435 Films & TV Shows Set In Asia During The 1940s
-
Bastards
🇷🇺 Russia The 1940sA "Hitlerjugend" kind of story, set in the Soviet Union during the Second World War, based on a fictitious story from the eponymous book by Vladimir Kunin.
-
Ghostboat
🇷🇺 Russia The 1980s The 1940sWhy did he alone survive? — Jack Hardy is the sole survivor of a mysterious submarine disaster in World War II. Now, in 1981, the ill-fated submarine Scorpion has resurfaced, miraculously intact. Naval Intelligence need Hardy's expertise to retrace the course and mission that led to her original disappearance. But what's waiting for them under the grey waters of the Baltic Sea turns out to be much worse than the Russian submarines they're expecting. Wherever Scorpion has been all this time, it's brought some very bad luck back with it...
-
The Tokyo Trial
🇯🇵 Japan The 1940sThis film was directed by Gao Qunshu and is about the International Military Tribunal for the Far East after Japan's surrender in World War II. The movie presents the trial from the point of view of the Chinese judge Mei Ju-ao. The director and his crew spent more than a year doing research to finish the script, which is based on historical data. It cost 18 million yuan (2.25 million U.S. dollars). This film hired actors from 11 countries, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan and other places, including actors such as Kenneth Tsang and Damian Lau. They recreated court scenes from the trial in Chinese, English and Japanese. It was shown in cinemas and around 100 universities across mainland China to mark the 75th anniversary of the start of Japan's invasion of China.
-
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.
-
The Great Raid
🇵🇭 Philippines The 1940sThe most daring rescue mission of our time is a story that has never been told — As World War II rages, the elite Sixth Ranger Battalion is given a mission of heroic proportions: push 30 miles behind enemy lines and liberate over 500 American prisoners of war.
-
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.
-
Everlasting Regret
Shanghai The 1970s The 1960s The 1950s The 1940sa film adaptation of Wang Anyi's popular and influential novel Changhen Ge.A person's life is destined to be shorter than that of a city. Having spent her whole life in Shanghai, Qiyao has her moments of prosperity and her fair share of loneliness. She finally fades and disappears but Shanghai remains a metropolitan city. Shanghai in the 1930s is glamorous and seductive. A pretty young girl from an ordinary family, Qiyao is lucky enough to win the 2nd runner-up of the "Miss Shanghai" contest. Mr. Cheng, her admirer as well as a photographer who assists her to her success, knows the girl is going to live an extraordinary life. It turns out she is going to witness the decades of changes to her city
-
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.
-
Kisna
🇮🇳 India The 1940sThe Warrior Poet — The film is set in the India of the tumultuous 1930's when nationalists fighting for the country's independence rose up as one, urging the British to quit. At this time, a young Indian, Kisna befriends and then shields a British girl Katherine, from an enraged mob of nationalists including Kisna's own uncle and brother. Katherine is the young daughter of a ruthless British collector. Kisna takes it upon himself to escort Katherine to the safety of the British High Commission in New Delhi, who will arrange for her to board a ship home. A tender attraction develops between Kisna and Katherine during the journey, a love story that is torn between 'Karma' (the noble deed) and 'Dharma' (the duty). Laxmi, the Indian girl Kisna is engaged to, forms the third point in an emotional triangle involving the Indo-British romantic pair
-
Hellboy
🇲🇩 Moldova 🇷🇺 Russia Scotland New Jersey New York The 2000s The 1940sFrom the Dark Side to Our Side. — In the final days of World War II, the Nazis attempt to use black magic to aid their dying cause. The Allies raid the camp where the ceremony is taking place, but not before a demon—Hellboy—has already been conjured. Joining the Allied forces, Hellboy eventually grows to adulthood, serving the cause of good rather than evil.
-
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.
-
Exorcist: The Beginning
🇪🇬 Egypt The 1940sGo back to where the horror began. — Having lived through traumatizing events during WWII, Father Lankester Merrin takes a sabbatical from the Church to conduct archaeological excavations in British-administered East Africa. Merrin unearths an ancient Byzantine church believed have been built and then immediately buried to keep down evil from the crypt below. The natives are convinced that uncovering the church has unleashed a demon, and begin to violently clash with the British military troops. As the village rapidly disintegrates into chaos and war, Merrin must face-off with the demon which has taken possession of somebody close to him.
