249 Films & TV Shows Set In Asia During The 1930s
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A Pearl in the Forest
🇲🇳 Mongolia The 1930sThis is a story about a young couple whose newly planned life was destroyed by the impact of the Great Purges of 1934–1938 in Mongolia. The main goal of this movie was to provide a testimony for the many Buryats and Mongolians who were persecuted during the Great Purges initiated by Joseph Stalin. In 1937 and 1938, many people, and even entire families, were killed after being wrongfully accused of conspiracies. The movie was shot on location near the Buryat village of Dadal in the Khentii province of Mongolia. The acting and other participation of many local villagers was a great addition to the authenticity of the film
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Lust, Caution
Shanghai 🇭🇰 Hong Kong The 1940s The 1930sDuring World War II a secret agent must seduce, then assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai. Her mission becomes clouded when she finds herself falling in love with the man she is assigned to kill.
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Katyn
🇵🇱 Poland 🇷🇺 Russia The 1940s The 1930sThe untold story of the crime Stalin could not hide — On September 1st, 1939, Nazi Germany invades Poland, unleashing World War II. On September 17th, the Soviet Red Army crosses the border. The Polish army, unable to fight on two fronts, is defeated. Thousands of Polish men, both military and government officials, are captured by the invaders. Their fate will only be known several years later.
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Nanking
🇨🇳 China The 1930s The 1940sThe true story of how a few brave souls saved the lives of thousands. — The story of the rape of Nanking, one of the most tragic events in history. In 1937, the invading Japanese army murdered over 200,000 and raped tens of thousands of Chinese. In the midst of this horror, a small group of Western expatriates banded together to save 250,000. Nanking shows the tremendous impact individuals can make on the course of history.
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Black Belt
🇨🇳 China 🇯🇵 Japan The 1930s The 1940sReal Fight, Real Karate, Real Japan. — Set in 1932, amid the rise of militarism after the establishment of the Manchukuo colony in Northeast China, the story centers on a trio of karateka. Studying under their aging master in a small dojo in the woods of central Kyushu, Choei, Taikan and Giryu face a company of kempeitai military police come to requisition their dojo for use as a military base.
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The Matrimony
Shanghai The 1930sTill Death Do Us Part — A woman finds the key to a room in the attic that her husband forbids her from entering. When she opens the door, she is confronted with the haunting existence of the woman her husband refuses to forget.
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Blood Brothers
Shanghai The 1930sThe days of innocence have passed. They must make their choices like men. But at what costs? Is blood really thicker than water? — Fung (Daniel Wu) and his best friends, brothers Kang (Liu Ye) and Hu (Tony Yang), leave the countryside together to make it big in Shanghai. Things aren't so easy in the city, however, and the brothers stumble and toil until opportunity brings them to Club Paradise and ruthless mob boss Hong (Sun Honglei). While Kang embraces his newfound power in the Shanghai triad, Fung and Hu are less comfortable with the crime and violence, sending the brothers slowly but surely down opposite paths. Fung falls for Hong's woman, sassy nightclub singer Lulu (Shu Qi) who is also involved with Hong's top henchman Mark (Chang Chen). When Hong catches scent of the betrayal, he sends Kang to finish off business, leading the brothers to meet at gunpoint on a cold Shanghai night. Set in Shanghai during the 1930s, the story is inspired by John Woo's classic work Bullet in the Head, released in 1990.
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The Unseeable
🇹🇭 Thailand The 1930sSet in 1934 Siam, the story involves a young pregnant woman named Nualjin who's searching for her missing husband. She comes to stay in the spooky rural mansion of a widow, Runjuan.
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The Go Master
🇨🇳 China The 1930s The 1940sThe Go Master is a 2006 biopic by director Tian Zhuangzhuang of renowned twentieth century Go master Wu Qingyuan, better known by his adopted name of Go Seigen. The film, which premiered at the 44th New York Film Festival, focuses on the life of this extraordinary player from his meteoric rise as a child prodigy to fame and fortune as a revolutionary strategic thinker, as well as the tumultuous global conflicts between his homeland and his adopted nation. The film also features a scene involving the Atomic bomb go game.
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King Kong
🇮🇩 Indonesia New York The 1930sThe eighth wonder of the world. — In 1933 New York, an overly ambitious movie producer coerces his cast and hired ship crew to travel to mysterious Skull Island, where they encounter Kong, a giant ape who is immediately smitten with the leading lady.
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Memoirs of a Geisha
Kyoto Prefecture The 1940s The 1930s The 1920sMy world is as forbidden as it is fragile; without its mysteries, it cannot survive. — A sweeping romantic epic set in Japan in the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.
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Water
🇮🇳 India The 1930sFor Five Years, Extremist Groups Waged A Campaign of Death Threats, Arson and Riots To Stop The Production of "Water." But The Filmmakers Were Not To Be Silenced. — The year is 1938, and Mahatma Gandhi's groundbreaking philosophies are sweeping across India, but 8-year-old Chuyia, newly widowed, must go to live with other outcast widows on an ashram. Her presence transforms the ashram as she befriends two of her compatriots.
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The White Countess
Shanghai The 1930s The 1940sIin 1930s Shanghai, 'The White Countess' is both Sofia—a fallen member of the Russian aristocracy—and a nightclub created by a blind American diplomat, who asks Sofia to be the centerpiece of the world he wants to create.
