Best movies like The True Story of Ah Q

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The True Story of Ah Q Starring Yan Shunkai, Li Wei, Yikang Jin, Wang Suya, and more. If you liked The True Story of Ah Q then you may also like: The Three Musketeers, Up the Yangtze, Viva Zapata!, The Resistance, The Knot 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.

Based on the 1921 novella of the same name by one of China's most well-known modern writers, Lu Xun (Lu Hsun), the True Story of Ah Q is set during the 1911 revolution. Ah Q is a lowly peasant who wants to rise above his class, or at least get out of his grinding poverty. At first he thinks the way to do it is by marrying into a better station in life; later, he joins the revolution as he feels that is the only way he and others like him can transcend poverty. In this film version of Lu Xun's story, the character of Ah Q might benefit from a more rounded humanity to make him appealing to those not familiar with the harsh environment in China before the 1911 revolution.

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The Three Musketeers

The young Gascon D'Artagnan arrives in Paris, his heart set on joining the king's Musketeers. He is taken under the wings of three of the most respected and feared Musketeers, Porthos, Aramis, and Athos. Together they fight to save France and the honor of a lady from the machinations of the powerful Cardinal Richelieu.

Up the Yangtze

A luxury cruise boat motors up the Yangtze - navigating the mythic waterway known in China simply as "The River." The Yangtze is about to be transformed by the biggest hydroelectric dam in history. At the river's edge - a young woman says goodbye to her family as the floodwaters rise towards their small homestead. The Three Gorges Dam - contested symbol of the Chinese economic miracle - provides the epic backdrop for Up the Yangtze, a dramatic feature documentary on life inside modern China.

Viva Zapata!

The story of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who led a rebellion against the corrupt, oppressive dictatorship of president Porfirio Díaz in the early 20th century.

The Resistance

In 1937, Japan began their invasion of China by murdering over 300,000 people in the capital of Nanjing. The atrocities committed against women and their daughters are especially barbaric. One of them is Xiaoyun, a peasant girl who fights with the Chinese resistance group. On her way to freedom she must fight against Japanese soldiers, ninjas, a killer geisha, Nazis, and the evil General of the Japanese imperial army.

The Knot

They fell in love; Chen Qiushui was 20. Wang Biyun was 18. When Qiushui fled Taiwan after the 228 Massacre, Biyun gave him a gold engagement ring and they promised to meet again. Qiushui served as an army doctor during the Korean War, where he met Wang Jindi, a nurse from Shanghai who fell in love with him instantly. Years had gone by, Qiushui married Jindi and settled in Tibet. While in Taiwan, Biyun buried Qiushui's mother and continued to pray for his return. Flashback to modern time, Biyun is living in New York. Her niece played by Isabella Leong, a writer, has travelled to Tibet to find out what happened to Qiushui. Through the pictures she sends back via internet, Biyun finally gets to see the familiar face once again.

Across the Universe

When young dockworker Jude leaves Liverpool to find his estranged father in the United States, he is swept up by the waves of change that are re-shaping the nation. Jude falls in love with Lucy, who joins the growing anti-war movement. As the body count in Vietnam rises, political tensions at home spiral out of control and the star-crossed lovers find themselves in a psychedelic world gone mad.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

During the Cultural Revolution, two young men are sent to a remote mining village where they fall in love with the local tailor’s beautiful granddaughter and discover a suitcase full of forbidden Western novels.

Camille

Camille is a courtesan in Paris. She falls deeply in love with a young man of promise, Armand Duval. When Armand's father begs her not to ruin his hope of a career and position by marrying Armand, she acquiesces and leaves her lover. However, when poverty and terminal illness overwhelm her, Camille discovers that Armand has not lost his love for her.

Magic Beyond Words: The J.K. Rowling Story

A look at J.K. Rowling from her humble beginnings as an imaginative young girl and awkward teenager, to the loss of her mother and the genesis of the Harry Potter book series.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

In 1921, a young man, having read Mark Twain's classic novel of the same title, dreams that he himself travels to King Arthur's court, where he has similar adventures and outwits his foes by means of very modern inventions including motorcycles and nitroglycerine.

Cow

A Chinese peasant is given the responsibility of protecting his village's special dairy cow during a particularly harsh winter in 1940.

Hamilton

Presenting the tale of American founding father Alexander Hamilton, this filmed version of the original Broadway smash hit is the story of America then, told by America now.

Freedom Writers

A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school.

R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned

When Sheriff Roy Pulsipher finds himself in the afterlife, he joins a special police force and returns to Earth to save humanity from the undead.

In the Heat of the Sun

The 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.

