Best movies like The Wasted Times
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Wasted Times Starring Ge You, Zhang Ziyi, Tadanobu Asano, Gillian Chung, and more. If you liked The Wasted Times then you may also like: War Correspondent, Know Your Enemy: Japan, Kung Fu Hustle, The Bitter Tea of General Yen, Blood Brothers 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.
Shanghai gangsters grapple with lust and loyalty on the eve of war with Japan as they try to navigate an alliance with the enemy's army.
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Know Your Enemy: Japan
Frank Capra-directed propaganda film produced during World War II depicting the United States' new enemy: Japan.
Kung Fu Hustle
It's the 1940s, and the notorious Axe Gang terrorizes Shanghai. Small-time criminals Sing and Bone hope to join, but they only manage to make lots of very dangerous enemies. Fortunately for them, kung fu masters and hidden strength can be found in unlikely places. Now they just have to take on the entire Axe Gang.
The Bitter Tea of General Yen
An American missionary is gradually seduced by a courtly warlord holding her in Shanghai.
Blood Brothers
Three best friends who are barely getting by as fishermen seek their fate in 1930s Shanghai. Upon arriving in the bustling city, the naïve trio gradually find their innocence corrupted as they fall into the deepest depths of the criminal underworld.
The Camp on Blood Island
Set in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II, the film focuses on the brutality and horror that the allied prisoners were exposed to as the Japanese metered out subjugation and punishment to a disgraced and defeated enemy. This harrowing drama concentrates on the deviations of legal and moral definitions when two opposing cultures clash. Although fictional, this was one of the earliest films to deal realistically with life and death in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp during the Second War.
The Rack
Army Captain Edward Hall returns to the US after two years in a prison camp in the Korean War. In the camp he was brainwashed and helped the Chinese convince the other prisoners that they were fighting an unjust war. When he comes back he is charged for collaboration with the enemy. Where does loyalty end in a prison camp, when the camp is a living hell?
Empire of the Sun
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 spirit, providing a beacon of hope for the others held captive with him.
Letters from Iwo Jima
The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.
Lust, Caution
During 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.
The Last Tycoon
Cheng, a young man who is set up by the chief of police, must leave the life he knows and Qiu, the woman he loves, to start again. After escaping prison Cheng quickly and violently moves his way up the ladder of Shanghais criminal underworld to become on the most powerful mob bosses in Shanghais history. But fame and notoriety take their toll when Cheng finds himself stuck between the looming Japanese army and the scheming local secret service. Matters are only made worse when he bumps into the love of his life QIU, along with her writer husband. Will love re-kindle in the dusk of an era?
Purple Butterfly
Ding 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.
Shanghai Triad
Shanghai, China, 1930. When young Shuisheng arrives from the countryside, his uncle Liushu puts him at the service of Bijou, the mistress of Laoda, supreme boss of the Tang Triad, constantly threatened by his enemies, both those he knows and those lurking in the shadows.
Eternal Wave
Eternal Wave 密战 is a Chinese film set during the anti-Japanese occupation era starring Aaron Kwok, Zhao Li Ying and Zhang Han. It follows the main protagonist Lin Xiang who is a spy working underground to reestablish what was destroyed ruing the Battle of Shanghai. He meets a simple yet patriotic young lady who becomes his partner as they infiltrate the enemy as a couple. Apart from that, they cross paths with Liang Dong, a man whose motives are unclear.
I Was an American Spy
An American nightclub singer in 1940's Singapore becomes a spy for America in an effort to get back at the invading Japanese army. Based on a true story.
Pacific Inferno
After the fall of the Philippines in World War II, the Japanese discover that Gen. MacArthur ordered millions of dollars in silver dumped in Manila Bay in order that it not fall into enemy hands. Among the prisoners the Japanese have taken are two American U.S. Navy deep-sea divers, whom they then force to dive in search of the sunken treasure.
Suicide Battalion
Second World War drama, set in the Philippines about a group of men recruited for the dangerous mission of destroying an American base to keep strategic papers out of enemy hands when Japanese forces invade. The men spend their last hours drowning their sorrows in a bar, but time is running out. American International Pictures originally distributed this film as a double feature with "Jet Attack".
