234 Films & TV Shows Set In Asia During The 1970s
-
Austin Powers in Goldmember
California England Tokyo Prefecture 🇬🇺 Guam The 2000s The 1970sHe's still evil... He's still deadly... and he's still surrounded by frickin' idiots! — The world's most shagadelic spy continues his fight against Dr. Evil. This time, the diabolical doctor and his clone, Mini-Me, team up with a new foe—'70s kingpin Goldmember. While pursuing the team of villains to stop them from world domination, Austin gets help from his dad and an old girlfriend.
-
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
Sichuan Province The 1970sDuring the Cultural Revolution, two young men are sent to a remote mining village where they fall in love with the local tailor’s beautiful granddaughter and discover a suitcase full of forbidden Western novels.
-
The Sum of All Fears
Maryland Virginia 🇷🇺 Russia 🇺🇦 Ukraine The 1970s The 2000s27,000 nuclear weapons. One is missing. — When the president of Russia suddenly dies, a man whose politics are virtually unknown succeeds him. The change in political leaders sparks paranoia among American CIA officials, so CIA director Bill Cabot recruits a young analyst to supply insight and advice on the situation. Then the unthinkable happens: a nuclear bomb explodes in a U.S. city, and America is quick to blame the Russians.
-
Kung Pow: Enter the Fist
🇨🇳 China 🇭🇰 Hong Kong The 1970sA movie within a movie, created to spoof the martial arts genre. Writer/director Steve Oedekerk uses contemporary characters and splices them into a 1970s kung-fu film, weaving the new and old together. As the main character, The Chosen One, Oedekerk sets off to avenge the deaths of his parents at the hands of kung-fu legend Master Pain. Along the way he encounters some strange characters.
-
Daughter from Danang
🇻🇳 Vietnam Tennessee The 1970s The 1990sIn 1975, as the Vietnam War was ending, thousands of orphans and Amerasian children were brought to the United States as part of "Operation Babylift." Daughter from Danang tells the dramatic story of one of these children, Heidi Bub (a.k.a. Mai Thi Hiep), and her Vietnamese mother, Mai Thi Kim, separated at the war's end and reunited 22 years later. Heidi, now living in Tennessee - a married woman with kids - had always dreamt of a joyful reunion. When she ventures to Vietnam to meet her mother, she unknowingly embarks on an emotional pilgrimage that spans decades and distance. Unlike most reunion stories that climax with a cliché happy ending, Daughter from Danang is a real-life drama. Journeying from the Vietnam War to Pulaski, Tennessee and back to Vietnam, Daughter from Danang tensely unfolds as cultural differences and the years of separation take their toll in a riveting film about longing and the personal legacy of war.
-
Maryam
New Jersey 🇮🇷 Iran The 1970s The 1980sCultures clash. Hearts break. People change. — An Iranian-born teenager living in suburban New Jersey thinks of herself as simply an American until anti-Iranian sentiment erupts in her community after American hostages are held in Iran.
-
Spy Game
Jiangsu Province 🇩🇪 Germany 🇭🇰 Hong Kong 🇱🇧 Lebanon 🇻🇳 Vietnam The 1970s The 1980s The 1990sIt's not how you play the game. It's how the game plays you. — On the day of his retirement, a veteran CIA agent learns that his former protégé has been arrested in China, is sentenced to die the next morning in Beijing, and that the CIA is considering letting that happen to avoid an international scandal.
-
Vizontele
🇹🇷 Turkey The 1970sThe story takes place in a small town (called Hakkari) in Turkey at the beginning of the 70's. The time has come to bring technology into that small town. The first Television (or called Visiontele by the citizens) arrives and the chaos begins.
-
The Hidden Half
🇮🇷 Iran The 1970sAn official is sent from his home in Tehran to hear the final appeal of a woman sentenced to death, a political prisoner. The official's wife of nearly 20 years, Fereshteh Samimi, writes him a letter to read when he reaches the hotel - the story of her student days during the revolution of 1978. We see the story in flashbacks as he reads: she leaves her province on scholarship, joins a Communist youth group, avoids arrest, and comes under the sway of a suave older man, Roozbeh Javid, a literary-magazine editor. As she tells her husband about the hidden half of her life, Fereshteh asks that he listen to the woman facing execution, a woman and therefore one of Iran's hidden half.
-
Platform
Shanxi Province The 1980s The 1970sThe movie is set in the remote Chinese province of Fenyang, and spans the turbulent 1980s by following four performers in the state-run Peasant Culture Group. We see the group evolve from workers that are restricted to approved revolutionary classics that praise Chairman Mao, through performance of Western classics, after China adopts an 'open door' policy, and the effects on their lives.
-
The Legend of Rita
🇩🇪 Germany 🇷🇺 Russia The 1970s The 1980sRita Vogt is a radical West German terrorist who abandons the revolution and settles in East Germany with a new identity provided by the East German secret service. She lives in constant fear of having her cover blown, which unavoidably happens after the German re-unification.
-
Kippur
🇮🇱 Israel The 1970sThe film takes place in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War in which Egypt and Syria launched attacks in Sinai and the Golan Heights. The story is told from the perspective of Israeli soldiers. We are led by Weinraub and his friend Ruso on a day that begins with quiet city streets, but ends with death, destruction and devastation of both body and mind. Various scenes are awash in the surreal, as Weinraub's head hangs out over a rescue helicopter's open door, watching with tranquil desperation as the earth passes beneath, the overpowering whir of the blades creating a hypnotic state. It is not a traditional blood, guts and glory film. There are no men in battle, only the rescue crew trying to pick up the broken pieces.