This Is Not What I Expected

Lu Jin is a handsome, wealthy hotel executive whose drive for perfection is matched only by his taste for fine cuisine. When he checks into the Rosebud, he's dissatisfied with everything he sees and is ready to take action... until flamboyant female sous chef Gu Shengnan creates the perfectionist what may be a perfect meal. Now, these bitter rivals find themselves brought together in the kitchen in this light-hearted romantic comedy, infused with fun and flavors to create a delicious dish that foodies around the world wouldn't dare to miss.

The Diary of Anne Frank

The story of a 13-year-old Jewish girl and her family who are forced into hiding by the Nazis during World War II.

The East Is Red

Pre-Cultural Revolution propaganda at its most lavish, this model opera depicts the history and evolution of the Communist Party of China under Mao Zedong from its founding in July 1921 to the establishment of "New China" in 1949. Detailed in the musical are several key events in CPC history such as the Northern Expedition, the KMT-led Shanghai massacre of 1927, the Nanchang Uprising and formation of the People's Liberation Army, the Long March and the founding of the PRC on October 1, 1949.

First They Killed My Father

A 5-year-old girl embarks on a harrowing quest for survival amid the sudden rise and terrifying reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

Together

When a violin prodigy Xiaochun and his father head to Beijing seeking fame and fortune, they soon discover a fierce world of cutthroat ambition. But when Xiaochun is "adopted" by a famous music tutor, success finally seems within reach - until a shocking discovery begins to unravel his entire world, and the boy must make the most difficult choice of his life. Can he achieve the fame his father had always hoped for without losing the extraordinary passion that sets him apart?

The Idle Class

At an upper class golf resort, a tramp discovers he's the lookalike of a rich man with a beautiful, unhappy wife.

The Last Emperor

A dramatic history of Puyi, 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.

The Life of Wu Xun

The life-story of Wu Xun, a beggar in the Qing dynasty who set up free schools for poor children.

Lord of Shanghai

A lowly brothel maid captures the attention of Shanghai triad leaders, pulling her into a brutal war where she learns to rise above the odds in order to survive.

The Skin Game

An old traditional family and a modern family battle over land in a small English village. The original silent version of a film Hitchcock later adapted with sound.

Stella Maris

Stella Maris is a beautiful, crippled girl, who is cared for by a rich family. They shield her from the harsh realities of the world, so that she has no idea of the cruel things that some people do. Unity Blake is a poor orphan all too familiar with the harsh realities of the real world. These two young women both fall in love with John, love which is complicated by the fact that he is still married to (though separated from) a bad wife.

The Story of Qiu Ju

When her husband is kicked in the groin by the village head, Qiu Ju, a peasant woman, despite her pregnancy, travels to a nearby town, and later a big city to deal with its bureaucrats and find justice.

The Sun Also Rises

A polyptych of interconnected stories in different time-zones, shifting between a Yunnan village, a campus, and the Gobi Desert.

A Tale of Two Cities

A condensed silent film version of the Charles Dickens classic about the French Revolution and its subsequent Reign of Terror.

Temptress Moon

Set in the decadent 1920s, Temptress Moon tells the very complicated story of a wealthy family living on the outskirts of Shanghai. Their youngest daughter, Ruyi, is brought up as a servant to her opium-addicted father and brother. Meanwhile, her brother-in-law Zhongliang has a successful, if illegal, career seducing and blackmailing married women in the city. When he comes to Ruyi's home the two fall in love, and trouble ensues.

Two Great Sheep

The film follows a peasant couple, Zhao Deshan and his wife Xiuzhi, living in rural Yunnan province near Zhaotong in southern China. Their lives are thrown into upheaval when the local mayor “rewards” them with two foreign sheep donated by a former villager, now an official in Beijing. The couple is then tasked with breeding the sheep for their wool and to bring prosperity to their small community. Much to their chagrin, the sheep do not take to their new environment and the couple are forced into ever more ingenious ways of making the sheep appear greater than they really are. As they do so, they also come to value the sheep as companions in their family. When it becomes clear that the two “great” sheep are not the boon they were thought to be, the local authorities repossess the animals.

Burn 'Em Up Barnes

Car racer Burn 'em Up Barnes, son of a wealthy manufacturer, leaves home to make his own way in the world. After being robbed by hoodlums, Barnes joins a group of hobos who take him in and show him the carefree life.

China Cry: A True Story

Drama set in the 1950s, based on a true story, about a young girl, Sung Neng Yee, who is brought as part of a wealthy Chinese family. She is eager to become part of Mao Tze Tung's "new society", but soon becomes disenchanted by the economic misery the changes bring to her family. Before long, the authorities become aware of Neng Yee's feelings and she is taken to a labour camp, overseen by the sadistic Colonel Cheng.

