30 Films & TV Shows Set In Shanghai During The 1940s
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The Eight Hundred
Shanghai The 1930s The 1940sBased on the true story of one of the greatest battles of WWII — In 1937, eight hundred Chinese soldiers fight under siege from a warehouse in the middle of the Shanghai battlefield, completely surrounded by the Japanese army.
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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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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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Shanghai
Shanghai 🇹🇭 Thailand The 1940s The 1930sAn American man returns to a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor and discovers his friend has been killed. While he unravels the mysteries of the death, he falls in love and discovers a much larger secret that his own government is hiding.
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Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen
🇫🇷 France Shanghai The 1920s The 1910s The 1930s The 1940sSeven years after the apparent death of Chen Zhen, who was shot after discovering who was responsible for his teacher's death (Huo Yuanjia) in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. A mysterious stranger arrives from overseas and befriends a local mafia boss. That man is a disguised Chen Zhen, who intends to infiltrate the mob when they form an alliance with the Japanese. Disguising himself as a caped fighter by night, Chen intends to take out everyone involved as well as get his hands on an assassination list prepared by the Japanese.
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A Jewish Girl in Shanghai
Shanghai The 1940s The 1930sBased upon the popular graphic novel by Wu Lin, this is the first Chinese animated film to portray the Holocaust. The film centers around the warm friendship between Rina, a wide-eyed European Jewish schoolgirl and A-Gen, a Chinese pancake seller, who teach each other about their distant worlds as Shanghai struggles beneath its own cruelly portrayed Japanese occupation.
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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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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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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
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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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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 Great Military March Forward: Fight for Nanjing, Shanghai and Hangzhou
Jiangsu Province Shanghai Zhejiang Province The 1940s -
Fist of Legend
Shanghai Kyoto Prefecture The 1930s The 1940sTo avenge his masters death, He'll fight like never before! — Chen Zhen, a Chinese engineering student in Kyoto, who braves the insults and abuse of his Japanse fellow students for his local love Mitsuko Yamada, daughter of the director, returns in 1937 to his native Shangai, under Japanse protectorate -in fact military occupation- after reading about the death of his kung-fu master Hou Ting-An in a fight against the Japanese champion Ryuichi Akutagawa.
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Circus Kids
Shanghai The 1940sWith nothing left to lose, this family will fight for justice. — The circus group performs at the Shanfa Circus when a huge load of bombs crash on the stage and the performers try to find a home to live and get money for food.
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The Last Aristocrats
Massachusetts 🇮🇹 Italy Jiangsu Province Shanghai The 1940sIn 1948, four young girls, daughters of Shanghai's elite, attending college in America find themselves unable to return after the Communists take Shanghai.
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The Last Emperor
Beijing Shanghai The 1980s The 1960s The 1950s The 1940s The 1930s The 1920s The 1910s The 1900s1500 slaves. 353,260,000 royal subjects. Warlords. Concubines. And 2 wives. He was the loneliest boy in the world. — A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.
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Empire of the Sun
Shanghai The 1940s The 1930sTo survive in a world at war, he must find a strength greater than all the events that surround him. — Jamie Graham, a privileged English boy, is living in Shanghai when the Japanese invade and force all foreigners into prison camps. Jamie is captured with an American sailor, who looks out for him while they are in the camp together. Even though he is separated from his parents and in a hostile environment, Jamie maintains his dignity and youthful spirits, providing a beacon of hope for the others held captive with him.
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Shanghai Surprise
Shanghai The 1930s The 1940sA romantic adventure for the dangerous at heart. — Glendon Wasey is a fortune hunter looking for a fast track out of China. Gloria Tatlock is a missionary nurse seeking the curing powers of opium for her patients. Fate sets them on a hectic, exotic, and even romantic quest for stolen drugs. But they are up against every thug and smuggler in Shangai.
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Shanghai 13
Shanghai The 1930s The 1940sA patriot finds evidence that the government is collaborating with a foreign power. If the people knew about the deception, they would revolt and overthrow the corrupt government. One patriot in office steals the proof and must make it out of the country. He gets assistance from a local rebel leader who is in charge of a motley group of fighters called the Shanghai 13. Not all of them can be trusted, as some of them will turn in the government official. Our weak protagonist must run a gauntlet of the who's who already mentioned.
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Eight Hundred Heroes
Shanghai The 1930s The 1940sThe film is based on the true story of a regiment of nationalist troop fighting Japanese forces several times of their strength. Due to the political reasons, such historical topic is avoided in China, and even after the reform, the cautious approach needs outside help from Hong Kong, but such attempts still deserves a great salute.
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Fist of Fury
Shanghai The 1910s The 1930s The 1940sBruce Lee has done the impossible... ...HE'S SURPASSED HIMSELF!!! — Chen Zhen returns to the international compound of China only to learn of his beloved teacher's death. This is compounded by the continual racist harassment by the Japanese population in the area. Unlike his friends, he confronts it head on with his mastery of martial arts while investigating his teacher's murder.
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Three Girls
Shanghai The 1940s The 1930sThis dramatic movie is about three women in Japanese-occupied Shanghai, 1941, and one could call it very woman-centric (which isn't a bad thing). They "breathe the same air", but are in different walks of life: Jinzhu is a factory worker. She gets raped by Japanese soldiers in the very first seconds of the film, and much of the rest deals with the social consequences this has for her.
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Women in the Night
Shanghai The 1940sUnspeakable atrocities! — During WW2 six allied nations women at Shanghai University are arrested by the Germans accused of killing a German officer and forced to entertain the Japanese.
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The Lights of Ten Thousand Homes
Shanghai The 1940sThis tale of familial warfare and sacrifice takes place in hard-pressed Shanghai at the end of the 1940s. Hu Zhiqing can barely support his wife and children, and his situation is worsened by the unexpected arrival of his mother, brother and sister-in-law. When he is fired by his unscrupulous boss, the whole family becomes embroiled in one emotional/economic struggle after another.
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Far Away Love
Hubei Province Shanghai The 1930s The 1940sA college professor gives a village girl a make-over.
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