Best movies like Shadow of China
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A Chinese immigrant tries to make his way to the top as a businessman in Hong Kong while his former radicalism is transformed into cynicism.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 168
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan, USA
Duration: 131 min
Plot tags: independent film
Best tv shows and movies like Shadow of China (1989):
Similar in 78%
The Trial Begins (2007)
Plot Summary:
A civil servant (Michele Lastella) uses shady methods to become a powerful businessman.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 271
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
The Sparrow (1972)
Plot Summary:
Set shortly before and during the Six Day War in June of 1967, The Sparrow follows a young police officer stationed in a small village in Upper Egypt whose inhabitants suffer from the harassment of a corrupt businessman.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 380
Genere: Drama
Country: Egypt, Algeria
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: mondo
Similar in 88%
The Most Beautiful Night In The World (2008)
Plot Summary:
Betrayed and disgraced, big-city reporter Kazuya Mizuno is banished to a desk at Kaname's boring little town newspaper. But Kaname isn't as boring as it seems on the surface. Not with characters around like Shimeko, a girl genius with a childlike lack of propriety, and her ace fisherman/folk-singer dad. Or the overbearing and unpleasant local Shinto priest, a former Christian cultist. Or Endo, Kazuya's new colleague, a bitter drunk after his son's suicide. Or Kin, a former terrorist, now a hermit on his boat engaging in secret "research." Or perhaps most importantly Teruko, the hypnotically beautiful bar owner, the focus of all manner of innuendo and intrigue. Something mysterious, even mystical, is going on Kaname, and hapless Kazuya is about to be thrown into the middle of it.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 90
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 160 min
Plot tags: fable
Similar in 76%
Guilt (1965)
Plot Summary:
About a young couple who accidentally by car run over someone and kill him. The victim turns out to be an escapee from an asylum for the mentally ill.The two wander around the country side trying to figure out the situation, which quickly turns out not only to include the fatal accident but also the same to their own mutual situation. The catastrophe becomes the catalyst for their own emotional confrontation and settlement.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 12
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
The Lost Generation (1983)
Plot Summary:
The plot follows a group of women who struggle in Hong Kong, most of them illegal immigrants from mainland China.
IMDB Rating: 4.4
IMDB Votes: 13
Genere: Drama
Country: Taiwan, Hong Kong
Duration:
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
Perfect Education 3 (2002)
Plot Summary:
A lonely young Japanese student, Ai Narushima (Kana Ito) goes on a field trip with her school. At night she decides to take a taxi into the city. The Chinese taxi driver, Bo Tony Ho, is also a lonely soul and on a whim, decides to kidnap the young student. He takes her to the countryside and confines her in a room for days. The taxi driver doesn't abuse the student, but at night attempts to cuddle next to her. Eventually the lonely young Japanese student realizes he is as lonely as she is.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 101
Genere: Drama
Country: Hong Kong, Japan
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Rokonok (2006)
Plot Summary:
Young honest public official is sworn in after his predecessor had to leave due to a corruption scandal. Soon, the young idealist discovers just how far-reaching the corruption is in his town and how easy it is to become corrupt yourself.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 681
Genere: Drama
Country: Hungary
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (1995)
Plot Summary:
Two very different people become friends and partners in this nautical drama. Nikos (Stephen Rea) is a radio man working on a Greek freighter when he finds himself stranded in Hong Kong after the firm that owned his ship suddenly goes out of business. Nikos is already depressed over his recent breakup with his girlfriend, and this latest turn of events hardly makes him feel any better; he develops a dependence on opium as he works a variety of odd jobs trying to keep himself together while waiting for his ship to return to the sea. Li (Ling Chu) is a ten-year-old Chinese girl, cut off from her mother and father, who has a sampan and asks Nikos to help her get the boat ready for the water. Nikos doesn't much care for Li at first, but her youthful optimism and determination to succeed make an impression on him, and in time he leads her on a voyage to find the family she left behind years before.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 523
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, France, UK
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 84%
The Fifth Monkey (1990)
Plot Summary:
When Cunda, a man living deep in the Brazilian rainforest, is bitten by a snake, he has a hallucination of four chimpanzees. Once he recovers, he is shocked to find the four chimpanzees waiting for him at home, and, believing them to be special, decides to take them to the city in order to sell them.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 138
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil, USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
The Family (1974)
Plot Summary:
