Best movies like Shocking Asia II: The Last Taboos

How do you reconcile a commitment to non-violence when faced with violence? Why do the poor often seem happier than the rich? Must a society lose its traditions in order to move into the future? These are some of the questions posed to His Holiness the Dalai Lama by filmmaker and explorer Rick Ray. Ray examines some of the fundamental questions of our time by weaving together observations from his own journeys throughout India and the Middle East, and the wisdom of an extraordinary spiritual leader. This is his story, as told and filmed by Rick Ray during a private visit to his monastery in Dharamsala, India over the course of several months. Also included is rare historical footage as well as footage supplied by individuals who at great personal risk, filmed with hidden cameras within Tibet.

After bringing his beautiful new wife Paula home to America from a remote island on which she was raised, Professor Norman Reed begins to feel the clash between his world of rational science and hers of bizarre dancing and freaky voodoo rituals. Norman's stuck-up friends also sense Paula's strangeness, and soon their meddling gossip and suspicious scheming push the poor woman to use her magic to defend herself and her husband – and maybe even to kill! Or is it just the power of suggestion...?

A biker gang visits a monastery where they encounter black-robed monks engaged in worshipping Satan. When the monks try to persuade one of the female bikers, Helen, to become a satanic sacrifice the bikers smash up the monastery and leave. The monks have the last laugh, though, as Helen, as a result of the satanic rituals, is now possessed and at night changes into a werewolf, with dire results for the biker gang.

A young man arrives at his father's mansion in Louisiana to discover that a secretive cult is using winged creatures to raise the dead to do their bidding.

The true story of George Tweed, an American sailor who became the only serviceman on the island of Guam to avoid capture by the Japanese during the early years of World War II.

Old sailor Chris Christofferson eagerly awaits the arrival of his grown daughter Anna, whom he sent at five years old to live with relatives in Minnesota. He has not seen her since, but believes her to be a decent and respectably employed young woman. When Anna arrives, however, it is clear that she has lived a hard life in the dregs of society, and that much of spirit has been extinguished. She falls in love with a young sailor rescued at sea by her father, but dreads to reveal to him the truth of her past. Both father and young man are deluded about her background, yet Anna cannot quite bring herself to allow them to remain deluded.

A Japanese businessman travels to Iceland and has a series of misadventures while venturing to a remote area to perform a traditional burial ritual where his parents died several years back.

A nurse in the Caribbean turns to voodoo in hopes of curing her patient, a mindless woman whose husband she's fallen in love with.

A cancer researcher on a remote Caribbean island discovers that by treating the natives with snake venom he can turn them into bug-eyed zombies. Uninterested in this information, the unfortunate man is forced by his evil employer to create an army of the creatures in order to conquer the world.

A murder in Paris’ Louvre Museum and cryptic clues in some of Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous paintings lead to the discovery of a religious mystery. For 2,000 years a secret society closely guards information that — should it come to light — could rock the very foundations of Christianity.

Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, apparently playing themselves, share their lives over the course of an evening meal at a restaurant.

Rembrandt Macy (Tom Berenger) is a maverick cop assigned to a case where the primary evidence is a woman's hand found in a pond. Investigators identify the dead, and Macy is lead into a young woman's past. Macy's primary path to understanding the victim is through one of her roommates, Nikki. Through Nikki and others, Macy learns of the victim's shady contacts at City Hall, the involvement of a gang of Asian drug runners, and the sordid affairs of one of the city's bigwigs. As Macy begins to understand how all these crimes fit together, he learns that his new friend Nikki is not an innocent bystander.

A coven of devil-worshiping monks living in New York City search for victims for their sacrificial ceremonies.

As the denizens of a Tibetan village prepare for their arduous annual trek to exchange salt for grain, the community's allegiances are split between aging chieftain Tinle (Thilen Lhondup) and rebellious young Karma (Gurgon Kyap). Tinle tries to maintain his clout and preserve obedience to ancient customs when Karma challenges the old man's power.

A young woman wanders around New York City and stumbles across a number of strange characters and settings that represent the "underground" areas of the city. She sees stand up comedy in Central Park, a prostitution auction, a voodoo ceremony, an S&M club, and a number of very interesting performance artists. These are just a few of the sights and sounds of New York that she encounters.

A day in the lives of a hit-and-run driver and her victim, and the bizarre things that happen to them before and after they collide (sexual assault by a crazed foot-fetishist, visions of the Virgin Mary, strange chicken-foot grafting operations).

In the 1970s on the Binlusai islands, a young mother is killed when she was running with her son run from an evil presence in an abandoned Roman Catholic leper colony. In the present day, a group of four young men and women are travelling to the island to take part in a survival game run by TV channel Search Planet headed by Chen Jiadong (Philip Keung). Also on the boat is the television presenter Stanley (Jessica Xu) and cameraman Ken (Shaun Tam). The eight people have been split into four pairs where they are given a map which leads to a flag; their aim is to survive without any supplies, and the winning duo gets a grand prize of one-million dollars. As they approach the island, their ship is attacked by something unknown under the water and most of their luggage is lost. Shen Yilin (Mini Yang) has preserved her map which she gives to her partner Peng Fei (Jordan Chan).