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First on the Moon
🇷🇺 Russia The Moon The 1930sWe are the first. USSR. — In spring 1938 in the mountains in the north of Chile a fiery UFO, later named "Chilean Sphere ", fell down. The investigation of this episode, made by a film crew, has led to a sensational discovery. It appeared that before the Second World War (in the thirties) in the USSR a secret space program had been developed. The Soviet scientists and military authorities managed to launch the first spacecraft 23 years prior to Jury Gagarin's flight! "The First on the Moon" tells about everyday life, heroic deeds and tragedy of the first group of the Soviet cosmonauts. It is the first Russian film shot in a very rare genre 'mockumentary' or 'documentary fiction'.
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On the Mountain of Tai Hang
🇨🇳 China The 1930s The 1940sOn the Mountain of Tai Hang tells the story of the Sino-Japanese war and the commander-in-chief, Zhu De, leading the main force of the Eighth Route Army to the battlefront against the Japanese invaders. Presented are several important campaigns, from September 1937 to May 1940, including the Pingxingguan victory, the surprise attack on Yangmingbao, Xinkou campaign and Huangtuling campaign, where Abuguixiu, lieutenant general of the Japanese army, was shot down. The film also reflects the close relationship between the Eighth Route Army and the people.
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Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
New York Tibet The 1930sWho will save us? — When gigantic robots attack New York City, "Sky Captain" uses his private air force to fight them off. His ex-girlfriend, reporter Polly Perkins, has been investigating the recent disappearance of prominent scientists. Suspecting a link between the global robot attacks and missing men, Sky Captain and Polly decide to work together. They fly to the Himalayas in pursuit of the mysterious Dr. Totenkopf, the mastermind behind the robots.
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Kung Fu Hustle
Shanghai The 1940s The 1930sSo many gangsters...so little time. — Set in Canton, China in the 1940s, the story revolves in a town ruled by the Axe Gang, Sing who desperately wants to become a member. He stumbles into a slum ruled by eccentric landlords who turns out to be the greatest kung-fu masters in disguise. Sing's actions eventually cause the Axe Gang and the slumlords to engage in an explosive kung-fu battle. Only one side will win and only one hero will emerge as the greatest kung-fu master of all.
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Jasmine Women
Shanghai The 1970s The 1980s The 1950s The 1930sZhang Ziyi plays the youngest of three generations of women who leads lives in Shanghai. Joan Chen plays the great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother. The film recounts this family, the mistakes they make, and a cycle that the granddaughter breaks out of.
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Letter from an Unknown Woman
Beijing The 1940s The 1930sPeking, 1948. A winter night. A man returns home to find a letter awaiting him written by a woman before her death. in the letter she tells him the story of her love for him -a life-long passion that has not diminished over time, but one that he has never known. her story spans 18 years from the moment she -then a 13 year-old girl- sets her eyes on her new neighbor. she tells their brief but passionate love in her youthi the hardship she goes through raising their child alone, and their final encounter after the war, during which the man fails tor ecognize her and one which leaves her in despair. Now having lost her son, she no longer has the courage to live on. Only in a letter is she capable of telling him everything, for the first and the last time. shaken by the letter, the man searches his memory for the nameless woman.
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The Sleeping Dictionary
🇲🇾 Malaysia The 1930sLearn to speak her language. — A young Englishman is dispatched to Sarawak to become part of the British colonial government. He encounters some unorthodox local traditions, and finds himself faced with tough decisions of the heart involving the beautiful Selima, the unwitting object of his affections.
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Purple Butterfly
Shanghai The 1930s The 1940sDing Hui is a member of Purple Butterfly, a powerful resistance group in Japanese occupied Shanghai. An unexpected encounter reunites her with Itami, an ex-lover... and officer with a secret police unit tasked with dismantling Purple Butterfly.
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The Legend of Bhagat Singh
🇵🇰 Pakistan The 1930sBorn in British India, Bhagat Singh witnesses numerous atrocities during his childhood and grows up to become one of the most fearless freedom fighters in the country.
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Shanghai Ghetto
Shanghai The 1930sIn 1939, the last hope for thousands of Jews lay in the last place on Earth the Nazis would look. — SHANGHAI GHETTO recalls the strange-but-true story of thousands of European Jews who were shut out of country after country while trying to escape Nazi persecution in the late 1930s. Left without options or entrance visas, a beacon of hope materialized for them on the other side of the world, and in the unlikeliest of places, Japanese-controlled Shanghai. Fleeing for their lives, these Jewish refugees journeyed to form a settlement in the exotic city, penniless and unprepared for their new life in the Far East. At the turn of the new millennium, filmmakers Dana Janklowicz-Mann and Amire Mann boldly snuck into China with two survivors and a digital camera to shoot at the site of the original Shanghai Ghetto, unchanged since WWII.
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Shaheed-E-Azam
🇵🇰 Pakistan The 1930sThe film, based upon the life of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, caused some controversy as the Punjab and Haryana High Court issued a notice to the producers calling for a ban of the movie.It was released in 2002. In the same year two other movies on Bhagat Singh were also released named '23d march 1931 Shaheed' and 'The Legend of Bhagat Singh'.
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23rd March 1931: Shaheed
🇵🇰 Pakistan The 1930sBhagat Singh, a freedom fighter, is arrested for killing the British official responsible for the death of his mentor Lala Lajpatrai. He is ultimately hanged for his misdeed.
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