120 Films & TV Shows Set In Beijing
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Restless
BeijingLeah is travelling the world when she eventually settles in Beijing, China, where she meets Master Sun Zhan who teaches her the art of weiqi. Her path crosses with American Chinese Richard whose family had sent him to Beijing to arrange his grandfather's ashes. A romance soon blossoms between them.
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Seafood
Beijing Hebei ProvinceZhang Xiaomei (Jin Zi), is a prostitute living in Beijing. When relationship problems with her boyfriend erupt, she flees to the resort city of Beidaihe and takes a room in a small hotel where she contemplates committing suicide. There she meets a young poet. The next morning, she wakes and learns that the poet has slit his wrists. When the police arrive, she meets Deng Jianguo (Cheng Taisheng), a middle-aged officer who questions her over the poet's death. Their relationship soon grows increasingly complicated as Deng learns of Xiaomei's plans to commit suicide. Over the course of several days, he takes her to eat seafood dinners, extolling the virtues and health benefits of the diet, including a claim that it makes him a more potent lover. When Xiaomei tries to commit suicide in a nearby town, she is thwarted by Deng who brings her back to Beidaihe and proceeds to rape her. Xiaomei eventually leaves the seaside town for Beijing again.
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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Beijing The 19th Century The 18th CenturyA timeless story of strength, secrets and two warriors who would never surrender. — Two warriors in pursuit of a stolen sword and a notorious fugitive are led to an impetuous, physically-skilled, teenage nobleman's daughter, who is at a crossroads in her life.
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A Sigh
Beijing Hainan ProvinceA Sigh tells the story of an affair between a struggling Chinese screenwriter and his young female assistant, its effects on his marriage and the impact on the man himself.
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Shadow Magic
Beijing The 1900sBeijing, 1902: an enterprising young portrait photographer named Liu Jinglun, keen on new technology, befriends a newly-arrived Englishman who's brought projector, camera, and Lumière-brothers' shorts to open the Shadow Magic theater. Liu's work with Wallace brings him conflict with tradition and his father's authority, complicated by his falling in love with Ling, daughter of Lord Tan, star of Beijing's traditional opera. Liu sees movies as his chance to become wealthy and worthy of Ling. When the Shadow Magic pair are invited to show the films to the Empress Dowager, things look good. But, is disaster in the script? And, can movies preserve tradition even as they bring change?
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Breaking the Silence
BeijingGong Li stars in this low-key drama about a single mother who will do anything to provide for her son. Sun Liying (Li) struggles to care for her hearing-impaired child Zheng Da (Gao Xin) after her taxi driver husband divorces her. After Zheng Da gets his hearing aid smashed in a fight with classmates, Sun Liying sets out to raise 5,000 yuan (a small fortune) to buy him a replacement. A friend helps her set up an unauthorized bookstall, which soon gets raided by the police. Later she splits her time delivering newspapers and cleaning house for a rich businessman. This film was screened at the 2000 Berlin Film Festival.
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Shower
BeijingAn aged father and his younger, mentally challenged son have been working hard every day to keep the bathhouse running for a motley group of regular customers. When his elder son, who left years ago to seek his fortune in the southern city of Shenzhen, abruptly returns one day, it once again puts under stress the long-broken father-son ties. Presented as a light-hearted comedy, Shower explores the value of family, friendship, and tradition.
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Men and Women
BeijingXiao Bo arrives in Beijing, gets a job at a boutique, and is invited to stay with his lady boss, Ah Qing, and her husband, Kang. Knowing that Xiao Bo is still single, his host tries to introduce him to her best friend, Ah Meng. After a few dates, Ah Meng begins to suspect Xiao Bo is gay. She tells Ah Qing, who then informs her husband Kang. After learning this, Kang attempts to rape Xiao Bo when his wife isn't at home. Xiao Bo leaves the house, quits his job and joins his old friend, Chong Chong, and realizes that he has a gay lover, Gui Gui. Some time later, Ah Qing confesses to Kang that she had an affair with Ah Meng.
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Sorry Baby
Beijingnever-ending — The film tells of the attempts made by a Beijing van driver (Ge You) to obtain his wage arrears from travel agency boss (Fu Biao) - even to the point of kidnapping the latter's Singaporean girlfriend (Jacklyn Wu).
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A Lingering Face
BeijingA Lingering Face follows an everyman named Lei Haiyang (Pan Yueming), who has recently broken up with his girlfriend. Deciding to go to Beijing, he hitches a ride with a driver (Ma Xiaoqing) and a fellow hitchhiker, Yanzi (Li Min). Waking up from a nap, Haiyang finds the truck parked in the woods and the driver raping Yanzi. Hiding in the undergrowth, Yanzi sees Haiyang, but does not reveal his hiding position. Terrified, Haiyang runs away.
