435 Films & TV Shows Set In Asia During The 1940s
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Hacksaw Ridge
Virginia South Carolina Okinawa Prefecture The 1940sOne of the greatest heroes in American history never fired a bullet. — WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first Conscientious Objector in American history to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.
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USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage
Okinawa Prefecture Hiroshima Prefecture Pacific Ocean The 1940s1196 men aboard, 5 days in water, 317 survived — The harrowing true story of the crew of the USS Indianapolis, who were stranded in the Philippine Sea for five days after delivering the atomic weapons that would eventually end WWII. As they awaited rescue, they endured extreme thirst, hunger, and relentless shark attacks.
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Jackson Durai
🇮🇳 India The 1940sA cop sent to investigate allegedly ghostly affairs in a village agrees to stay in a haunted bungalow for seven days to win the hand of a girl in the place.
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Railroad Tigers
🇨🇳 China The 1940s The 1930sRoaring soon — A railroad worker in China in 1941 leads a team of freedom fighters against the Japanese in order to get food for the poor.
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In This Corner of the World
Hiroshima Prefecture The 1940s The 1930sTorn apart by war. Brought together by love. — Japan, 1943, during World War II. Young Suzu leaves her village near Hiroshima to marry and live with her in-laws in Kure, a military harbor. Her creativity to overcome deprivation quickly makes her indispensable at home. Inhabited by an ancestral wisdom, Suzu impregnates the simple gestures of everyday life with poetry and beauty. The many hardships, the loss of loved ones, the frequent air raids of the enemy, nothing alters her enthusiasm…
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The Wasted Times
Shanghai The 1930s The 1940sSet against a chaotic, war torn Shanghai, “The Wasted Times” follows a local crime boss at the receiving end of the Japanese army’s attempt to forge a dubious alliance. Spanning three separate times during the period, the story details mindsets from various perspectives, all culminating in a suspenseful and tense finale.
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Love, Lies
🇰🇷 South Korea The 1940sA tragedy of jealousy and desires — Two best friends, So-yool and Yeon-hee, dream of becoming the top artists in Seoul together. But their friendship doesn't last long as Yoon-woo, So-yool's first love and songwriter, falls in love with Yeon-hee and her voice. So-yool's feeling of jealousy and inferiority towards Yeon-hee grows by the day, and she eventually makes a drastic decision to bring the two lovers down.
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The Chronicles of Melanie
🇱🇻 Latvia 🇷🇺 Russia The 1940sThe 14th of June 1941, Soviet-occupied Latvia: Without warning, the authorities break into the house of Melanie and her husband Aleksandr and force them to leave everything behind. Together with more than 15 000 Latvians, Melanie and her son get deported to Siberia. In her fight against cold, famine and cruelty, she only gains new strength through the letters she writes to Aleksandr, full of hope for a free Latvia and a better tomorrow.
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Panfilov's 28 Men
🇷🇺 Russia The 1940sUSSR, Late November, 1941. Based on the account by reporter Vasiliy Koroteev that appeared in the Red Army's newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda, shortly after the battle, this is the story of Panifilov's Twenty-Eight, a group of twenty-eight soldiers of the Red Army's 316th Rifle Division, under the command of General Ivan Panfilov, that stopped the advance on Moscow of a column of fifty-four Nazi tanks of the 11th Panzer Division for several days. Though armed only with standard issue Mosin-Nagant infantry rifles and DP and PM-M1910 machine guns, all useless against tanks, and with wholly inadequate RPG-40 anti-tank grenades and PTRD-41 anti-tank rifles, they fight tirelessly and defiantly, with uncommon bravery and unwavering dedication, to protect Moscow and their Motherland.
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Little Boy
California Hiroshima Prefecture The 1940sBelieve the impossible. — An eight-year-old boy is willing to do whatever it takes to end World War II so he can bring his father home. The story reveals the indescribable love a father has for his little boy and the love a son has for his father.