Adaptation of the novel by Toyoko Yamasaki.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 62
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 211 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
My Husband's Secret Life (1998)
Plot Summary:
A policeman's widow (Archer) uncovers corruption within the force after meeting a woman (Alonso) who was tied to her husband's mysterious death.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 168
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration:
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
A Girl Named Tamiko (1962)
Plot Summary:
A photographer (Laurence Harvey) based in Tokyo, who's in love with local beauty Tamiko (France Nuyen), begins to court an embassy official (Martha Hyer) so she can help him gain entry into the United States. Drama.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 191
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic
Similar in 81%
Gli Invisibili (1988)
Plot Summary:
At the beginning of the eighties, Sirio, a young worker at the steelworks in Terni with a past in the student struggles, decided to abandon his job as a soldier in an extreme left-wing group.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 28
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
Dearest (2012)
Plot Summary:
A prison officer hands in his resignation after his wife's death, to drive to the port where she wants her ashes scattered at sea. Eiji (Ken Takakura) works as a prison officer in Hokuriku. At the age of 53 Eiji loses his wife who he loved the most. Eiji then receives a letter from his dead wife which requests that her ashes be spread by in the sea next to her hometown. Her wife never mentioned such a thing while she was alive. In order to find out her real intentions, Eiji heads to his wife's hometown of Nagasaki with his homemade camper van.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 515
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 90%
Red Ink (2000)
Plot Summary:
Película que trata sobre las vicisitudes de un muchacho practicante para periodista al llegar a la redacción de un periódico sensacionalista. El chico se ha criado sólo con su madre, ya que el papá se desapareció de la casa. Su jefe es un mujeriego, el fotógrafo sólo habla cuando toma fotos y al chofer de la unidad móvil le gusta citar a hombres famosos.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 615
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Spain, Peru
Duration: 121 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
The Way South (1988)
Plot Summary:
A thirty year old man returns from South America to his native village, in the mountains of Yugoslavia, to find his spouse and take her along. He chooses the youngest daughter of self-supporting Jewish woman. The deceit gets discovered on the way to South America. Seven poor girls, among whom is his future wife, are imprisoned in ship's deck. He took them, promising rich marriage, and his real intention is to employ them in bordello houses of Buenos Aires, where the girls, not knowing the language, would be left to his mercy.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 122
Genere: Drama
Country: Yugoslavia, UK, Argentina
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
Secrets (1995)
Plot Summary:
Etta Berter is a doctor's wife in 1905 who has been unable to have children. The couple has one adopted daughter but she has always wanted more children. Julie Harris's character is the family's cook and close companion to their daughter. Her granddaughter is the family's maid. When a visiting friend of Etta's arrives for a visit both she and the maid are attracted to him. When he seems to prefer the younger woman (the maid) the other woman is very jealous and when the maid becomes pregnant by him the older woman vows to make that child her own.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 93
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
Rescuers: Stories of Courage: Two Women (1997)
Plot Summary:
The film is divided into two segments, both set in Europe during WWII.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 172
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Sweet Love, Bitter (1967)
Plot Summary:
A loose fictitious of Charlie Parker's last years and a portrait of the jazz scene in 1960's New York.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 129
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: reflective, independent film
Similar in 90%
Not in This Town (1997)
Plot Summary:
Local aryan-type thugs, financed by an outside racist (ed begley jr), attempt to create an atmosphere of fear in a small Montana community by intimidating black churchgoers, and Native American and Jewish residents. Through the efforts of a crusading woman (kathy baker), her Jewish Physician husband (adam arkin), and backed by the towns Police Chief (max gail jr), the entire community mobilizes to thwart the plans of these hoodlums.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 149
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
Nightbeats (2009)
Plot Summary:
A contemporary noir set entirely at night Nightbeats is an homage to the classic noirs of the 1940's, though told as a contemporary drama, not a gumshoe satire, Nightbeats follow the lives of five people over four nights. Over these nights there are a series of deaths, suicides at first glance. Or are they?.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 38
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: neo noir, detective
Similar in 81%
Blue Rain Osaka (1983)
Plot Summary:
From director Masaru Konuma comes this tale of sorrow and nostalgia mixed with pop songs and feminine strength.
