Best movies like Three Sinners

Wealthy passengers fogged in at London's Heathrow Airport fight to survive a variety of personal trials.

Despite its stand-alone title, this mixture of martial arts and exploitation is a semi-sequel to Shaw Brothers's Flying Guillotine series. This time, the focus is Rong Qui-yan, a kung fu student turned dutiful wife whose life falls apart when her husband is murdered by a squad of government operatives led by the duplicitous Jin Gang-Feng. Qui-yan is forced to go into hiding as she plots her revenge and finds allies in fellow fugitive Ma Seng and ex-lover Wang-jun.

In director Vicente Aranda's adaptation of the classic opera, a French writer documents the seductive power of the beautiful Gypsy Carmen, who turns her charms on a young soldier, awakening his passions but ultimately leading to tragedy. Jose becomes obsessed with Carmen and finds himself unable to control his jealousy, which forces him to make a deadly decision in this fiery story of love and betrayal.

In this melodrama filmed on location in Hawaii, a sugar plantation manager finds himself falling in love with a native girl, but instead of committing to her, he marries a socially prominent young woman from San Francisco. The spoiled girl does not easily adapt to the rigors of plantation life and she gets terribly bored. She is just about to give in to the romantic overtures of a persistent native when her former lover shows up. The husband gets jealous and is about to attack him when the wife sets fire to the cane field. The husband's native lover saves him from death. Afterward, his wife leaves to be with her old flame, and the manager is free to be with the woman he's loved all along.

A kingdom's ascending heir, marked for assassination, switches identities with a lookalike, who takes his place at the coronation. When the real king is kidnapped, his followers try to find him, while the stand-in falls in love with the king's intended bride, the beautiful Princess Flavia.

A Huangmei opera produced by Shaw Brothers about a carp spirit who transforms into an identical copy of a beautiful woman to win the heart of a lonely male scholar.

Ann Martin (Helen Walker) is serving time as a jewel thief. She is paroled and determined to stay clean. She quickly finds out that she was paroled by an old, vicious boss that has picked her for a job. It is dangerous for her to say yes or no.

Painted Skin is based on one of Pu Songling's classic short stories in Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. Zhou Xun stars as Xiao Wei, a fox spirit that feasts on human hearts in order to maintain her lovely, youthful appearance. When General Wang Sheng (Chen Kun) 'rescues' her from a band of bandits and brings her home, trouble brews as the demon falls in love with the general.

A woman wakes up in the middle of the night on board a train, but she can't remember how she got there. Danger and suspense ensue.

Spy thriller set in occupied Shanghai. Li Lihua stars as the woman who is thrust into the role of nationalist freedom fighter when she discovers that her husband is a collaborator with the Japanese.

Martin, an ex-Parisian well-heeled hipster passionate about Gustave Flaubert who settled into a Norman village as a baker, sees an English couple moving into a small farm nearby. Not only are the names of the new arrivals Gemma and Charles Bovery, but their behavior also seems to be inspired by Flaubert's heroes.

A stuntwoman on a western picture takes over the lead role when the star's alcohol problems prove too much, and she finds herself gradually falling in love with the film's producer.

Heironymus Merkin is an internationally successful singer approaching middle age who retells his life story in a series of production numbers on a seashore in front of his two toddlers and aged mother. Merkin's promiscuous relationships with women are explored, particularly Polyester Poontang and the adolescent Mercy Humppe. Merkin is constantly surrounded by a Satan-like procurer, Goodtime Eddie Filth, and an angelic 'Presence' who interrupts Merkin's biography with cryptic Borscht Belt-level jokes to denote births and deaths in Merkin's life. Newley periodically steps out of character to complain about his 'Merkin' role with an unseen director, two screenwriters, the film's producers and a trio of blasé movie critics who are turned off by the story's eroticism and lack of plot.

Larry Morgan, a private detective, is hired by a woman who wants Larry to trail her husband. The husband is murdered and, shortly afterwards, the wife is also killed. Larry shuffles through a long list of suspects before revealing the killer...

A kind nurse finds herself embroiled in a tense and potentially deadly family affair when she falls for the son of her ruthless new husband.

An ex-convict (Robert Beltran) and his lover (Julie Carmen) plot to kill her husband (Guy Boyd), owner of a nightclub in east Los Angeles.

Director Chu Yuan was one of the new breed of directors at Shaw who raised the bar of martial arts films, by adding compelling storylines and a good dose of drama. Despite being without his regular cohorts Ku Lung and Ti Lung here, Chu shows his master stroke as he delves into the dastardly ways of evil warlords in China back in the 1910’s. Drama and action both take centre-stage as Tsung Hua and Ching Li fall prey to a lecherous general (Stanley Feng Tsui-fan) who rapes and forces the latter to become his concubine. With the help of two street performers (the deft and agile Chen Kuan-tai and Shih Szu) he once helped, Tsung hatches a plot to save his beloved – with deadly consequences.

After an argument, a newlywed decides to test her husband's fidelity by disguising herself as a blonde.

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.