-
Our Own
🇷🇺 Russia The 1940sIt is August 1941. With the battle line far away in the east, three soldiers who have managed to escape from captivity find it difficult to hide: the territory is occupied by the enemy. The local woods are not safe: you can easily get embogged. Are the villagers loyal? Nobody can say. There is an old man who offers to help them. Is he reliable enough? He may kill them or report them to the local German authorities. Anything may happen, but one of them, the sniper, is his son who is his youngest, his dearest.
-
The Face of Jizo
Hiroshima Prefecture The 1940sBased on a play by Hisashi Inoue, it focuses on the sufferings of the survivors of Hiroshima. The film takes place during 4 days in the summer of 1948, as the ghost of her father visits Mitsué (Rié Miyama). He had somehow learned that she has fallen in love, and tries to convince her to start her new life. But Mitsué obstinately refuses his warm and humorous encouragements : « People were killed in my place. I do not have the right to find happiness », she says.
-
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.
-
Big Fish
Alabama 🇫🇷 France 🇰🇷 South Korea The 1940s The 1950s The 1960s The 1970s The 1980sAn adventure as big as life itself. — Throughout his life Edward Bloom has always been a man of big appetites, enormous passions and tall tales. In his later years, he remains a huge mystery to his son, William. Now, to get to know the real man, Will begins piecing together a true picture of his father from flashbacks of his amazing adventures.
-
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.
-
The Soul Keeper
🇨🇭 Switzerland 🇷🇺 Russia The 1940s The 1900sIn the present days, Maria Spielrein and Fraser are in Russia making a research about the life of Sabina Spielrein. In the beginning of the Twentieth Century, this Russian girl was a patient treated by Dr. Jung and later they fall in love for each other and Sabina became his lover. While the researchers read the documents, the romance between Sabina and Dr. Jung is disclosed, in a time of revolution and war.
-
Women in the Mirror
Hiroshima Prefecture The 1940sThree women who share memories of the Hiroshima disaster try to uncover the hidden family ties that may or may not bind them together.
-
Babiy Yar
🇺🇦 Ukraine 🇷🇺 Russia The 1940sAutumn 1941. The Russian army flees Kiev, chaos reigns, soldiers attempt to trade their uniforms for civilian clothes in order to escape unnoticed. The war and pending capture of Kiev by the Germans is the only topic of discussion. Everyone has heard of the horrible things that have happened in other areas, where Jews were brutally and inhumanely murdered. Indecision and despair spread like wildfire among the population. As the German army marches in, fear and horror take over.
-
Pinjar
🇵🇰 Pakistan The 1940sBeyond boundries — In the days leading up to Partition, a Hindu woman is abducted by a Muslim man. Soon, she finds herself not only forced into marriage, but living in a new country as the borders between India and Pakistan are drawn
-
Kedma
🇮🇱 Israel The 1940sIn May 1948, shortly before the creation of the State of Israel, hundreds of immigrants from across Europe arrive in Palestine--only to risk arrest by British troops.
-
Pearl Harbor
Hawaii New York District of Columbia Tennessee England Tokyo Prefecture The 1940s The 1920sIt takes a moment to change history. It takes love to change lives. — The lifelong friendship between Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker is put to the ultimate test when the two ace fighter pilots become entangled in a love triangle with beautiful Naval nurse Evelyn Johnson. But the rivalry between the friends-turned-foes is immediately put on hold when they find themselves at the center of Japan's devastating attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
-
Enemy at the Gates
🇷🇺 Russia The 1940sSome Men Are Born To Be Heroes. — A Russian and a German sniper play a game of cat-and-mouse during the Battle of Stalingrad in WWII.
-
To End All Wars
🇲🇲 Myanmar The 1940sBased on a real-life story, this drama focuses on a small group of Allied soldiers in Burma who are held captive by the Japanese. Capt. Ernest Gordon (Ciaran McMenamin), Lt. Jim Reardon (Kiefer Sutherland) and Maj. Ian Campbell (Robert Carlyle) are among the military officers kept imprisoned and routinely beaten and deprived of food. While Campbell wants to rebel and attempt an escape, Gordon tries to take a more stoic approach, an attitude that proves to be surprisingly resonant.
- load more