An orphan girl taught magic by her sick grandma must find work in seedy Bangkok, where she encounters a number of unsavory characters. She uses the magical skills her grandmother taught her to her advantage and to increasingly horrific consequences.

A love story situated in the Himalayas. A Buddhist monk can't choose between life and the way of the Buddha.

High on shock and light on cultural relativism, this mondo collection of video strangeness features assorted dead (or dying) people, a sex change operation, inexplicable sex acts, and a bunch of other stuff the producers' could get the rights to cheaply.

After being denied a promotion at the university where she teaches, Doctor Lily Penleric, a brilliant musicologist, impulsively visits her sister, who runs a struggling rural school in Appalachia. There she stumbles upon the discovery of her life - a treasure trove of ancient Scots-Irish ballads, songs that have been handed down from generation to generation, preserved intact by the seclusion of the mountains. With the goal of securing her promotion, Lily ventures into the most isolated areas of the mountains to collect the songs and finds herself increasingly enchanted.

The makers of the world's most controversial video series have done it again. Guaranteed the world's gnarliest hardcore video in existence, these graphic and shocking images might be the sickest ever put to film. You'll see smuggled video of Iraqi executions, firing squads, amputations, suicide bombings, gangland slayings, knife fights, animal maulings, hostage killings, and terror attacks. Witness first hand the scary truth about the world in which we live.

Bullying students are becoming deathly ill after screaming the name of a legendary ghost. What's to blame? An exotic illness? An illicit drug? Or is it the supernatural? The clues are few and time is running out for the students of Rogers High School. The only hope is the Veritas Project, a highly trained investigative team working undercover to expose the truth. Lives hang in the balance as they scramble to unravel the mystery and protect the student body from their own hatred and fear.

Howard Thorne is a rapist in Los Angeles: he meets women at work and at parties or he sees them walking down the street, and he follows them, terrifies them, and assaults them. He also dreams about these assaults, and he's unclear how much of what he's done is real and how much is fantasy. He ignores his heroin-using wife, Vicki, who tries everything she can think of to get his sexual attention. Howard and Vicki go separately to a costume party where she learns the full truth about his nature and where he is stalked by one of his recent victims. Individualized versions of Hell await Howard and Vicki.

Police officer Lucas only works at night. He also knows how to take a bite out of crime – literally. But when the vampire cop bites the city's reigning drug boss, he inadvertently creates a nemesis as powerful as himself.

A “hidden camera” takes the viewer on a worldwide tour of sexual practices and rituals, including Tijuana strippers, Asian sex shows, British prostitutes, New York devil worshipers and a Mexican slave market.

A documentary team takes on an expedition to an exotic country in Southeast Asia in search of paranormal phenomena. What they never expected is a horrifying journey with encounters of unexplained occurrences. Led by a notable parapsychologist, the encounters are so gruesome and hone chilling beyond what they can bear, ranging from paranormal phenomenon such as poltergeist, exorcism, haunted house to supernatural force like witchcraft, spells, voodoo, curse, tec. Based on Hong Kong Cable TV’s popular paranormal phenomena program of the same name, “The Unbelievable” is a documentary-style movie that throws the audiences to the twilight zone…and beyond! Rated Category III for its shocking scenes of horror, violence and nudity, the reality program-turned-movie features extreme content that makes the TV version look tame in comparison. I’m a fan of the HK TV program. If you like paranormal stuff, check this out!

A selfish and prideful young Dutch doctor, through a series of circumstances, comes to learn that he does indeed "need" a higher spiritual being and other people.

When a menacing smuggler coolly insists that best-selling author Wes Wilson take a chauffeured backseat ride with him, Wilson's charmed life explodes into a world of violence and espionage, and he learns shocking truths about two women in his life.

A crusty, eccentric priest recruits three reluctant convicts to help him rescue a children's leper colony from a Pacific island menaced by a smoldering volcano.

To land a role in the movie Hooker X, Asian American actress Windy (Cheryl Ling) researches what life is like as a prostitute. After being mistaken for a real call girl by undercover cops, Windy runs into trouble with a group of thugs and a huge wrestler. Poking fun at the entertainment industry as well as Asian stereotypes, this independent comedy co-stars Pat Morita, Martin Kove and Dean Haglund.

Artaban is a young Magus (Wise Man) who desires to follow the star to the birthplace of the coming King, against the counsel of his friends and family. Carrying three precious jewels to give to the baby Messiah, Artaban and his reluctant servant Orontes set off to join the caravan of the three other wise men. They miss the caravan, but Artaban continues the search for his King, always one step behind. Artaban spends much of his remaining wealth and all of his energy helping the poor and unfortunate people he meets, until at the end of his life he finally finds Jesus--at His trial! Has Artaban wasted his life in a foolish quest? Will he ever get the chance to present his gifts to the King?

Two shipwrecked boys become the focal point of a religious power struggle.

Bizarre, unusual and horrifying, Sex Rituals of the Occult will shock and delight you. Travel with us to this side of hell and learn the sensual secrets kept by the worshippers of Satan. Witness the modern masters of the dark arts as they undertake hideous violations of the flesh and soul.

A naive country girl new to the big city gets involved in the underground sex scene.