IMDB Rating: 4.3
IMDB Votes: 71
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 79 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
Pack of Lies (1987)
Plot Summary:
A couple learns that their friendly neighbours might be Russian spies.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 420
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, talky
Similar in 75%
Dead Run (2005)
Plot Summary:
Classmates Shuji and Eri becomes friends, both young people have family problems. When Eri is taken away to Tokyo by her relatives, Shuji becomes increasingly isolated at school and drifts into criminal activity.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 312
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Chinese Chocolate (1995)
Plot Summary:
Searching for love abroad, two very different Chinese women, a dancer and a doctor, follow their dreams and journey west to Canada. They quickly learn that the paths of heart are rocky as the men in their lives reveal dark, unsettling secrets which change the lives of everyone forever. Intimately and honestly exploring for the first time the sexuality of Chinese women living in a foreign culture, this award-winning study of love and relationship makes for a unforgettable treat.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 128
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 76%
Climbers High (2008)
Plot Summary:
On August 12, 1985, a jumbo jet crashes, causing 520 fatalities, making the accident the biggest single-plane accident in the world. The local press reporters are tossed about by the waves of facts and rumors. While overwhelmed by the magnitude of the accident, Yuuki, in charge of this crash report at a local newspaper, faces a string of decision-making moments. What are news and a reporter? How should a man do his work and survive in a corporate hierarchy? What do family and friends mean to him? An intriguing story, which keeps the audience on the edge of tension and reality.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 254
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 145 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Millions (1991)
Plot Summary:
Billy Zane leads a pack of money-grabbing relatives who try to take over his ailing uncle's industrial empire.
IMDB Rating: 3.6
IMDB Votes: 297
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: suspense, independent film
Similar in 89%
In His Steps (1964)
Plot Summary:
A priest challenges the members of his congregation to not just go to church every Sunday, but to actually follow in Jesus's footsteps in their daily lives. From Charles M. Sheldon's book that launched the saying "What would Jesus Do?.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 47
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 73 min
Plot tags: christian film
Similar in 80%
The Wishing Well (2009)
Plot Summary:
Widower, Mark Jansen, owns and runs the local newspaper for the Midwest town he grew up in. As he struggles to make ends meet, his daughter takes his happiness into her hands by going down to the famous wishing well their little town is known for, and wishing for just that - his happiness. Shortly after, a glamorous woman appears in town by the name of Cynthia Tamerline. Lead by Mark's daughter, Cynthia makes a trip to the well herself and casts a wish. When she wakes up the next morning, she finds that she has been transported to an alternate universe that ultimately changes her forever.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 515
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, feel good, serious, emotional
Similar in 79%
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (2007)
Plot Summary:
The film follows Mr. Shi, a retired widower from Beijing. When his only daughter, Yilan, who lives in Spokane, Washington and works as a librarian, gets divorced, he decides to visit her to help her heal. However, Yilan is not interested. She tries keeping an emotional distance but when this finally fails she begins physically avoiding her father. He confronts her about an affair with a married Russian man and she, in turn, lets loose about all the gossip she'd heard as a young girl about his alleged affair with a female colleague back in China.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: serious, thought provoking, touching, realistic, emotional, contemplative