Best movies like The Lovers and the Despot
They were kidnapped by their biggest fan
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Lovers and the Despot Starring Paul Courtenay Hyu, Yuna Shin, Choi Eun-hee, Michael Yi, and more. If you liked The Lovers and the Despot then you may also like: Nineteen Eighty-Four, Nightmares in Red, White and Blue, Kimjongilia, Assassins, Battle of the Warriors and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
Hong Kong, 1978. South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee is kidnapped by North Korean operatives following orders from dictator Kim Jong-il.
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Nightmares in Red, White and Blue
An exploration of the appeal of horror films, with interviews of many legendary directors in the genre.
Kimjongilia
The first film to fully expose the humanitarian crisis of North Korea, this stylish, deeply moving documentary is centered around astonishing interviews with survivors of North Korea's vast and largely hidden prison camps, and interspersed with archival footage of North Korean propoganda films and original art performances.
Assassins
True crime meets global spy thriller in this gripping account of the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of the North Korean leader. The film follows the trial of the two female assassins, probing the question: were the women trained killers or innocent pawns of North Korea?
Battle of the Warriors
In 370 B.C, China was separated as seven nations and several other small tribes, one of these being the city state of Liang. The nation of Zhao is led by the terrifying Xiang Yangzhong who orders his troops to conquer the small city. Leaping to the defense of the people of Liang is 'Ge Li' from the Mo-Tsu tribe, their last hope from the terrors of Yangzhong's troops.
The Interview
Dave Skylark and his producer Aaron Rapaport run the celebrity tabloid show "Skylark Tonight". When they land an interview with a surprise fan, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, they are recruited by the CIA to turn their trip to Pyongyang into an assassination mission.
Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War
When two brothers are forced to fight in the Korean War, the elder decides to take the riskiest missions if it will help shield the younger from battle.
Seoul Searching
In the 1980s a group of foreign-born Korean teenagers who meet at a Seoul summer camp to learn what it means to be Korean. The three boys, from the U.S., Mexico, and Germany, then meet three girls who rock their world.
Late Autumn
Anna learns in prison that her mother has passed away in Seattle. Prison officials grants Anna a three day furlough to attend her mother's funeral. Anna embarks on a long trip to Seattle. Hoon is a Korean immigrant who works as a gigolo. Hoon is now on the run from a wealthy client's furious husband. These two seemingly lost souls are about to share three memorable days together.
Little Girl Blue
After her mother’s death, director Mona Achache discovers thousands of photos, letters and recordings, but these buried secrets make her disappearance even more of an enigma. Through the power of filmmaking and the beauty of incarnation with the help of actress Marion Cotillard, she brings her mother back to life to retrace her journey and find out who she really was.
A State of Mind
Two young North Korean gymnasts prepare for an unprecedented competition in this documentary that offers a rare look into the communist society and the daily lives of North Korean families. For more than eight months, film crews follow 13-year-old Pak Hyon Sun and 11-year-old Kim Song Yun and their families as the girls train for the Mass Games, a spectacular nationalist celebration.
Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Shocking Truth
A documentary primarily focusing on the filming and release of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The Mole: Undercover in North Korea
A real-life undercover thriller about two ordinary men who embark on an outrageously dangerous ten-year mission to penetrate the world's most secretive and brutal dictatorship: North Korea.
Hong Kong Confidential
An undercover U.S. agent searches for an Arab ruler's son kidnapped by communists in Hong Kong.
Beyond Utopia
Hidden camera footage augments this perilous high-stakes journey as we embed with families attempting to escape oppression, ultimately revealing a world most of us have never seen.
Chop Socky: Cinema Hong Kong
Filmmaker Ian Taylor examines the impressive legacy of Hong Kong cinema -- specifically, how martial arts crossed borders and become an international phenomenon -- with the help of footage and interviews with the stars who made the genre what it is today. Director Lau Ka Leung (who helmed The 36th Chamber of Shaolin) joins in, sharing his thoughts on how certain cinematic technologies have improved martial arts films and expanded their appeal.
Red Nights
A woman acquires a box with a seal made of white jade, it is rumored that the box belonged to the first Chinese emperor. She journeys to Hong Kong in an attempt to sell the artifact.
Erotique
Four women filmmakers examine sexuality in this anthology. Segment 1 is entitled "Let's Talk About Sex" and is the story of an aspiring actress whose day job is as a phone-sex operator. Tiring of listening to callers' fantasies, she finds a caller who is willing to listen to hers. Segment 2 is called "Taboo Palor" and tells the story of two lesbians, who, for variety, pick up a man for sex. He ends up getting more than he bargained for. Segment 3 is "Wonton Soup." Here an Australian-Chinese man tries to rekindle his affair with a Chinese woman by returning to their roots: both in the kitchen and in the bedroom.
