight choreography by Sammo Hung.
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The Good, the Bad, the Weird
๐ฐ๐ท South Korea Jilin Province Liaoning Province The 1930s The 1940sA Fistful of Fun! โ The story of three Korean outlaws in 1930s Manchuria and their dealings with the Japanese army and Chinese and Russian bandits. The Good (a Bounty hunter), the Bad (a hitman), and the Weird (a thief) battle the army and the bandits in a race to use a treasure map to uncover the riches of legend.
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Philosophy of a Knife
๐ฏ๐ต Japan ๐จ๐ณ China The 1930s The 1940sThe true history of Japanese Unit 731, from its beginnings in the 1930s to its demise in 1945, and the subsequent trials in Khabarovsk, USSR, of many of the Japanese doctors from Unit 731. The facts are told, and previously unknown evidence is revealed by an eyewitness to these events, former doctor and military translator, Anatoly Protasov.
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Forever Enthralled
Beijing The 1930s The 1940sA biographical account of Mei Lanfang, China's greatest opera star.
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