-
Ditto
🇰🇷 South Korea The 1970s The 2000sIn this endearing supernatural love story spanning two decades, a university student finds himself communicating with a female classmate from the same school through an antique ham radio...
-
Man on the Moon
New York 🇵🇭 Philippines The 1950s The 1970s The 1980sHello, my name is Andy and this is my movie. — The story of the life and career of eccentric avant-garde comedian, Andy Kaufman.
-
Two Women
🇮🇷 Iran The 1970s The 1980sA sensation when released in 1999 in Iran, Two Women charts the lives of two promising architecture students over the course of the first turbulent years of the Islamic Republic. Tahimine Milani creates this scathing portrait of those traditions - aided by official indifference - which conspire to trap women and stop them from realizing their full potential; the inclusion of frank depictions of domestic violence was hailed by many as a breakthrough in dealing with a long taboo subject.
-
Ordinary Heroes
🇭🇰 Hong Kong The 1970s The 1980sOrdinary Heroes is a narration about the life stories of an advocate, a prostitute, a social worker, and a priest during the social movements from 1970s to 1980s in Hong Kong. The film is based upon true stories.
-
Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl
Sichuan Province The 1970sYoung teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding.
-
Forever Fever
🇸🇬 Singapore The 1970sA romantic comedy with twists and turns. — Kung Fu meets disco in Singapore. Hock is a grocery clerk longing for a motorbike. He lives with his parents and sister; they idolize his younger brother, Beng, a medical student calling himself Leslie. Hock loves Bruce Lee; he works out and imitates his moves. When Hock sees a cheesy local version of "Saturday Night Fever," he gets the disco bug, taking his pal Mei to nightly lessons in hopes of winning a contest and buying the bike. He's blind to Mei's falling in love with him, and, at the last minute asks another woman to be his partner in the contest. Meanwhile, Beng reveals a personal secret to his family and a crisis ensues. Hock, Beng, Mei and her rival: it's Night Fever.
-
West Beirut
🇱🇧 Lebanon The 1970sIn April, 1975, civil war breaks out; Beirut is partitioned along a Moslem-Christian line. Tarek is in high school, making Super 8 movies with his friend, Omar. At first the war is a lark: school has closed, the violence is fascinating, getting from West to East is a game. His mother wants to leave; his father refuses. Tarek spends time with May, a Christian, orphaned and living in his building. By accident, Tarek goes to an infamous brothel in the war-torn Olive Quarter, meeting its legendary madam, Oum Walid. He then takes Omar and May there using her underwear as a white flag for safe passage. Family tensions rise. As he comes of age, the war moves inexorably from adventure to tragedy.
-
Young Thugs: Nostalgia
Osaka Prefecture The 1970s The 1960sNostalgia is Takashi Miike’s favorite film of his considerable body of work. Including biographical elements, Nostalgia centers around the home and school of a young boy, whose family mix the violent and dysfunctional with the comic and the loveable. Though containing elements of the sudden and shocking brutality that many associate with this director, Young Thugs – Nostalgia is more concerned with a child’s moment of leaving the internalized world of fantasy, and passing on eagerly to the next stage of life. A wonderful, touching, startling vision that is uniquely Miike’s.
-
Such a Long Journey
🇮🇳 India The 1970sA country on the brink of war...a family torn apart...and one man in the middle — The story, set in 1971 at the time of the war between India and Pakistan, is based on the novel of the same name by Rohinton Mistry, an Indian now living in Toronto. "Such a Long Journey" takes place mostly in and around a large apartment complex, its courtyard and the street, which the municipal authorities want to widen so that even more choking diesel fumes can cloud the air. We meet the hero, Gustad (Roshan Seth), in the process of defending the old concrete wall that protects his courtyard from the street, and later he strikes a bargain with an itinerant artist (Ranjit Chowdhry), who covers the wall with paintings from every conceivable religious tradition, with the thought that all of the groups represented will join in defending the wall.
-
Mother Of 1084
🇮🇳 India The 1970sDibyanath Chatterji, his bank-employed wife, Sujata, and only child, a son, Brati, live a middle-class existence in Calcutta, West Bengal, India, circa early 1970s. Sujata is a quiet, devout Hindu, religious, and compassionate woman, and Brati has finished his school and is now attending college. His parents are proud of him, and keep track of his progress. Then their world is shattered during the early hours, when they are informed by the police that Brati has been killed.
-
Rhapsody of Spring
Beijing Shaanxi Province Xinjiang The 1960s The 1970sTracing the fascinating, real-life saga of one of China's most revered composers, master storyteller Teng Wenji sweeps us into China's intellectual and artistic coming of age during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). As a young composer, Zhao Liming (Shao Bing) struggles with a constellation of opposing forces: personal ambitions vs. communal obligation, romantic love vs. loyal friendship, modern music vs. traditional.
-
Escape: Human Cargo
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia The 1970sSeperated from his country and family, John McDonald has one purpose... Getting Home. — An American entrepreneur is closing a deal in Saudi Arabia in 1977. After a fallout with his influential Saudi partners, they have him arrested. Due to the US policy of noninterference in SA, the embassy won't help him. He must escape.
-
Border
🇮🇳 India The 1970sIt's 1971, and 2000 members of the Pakistani Army—armed with tanks—are at war with just 120 men in a battalion of Indian soldiers based in the Longewala region of Rajasthan in India.
- load more