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Mr. Holmes
England 🇯🇵 Japan The 1940sThe man behind the myth. — The story is set in 1947, following a long-retired Holmes living in a Sussex village with his housekeeper and rising detective son. But then he finds himself haunted by an unsolved 50-year old case. Holmes' memory isn't what it used to be, so he only remembers fragments of the case: a confrontation with an angry husband, a secret bond with his beautiful but unstable wife.
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Assassination
🇰🇷 South Korea The 1940s The 1930s The 1910sThe country falls. The operation begins. — In Japanese-occupied Korea, three freedom fighters are assigned a mission to assassinate a genocidal military leader and his top collaborator. But the plan goes completely awry amidst double-crossings, counter-assassinations, and a shocking revelation about one of the assassins' past.
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The Emperor in August
🇯🇵 Japan The 1940sIn July 1945, during the end of World War II, Japan is forced to accept the Potsdam Declaration. A cabinet meeting has continued through days and nights, but a decision cannot be made. The U.S. drops atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. General Korechika Anami is torn over making the proper decision and the Emperor of Japan worries about his people. Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki leads the cabinet meeting, while Chief Secretary Hisatsune Sakomizu can't do anything, but watch the meeting. At this time, Major Kenji Hatanaka and other young commissioned officers, who are against Japan surrendering, move to occupy the palace and a radio broadcasting station. The radio station is set to broadcast Emperor Hirohito reading out the Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the War.
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Above and Beyond
🇮🇱 Israel The 1940sIn 1948, a group of World War II pilots volunteered to fight for Israel in the War of Independence.
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Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!
🇮🇳 India The 1940sExpect the Unexpected — In war torn Calcutta during the 1940's, Byomkesh Bakshy, fresh out of college, pits himself against an evil genius who is out to destroy the world.
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Battle for Sevastopol
District of Columbia 🇺🇦 Ukraine 🇷🇺 Russia The 1940sOne Woman Who Changed The World — A story of Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the most successful female sniper in history.
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A Tale of Love and Darkness
🇮🇱 Israel 🇵🇸 Palestine The 1950s The 1940sThe story of young Amos Oz, growing up in Jerusalem in the years before Israeli statehood with his parents; his academic father, Arieh, and his dreamy, imaginative mother, Fania.
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Dawn
🇵🇸 Palestine The 1940sGod is a terrorist. — The story is set in Palestine in 1947, during the British mandate period. The Zionists are fighting for the establishment of a Jewish state, and four comrades in arms pressure the young Elisha to overcome his moral qualms and fully commit to the armed struggle.
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In the Room
🇸🇬 Singapore The 1940sCan you resist temptation? — This sensitive and sensual film draws together several narratives spanning several decades, all of them transpiring in the same room of the same Singaporean hotel — and all of them involving sex.
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Where the Wind Settles
🇨🇳 China 🇹🇼 Taiwan The 1970s The 1960s The 1950s The 1940sThree men and an adopted son struggle in Taiwan after escaping China in 1949.
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A Tale of Three Cities
Anhui Province Shanghai 🇭🇰 Hong Kong The 1950s The 1940s The 1930sA former spy in the Chinese Nationalist Party falls for an opium-dealing widow, as China is ravaged by war and revolution.
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The Day the Sun Fell
🇯🇵 Japan The 2010s The 1940sTracing the past of her deceased grandfather who worked as a young doctor in the Red Cross hospital of HirSwiss-Japanese filmmaker Aya Domenig, the granddaughter of a doctor on duty during the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, approaches the experience of her deceased grandfather by tracing the lives of a doctor and of former nurses who once shared the same experience. While gathering the memories and present views of these last survivors, the nuclear disaster in Fukushima strikes and history seems to repeat itself.oshima after the atomic bomb was dropped over the city, the filmmaker encounters doctors and nurses who went through similar experiences to his at the time. Right up until his death in 1991, her grandfather was never able to speak about his experiences, but the formidable stories and openness of her protagonists bring her closer to his past.
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Attabu 2
🇹🇼 Taiwan The 1900s The 1910s The 1920s The 1930s The 1940sThe film documents the rise and fall of the Wufeng Lin family in Wufeng, Taiwan over the turbulent years of Taiwan under the administrations of the Qing dynasty, Japan, and Republic of China.
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