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Agreed Not to Separate
Beijing -
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.
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Red Corner
BeijingLeniency for those who confess... — An American attorney on business in China, ends up wrongfully on trial for murder and his only key to innocence is a female defense lawyer from the country.
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Keep Cool
Beijing The 1990sChina, the 1990s. A young bookseller is in love with a woman. The woman is now with another guy, a rich man. The rich man sends his people to beat the bookseller. In the fight, the laptop computer from a man looking at the scene gets broken. Who will pay for the computer? The bookseller wants revenge. Will it be useful? The bookseller and the laptop owner are from different ages and classes. They are two different points of view, two different Chinas. How will they fight for justice?
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The Dream Factory
BeijingFour friends come up with an unusual idea to make some money and have fun doing it. For a small fee, they will impersonate and act out any character role for their customers. In the course of executing this novel service, they encounter a whole spectrum of people in society, finding ways to genuinely help them boost their morale and overcome their fears, while gaining unusual and new insights into the human condition.
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Spicy Love Soup
BeijingSix different episodes about different generations' relationships. Love can be sweet, sour, or spicy.
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East Palace, West Palace
BeijingIn China, homosexuality isn't illegal, but homosexuals are routinely persecuted by police and arrested for "hooliganism". The film focuses on a young gay writer A-Lan who, being attracted to a young policeman, manages to have himself interrogated for a whole night. His life-story which he tells during the interrogation reflects the general repression of the Chinese society. The policeman's attitude shifts from the initial revulsion to fascination and, finally, to attraction.
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Frozen
BeijingA young performance artist decides to make his own suicide his last work of art. On the longest day of the year, he plans to melt a huge block of ice with his own body heat and die of hypothermia. He calls this protest against the coldness of society "Funeral on Ice." Based on a true story.
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Johnny Mnemonic
Beijing New Jersey The 2020sThe hottest data on earth. In the coolest head in town. — In a dystopian 2021, Johnny is a data trafficker who has an implant that allows him to securely store data too sensitive for regular computer networks. On one delivery run, he accepts a package that not only exceeds the implant's safety limits—and will kill him if the data is not removed in time—but also contains information far more important and valuable than he had ever imagined. On a race against time, he must avoid the assassins sent to kill him and remove the data before it, too, ends his life.
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On the Beat
BeijingTake crime out of police work, and what's left is procedures. In the western sector of Beijing, we follow the tedium of police officers. A rabid dog is loose in Guoli's beat: a gang of police officers hunts it down. Then, word comes from on high to pick up all the dogs in the sector: fear of rabies combines with the dogs' being status symbols of the nouveau riche. Occasionally a criminal is picked up: someone selling porn, someone running a three-card-monte game. Cops smoke, go to meetings, and hold trainings. They patrol on bicycles and enforce edicts. Guoli works nights. He's lazy at home, his wife wants him to do more. Is there any more to do?
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Postman
BeijingXiao Dou is a shy and naive mailworker living in Beijing with his sister. When a coworker is fired for reading people's correspondences Xiao Dou takes over the same mail route. He soon finds himself indulging in the same curiosity, eventually developing an obsession. Xiao Dou chooses to spend time reading letters instead of socializing with friends or coworkers. As he becomes increasingly tied to the letters, he begins to intervene in the lives of those who write and receive the letters.
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Without Warning
Wyoming District of Columbia Texas 🇫🇷 France 🇷🇺 Russia BeijingThe most frightening cosmic event of the century. — A television program is interupted by a news network announcing that three meteors have hit the United States, France and China. At first it seems natural but after interviews by scientists and eyewitness seems to suggest that it is not. Three more meteors are coming and the various Earth governments combine forces to stop them.
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Treasure Hunt
Beijing Henan ProvinceA C.I.A. agent is assigned to go to Beijing to look for a hidden "treasure," which turns out to be a woman who has supernatural powers, and is the National Treasure of China.
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The Days
Beijing The 1980sA portrait of urban anomie focusing on two bohemian artists who drift through the miasma of old Beijing in the 1980s.
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In the Heat of the Sun
BeijingThe film is set in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution. It is told from the perspective of Ma Xiaojun nicknamed Monkey, a teenage boy. Monkey and his friends are free to roam the streets of Beijing day and night because the Cultural Revolution has caused their parents and most adults to be either busy or away. The story revolves around Monkey's dalliances with his roguish male friends and his subsequent angst-filled crush with Mi Lan.
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