Young Ngai planned to castrate himself to enter the palace for richness and fame. On his way, Ngai was attracted by Han, a showgirl from a sex torture show. They then ran away from Sun the eunuch, Ngai’s introducer, who meant to buy Han for sexual torture until death. Same night, Han showed Ngai the greatest sex torturing skills; but in return, after learning so, Ngai killed her in the middle of the torturing and handed her head to Sun for forgiveness…

The Story of Qin Xiang-Lian is a Hong Kong Chinese Opera musical starring Jackie Chan in a child role.

With unexpected expenses coming up and needing money to pay for tuition, Grace switch lives with her wealthy, successful identical twin sister Mercy. Mercy is planning on having one last weekend affair with her secret lover. Drew, Mercy's loving husband never knew of his wife's identical twin. He notices a behavior change in his wife and goes to the extreme to find out the cause. When the unexpected happens, Grace is forced to live a crazy double life. Which life will she choose: Her humdrum life, or her sister's adventurous life being married to a successful business typhoon?

Ho Fan started his career as a Shaw Brothers actor, best known for his role as the monk Tang Seng in the classic Monkey Goes West film series. As a director, however, his forte was erotica. Like Li Han Hsiang, Ho Fan was a pioneer of the aesthetic school of erotica, known for his luscious cinematography and seductive lens. He is certainly one of the few Hong Kong erotica filmmakers to have made a respectable name for himself with Category III offerings like Adventure in Denmark, Yu Pu Tuan, and 1977's Innocent Lust. One of Ho Fan's representative works, Innocent Lust stars Ai Fei, Chan Chun Ho, and Lam Choi as college friends who are unlucky in love. They decide to go to a night club, and are surprised to discover that their innocent-looking classmate (Chan Wai Ying) works as a hostess there. When they step up to defend her from a lecherous old man, the encounter sparks off an unexpected journey of love and lust.

The Goddess of Hua Mountain is imprisoned for falling in love with a mortal, meanwhile her son is raised in secret until he can attempt to free her.

Love knows no limits in the grand period romance, Lady Jade Locket. A young fighter inadvertently falls for the spirit of a beautiful woman, who died years earlier avenging her own father's murder. The beautiful ghost is in fact the sister of his fiancee. Experienced as an actor in many such romances, director Yen Chuan keeps the tone perfect. Plus, with period specialist Li Li-hua in the lead and the attractive and acclaimed Li Ching playing the ghost girl, he really can do no wrong.

With China under control of a weak Emperor, two officials compete to steer the future destiny of the land. Chiu believes the people are the future of China, while the diabolical Tu wishes to grind the people beneath an iron heel. Tu decides to take out Chiu's family, but one lone infant escapes.

Movie queen Ivy Ling Po is ideally cast as a male scholar in this historical Huangmei Opera romance. It’s a tragic love story between the scholar and a local beauty (played by Fang Ying). He polishes mirrors as a pretext to get closer to his love, who signals her approval by tossing him a bunch of lichees. From that point on the course of true love proves operatically rocky, complete with murder and suicide.

The husband-and-wife team of Ivy Ling Po and Chin Han returned to another Huangmei Opera classic after Lady General Hua Mu-Lan. Helmed by Chow Sze-loke and written by Chang Cheh, the story revolved around two intellectual siblings, Ching Feng-sheng (Chin Feng) and Ching Feng-hsiao (Ivy Ling Po), who were constantly abused by their stepmother Hsia (Kao Pao-shu). Feng-hsiao was engaged to Li Ru-lung (Chin Han) since birth, but the greedy Hsia forced him to forfeit the marriage. When Ru-lung refused, Hsia framed him for thievery and put him behind bars. To rescue her lover, Feng-hsiao dressed as a young man and went to the capital. She then used Ru-lung's name to enter the national exam and was ranked first place. Impressed by Feng-hsiao, the Emperor decided to let her wed the Princess (Fang Ying). On the wedding night, Feng-hsiao revealed the truth to the Princess...

The story centers on the passionate and turbulent romance between a tea-picker girl, Yu Lan, and a fisherman, Chun Yang.Complications soon arise when a love rival, Hu San Bao, appears.

Spring Blossoms is a parable about the Chinese youth culture and what's important to the younger generation when it comes to romance. It starred a new wave of seventies, Shaw's beauties, Lily Li, Shu Pei-pei and Essie Lin-chia as single women looking for love. It's a triple-decker romantic bus ride on a road to nowhere speeding toward a low bridge. Only Lily Li became successful via her martial-arts abilities, so awesomely featured in Jackie Chan's The Young Master.

Shaw Production

A Shaw and Sons production.

The tragic love triangle of early 20th century Peking Opera star Chiu Hai-tang, his beautiful stage partner, and the warlord who forces himself between them, has been a favorite with Chinese audiences for decades.

In the sixties, love stories portrayed women as sentimentalists or sacrificial lambs. Later on, directors like Chu Yuan replaced these themes of sacrifice with abandonment. The Forbidden Past is a heart tugging, rare Chinese Christmas story about a bar girl (Ching Li) serving drinks to a man that looks like her husband from five years ago. She convinces him to fulfill her son's wishes of having the father he's never seen, show up for Christmas.

The Black Fox (黑狐狸) is a 1962 Hong Kong thriller film directed by Yan Jun. The film was produced under the Shaw Brothers banner in the Mandarin language.