The Sins of Dorian Gray

In this version of Oscar Wilde's tale, Dorian Gray is an actress who, desperate to become a worldwide star, makes a deal that switches her soul to her image on film, then proceeds to sleep and connive her way to the top, knowing that her screen test, and not she, will show the ravishes of time and of her immoral transgressions.

Eleni

Nick is a writer in New York when he gets posted to a bureau in Greece. He has waited 30 years for this. He wants to know why his mother was killed in the civil war years earlier. In a parallel plot line we see Nick as a young boy and his family as they struggle to survive in the occupied Greek hillside. The plot lines converge as Nick's investigations bring him closer to the answers.

Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist the modern filmed version of Charles Dickens bestseller, a Roman Polanski adaptation. The classic Dickens tale, where an orphan meets a pickpocket on the streets of London. From there, he joins a household of boys who are trained to steal for their master.

A Perfect Crime

Wally Griggs is your classic meek, mild bank messenger, destined to a threadbare life of earning 63 dollars a month. At least this is what he seems to be. But when he's not working Griggs is the dashing James Brown, an adventurer and storyteller who is familiar with bank president Halliday. A publisher, fascinated by Brown's wild tales, offers him a deal. Griggs also uses his alter ego to help Mary Oliver, the girl her loves.

People Mountain People Sea

A story of vengeance set in China’s wild Southwest, where brutality can be the norm rather than the exception.

The Fixer

Set in tsarist Russia around the turn of the century and based on a true story of a Russian Jewish peasant Yakov Bog who was wrongly imprisoned for a most unlikely crime - the “ritual murder” of a Gentile child in Kiev. We witness the unrelenting detail of the peasant handyman's life in prison and see him gain in dignity as the efforts to humiliate him and make him confess fail.

Siddharth

A chain-wallah from Delhi travels across India in search of his missing son, in the hopes that whoever took him, returns him unharmed.

Transition

A drama centred on three people: Sarah is a barista who finds the love of her life in Mark. Her mother Barbara depends on Mark to keep her in Sarah's life while resenting her daughter's deep love for him. When severely traumatised by the sudden death of Mark Sarah's relationship with her mother finally cracks. Now faced with losing her struggle to cope Sarah feels Mark's presence return. Based on true events Transition is the story of a love that transcends this realm and the strength of human character in survival.

Starry Starry Night

There was once a young girl named May who felt alienated from everyone around her. May is worried about her mother and father, whose marriage is on the rocks, and she yearns to return to the woods where her grandfather lives. One day, May befriends a boy as lonely as she is. When reality catches up, they run away to a beautiful world that belongs only to them. Both imaginatively escapist and heartbreakingly realistic, their journey speaks to kids and adults alike with the pain of solitude, the sorrow of loss, and the warmth of hope.

Can You Hear the Laughter? The Freddie Prinze Story

The true and tragic story of a very young and very talented comedian from the 70's whose sudden rise to fame had some of its benefits -- and some of its burdens.

InterReflections

In a quest for a new, more humane society, a counter-culture revolution takes the world by storm. In the first of the InterReflections Trilogy, we look back to the modern world and wonder how it was we managed to survive as long as we had.

The Song of the Flame

This was a screen version of the 1925 operetta by Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach, Herbert Stohart, and George Gershwin. The story of the movie is about a peasant who is known as "The Flame" who leads a revolution in Russia. This peasant who is in love with a Russian prince saves his life by agreeing to sacrifice her virginity to an evil fellow-conspirator. This was an all Technicolor musical which was had a sequence in Vitascope (a Warner Brother's wide screen process)

A Pinwheel Without Wind

It sets in China 1945, a romance develops between the young Ningjing ZHAO (Xun Zhou) and LIN Shuang-Ran, although they are distant cousins ​​and Shuang-Ran is already betrothed. Each will seek to fight against there destiny to try to live each their romantic feelings.

In C, Too

"In C, Too" illuminates how close our dreams are to a common reality. Through structured visual improvisational techniques, the work explores how humanity survives because of our imagination and desire to transcend. "In C, Too" is also an origin story, operating in renunciation to mortality, focused on life's essentials - existence, exploration and how entropy ignites evolution.

Johnny Keep Walking!

Fitter Hu Jianlin was transferred to the headquarters by accident when the group was laying off employees. He is full of jokes because he is incompatible with the environment of the big factory. Human resources manager Ma Jie, who was caught up in the "wrong adjustment" incident, was forced to go around hiding it in order to keep his job. Is he able to keep his job after this mistake?

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