A. K.
In 1985, Chris Marker traveled to Japan to attend the filming of Ran, directed by Akira Kurosawa. Marker analyzes the progress of filming; the infinite patience of a team under the orders of a meticulous director down to the smallest detail; the antithetical mixture of the modern with the traditional; of the real with the fictitious; of life with cinema… and literature.
Northeast of Seoul
Three adventurers--at times competing with each other, at other times allied with each other--search South Korea for a magical sword that is supposed to imbue its owner with wealth and power.
Visa to Canton
A former World War II pilot, now the owner of a travel agency in Hong Kong, gets involved in espionage trying to help a Chinese woman locate her son.
Meryl Streep: Mystery and Metamorphosis
Meryl Streep is one of the most versatile and successful actresses of all time and is still considered a superstar after 50 years of career. She fascinates filmmakers and audiences alike with her broad range of expression.
The Incredible Mr. Piccoli
A captivating portrait of French actor Michel Piccoli, who has worked with the greatest filmmakers of his time and has built a dazzling career of remarkable merit and success, focusing on his work during the 1970s and his professional relationship with Claude Sautet, Romy Schneider, Marco Ferreri and Luis Buñuel.
Cinema Through the Eye of Magnum
The film tells the story of the intimate and unprecedented encounter between the photojournalists of the Magnum Agency and the world of cinema. The confrontation of two seemingly opposite worlds – fiction and reality. For 70 years their paths crossed: a family of photographers, amongst them the biggest names in photography, and a family of actors and filmmakers who helped write the history of cinema, from John Huston to Marilyn Monroe to Orson Welles, Kate Winslet and Sean Penn.
La princesse rouge
Who is Kim Yo-jong? In a context of maximum tensions between North Korea and the United States, Pierre Haski paints an unprecedented portrait of the little sister of Kim Jong-un, whose influence in Pyongyang is growing stronger day by day.
Cinema Hong Kong: The Beauties of the Shaw Studio
Hong Kong cinemas had a wide range of glamorous female stars during the golden age of the 60's and 70's. The series will take the audience on a sentimental journey to the good old days and once again look at the expansive epic costume dramas and huangmei operas in which actresses played both the male and female roles. Rare interviews with Sir Run Run Shaw, stars Ivy Ling Po, Shaw Yin Yin, Tanny Tie Ni and Cheng Pei Pei are also featured.
Volker Schlöndorff: The Beat of the Drum
The life and work of the brilliant German filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff, a cross-border artist who, by leaving Germany and making the whole world his place of work, acquired the objective perspective necessary to portray his country's society better than anyone else while providing a unique and original point of view on the troubled history of the European continent.
Dictator: One Crazy Job
They’ve become the human face of inhuman barbarity. Leaders like Hitler, Idi Amin Dada, Stalin, Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein, Nicolae Ceausescu, Bokassa, Muammar Kadhafi, Khomeini, Mussolini and Franco governed their countries completely cut off from reality. These paranoid leaders were driven to abuse their power by the pathology of power itself. Dictators are driven by a relentless, thought-out determination to impose themselves as infallible, all-knowing and all-powerful beings. But they are also men ruled by their caprices, uncontrollable impulses, and reckless fits of frenzy, which paradoxically render them as human as anyone else. The abuses they committed were clearly atrocious, yet some of them were as outlandish as the characters portrayed in the film The Dictator. They sunk to depths worthy of Kafka: so incredibly absurd, they are outrageously funny.
Tale of Cinema
In Seoul, a suicidal student meets a young woman who decides to join him in his fatal gesture. Tongsu, an unsuccessful filmmaker, spots a beautiful young woman, who happens to be the lead actress in the film he has just seen. Their stories will cross paths thanks to their love for cinema.
The Other Side of the Mountain
During the Korean War, a young nurse in the small town of Chunamri, North Korea, saves a wounded South Korean soldier who has been left behind during battle. Brought together by the unfortunate circumstance of war, theirs is a fateful meeting. His identity is unknown to her until he must return to South Korea. With the promise to return, the nurse waits a lifetime for him.
Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks
The fantastic story of how an ancient martial art, Chinese kung fu, conquered the world through the hundreds of films that were produced in Hong Kong over the decades, transformed Western action cinema and inspired the birth of cultural movements such as blaxploitation, hip hop music, parkour and Wakaliwood cinema.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell's novel of a totalitarian future society in which a man whose daily work is rewriting history tries to rebel by falling in love.