Public Enemies: The Golden Age of the Gangster Film
Produced for Turner Classic Movies, this documentary looks at the early days of the gangster film.
Manila Calling
During WWII, a group of brave Americans spy on the Japanese after their invasion of the Philippines and became the first U.S. Guerrilla fighters.
The Eight Hundred
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.
Battle of the Coral Sea
A US submarine and its crew are captured by the Japanese on the eve of a major WWII battle.
The Man from Down Under
An Australian blowhard raises two orphaned children as his own in the years leading up to WWII.
The Eve of St. Mark
Quizz West is conscripted into the United States Army in late 1940. Prior to being shipped out first to San Francisco, then the Philippines, Quizz and his hometown girlfriend Janet discuss their future plans.
Beachhead
On a Japanese-occupied island during World War II, only two soldiers remain alive after a mission attempt goes horribly wrong. Trapped on the island, they must escort a scientist and his daughter to the other side of the island where their ship awaits. They must battle nature, hard terrain, and advancing Japanese troops.
A Christmas Truce
During a shaky 24-hour holiday truce amid the Battle of the Bulge, American Captain John Myers and a Belgian farm girl, Alina, fall in love. Forced to separate when fighting resumes, the couple vows to reunite, under a bell tower, the first Christmas Eve after the war ends, if each is alive and eager.
Shadows Over Shanghai
A pilot carrying a valuable amulet is shot down over China by a ruthless Russian agent, who also wants the amulet.
The Music Box
In the late 1930s, the Japanese army occupies Shanghai. Barber Lu Ping kills a Japanese officer by accident and then escapes from Shanghai to the residence of his master's brother, Song Fengnian. When he arrives at the small town, he falls in love with Song's daughter Jiayi at the first sight. However, Jiayi has had the engagement with an officer for a decent life in the wartime, even as concubine. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Lu is sentenced to death as a traitor because Song, his boss, has worked for the Japanese. When he closes his eyes and waits for the sound of shot, Jiayi rescues him. Arranged by her husband, Lu becomes an officer. However, he can never forget Jiayi and his barber life. After the end of the Civil War, Lu is sent to work on a farm in the northwest. There he learns that Jiayi doesn't leave with her husband and has been waiting for him at the small town where they meet for the first time. Lu decides to look for Jiayu.
The Eternal Wave
An underground CPC telegrapher, Li Xia, fights against the Japanese enemy and dies before the eve of Shanghai's liberation in 1939.
The Eight Hundred Heroes
800 Chinese soldiers guard the important warehouse district against the invading Japanese Army. Re-imagination of a famous (bordering on legendary) episode from the battle of Shanghai: 800 soldiers of the 88th regiment against what feels like the whole of Japan’s Imperial Army - think Thermopylae, Chinese version. A splendid, visually amazing gem which, in its own way, is also a last stand: of silent cinema, Shanghai style. (iffr)
Break Through the Wu River
Story of the leading regiment of the First Branch of the Chinese Red Army for Workers and Peasants who defeats a brigade of enemy on the Wu River and conquers the river by 3 days of intelligent combat.
Bloody Fight with Enemy Haunt
Set in the period before the Lugou Bridge Incident, Chinese patriots destroy the Japanese's drug works in Peking.
Design for Death
Documentary Feature winner "Design for Death" (1947) examines Japanese culture and how it led to Japan's role in WWII.
Shanghai gangsters grapple with lust and loyalty on the eve of war with Japan as they try to navigate an alliance with the enemy's army.
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Wasted Times Starring Ge You, Zhang Ziyi, Tadanobu Asano, Gillian Chung, and more. If you liked The Wasted Times then you may also like: War Correspondent, Know Your Enemy: Japan, Kung Fu Hustle, The Bitter Tea of General Yen, Blood Brothers 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.
War Correspondent
In this war drama, a brave reporter tries to remain detached while covering the war in Shanghai. While there, he falls for an ex-streetwalker, but must compete with a mercenary pilot for her love. By the end, the correspondent loses his objectivity after he helps the pilot save the woman from the enemy. The rescue costs the pilot his life.