Movies Similar to Tears in Suzhou

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress(2002)

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.

6.8

Ash Is Purest White(2018)

Set in China's underworld, this tale of love and betrayal follows a dancer who fired a gun to protect her mobster boyfriend during a fight. On release from prison 5 years later, she sets out to find him.

6.8

Once Upon a Time in China(1991)

Set in late 19th century Canton, this martial arts film depicts the stance taken by the legendary martial arts hero Wong Fei-Hung against foreign forces' plundering of China.

7.1

The Emperor and the Assassin(1998)

In pre-unified China, the King of Qin sends his concubine to a rival kingdom to produce an assassin for a political plot, but as the king's cruelty mounts she finds her loyalty faltering.

7.0

Red Corner(1997)

An American attorney on business in China, ends up wrongfully on trial for murder and his only key to innocence is a female defense lawyer from the country.

6.3

Once Upon a Time in Mongolia(2022)

After her mom dies, Mya discovers an old photograph that sets her on a journey to find her long-lost father in the exotic deserts of Mongolia. Along the way, she saves a young widower’s daughter, and in gratitude, he (Bataa) and his grandfather agree to help her in the quest. Their journey through the gorgeous countryside includes horse racing, archery and wrestling contests, debates about God, dead end leads and ultimately falling in love. There is one problem, however. Bataa has already been pledged to another woman in an arranged marriage. Will Mya finally find her father? Will Bataa go through the arranged marriage? Can they possibly live happily ever after? All these questions are answered in the craziest wedding this side of the Great Wall of China.

10.0

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers(2007)

The film follows Mr. Shi, a retired widower from Beijing. When his only daughter, Yilan, who lives in Spokane, Washington and works as a librarian, gets divorced, he decides to visit her to help her heal. However, Yilan is not interested. She tries keeping an emotional distance but when this finally fails she begins physically avoiding her father. He confronts her about an affair with a married Russian man and she, in turn, lets loose about all the gossip she'd heard as a young girl about his alleged affair with a female colleague back in China.

6.2

Empire of the Sun(1987)

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.

7.5

The Sand Pebbles(1966)

Engineer Jake Holman arrives aboard the gunboat USS San Pablo, assigned to patrol a tributary of the Yangtze in the middle of exploited and revolution-torn 1926 China. His iconoclasm and cynical nature soon clash with the 'rice-bowl' system which runs the ship and the uneasy symbiosis between Chinese and foreigner on the river. Hostility towards the gunboat's presence reaches a climax when the boat must crash through a river-boom and rescue missionaries upriver at China Light Mission.

7.2

Suzhou Nights(1941)

A hostile Chinese nurse (Yamaguchi) who works in an orphanage is won over by the care and commitment of the Japanese doctor (Sano) who treats her wards. Disease outbreaks and family obligations, however, threaten to torpedo their budding romance.

0.0

Kundun(1997)

The Tibetans refer to the Dalai Lama as 'Kundun', which means 'The Presence'. He was forced to escape from his native home, Tibet, when communist China invaded and enforced an oppressive regime upon the peaceful nation. The Dalai Lama escaped to India in 1959 and has been living in exile in Dharamsala ever since.

6.8

House of Flying Daggers(2004)

In 9th century China, a corrupt government wages war against a rebel army called the Flying Daggers. A romantic warrior breaks a beautiful rebel out of prison to help her rejoin her fellows, but things are not what they seem.

7.3

Her Sister's Keeper(1963)

To put her younger sister Huilan (Margaret Tu Chuan) through college, Huilian (Grace Ting Ning) became a taxi dancer and is despised by Huilan. Now married to a good husband (Guan Shan), the lonely Huilan falls for a man after her money. To protect her younger sister, Huilian puts herself at risk. Grace Ting Ning plays a sad role, as the noble sister who keeps her purity in a cesspool.

0.0

John Rabe(2009)

A true-story account of a German businessman who saved more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38.

7.1

Once Upon a Time(2017)

Bai Qian, a goddess and monarch from the Heavenly Realms, is sent to the mortal world to undergo a trial to become a High Goddess. There, she meets Ye Hua, with whom she falls in love and marries. When an old enemy reappears in her life, everything she holds dear is threatened.

6.8

Destiny(1921)

As a young couple stops and rests in a small village inn, the man is abducted by Death and is sequestered behind a huge doorless, windowless wall. The woman finds a mystic entrance and is met by Death, who tells her three separate stories set in exotic locales, all involving circumstances similar to hers.

7.4

Tai-Pan(1986)

The film begins following the British victory of the first Opium War and the seizure of Hong Kong. Although the island is largely uninhabited and the terrain unfriendly, it has a large port that both the British government and various trading companies believe will be useful for the import of merchandise to be traded on mainland China, a highly lucrative market.

5.2

24 City(2008)

As a decades-old state-run aeronautics munitions factory in downtown Chengdu, China is being torn down for the construction of the titular luxury apartment complex, director Jia Zhangke interviews various people affiliated with it about their experiences.

7.0

The Amazing Panda Adventure(1995)

Far from home in the lush bamboo forests of China, ten-year-old Ryan Tyler, with the help of a young girl, goes on a wonderful journey to rescue a baby panda taken by poachers.

5.7

Farewell My Concubine(1993)

Two boys meet at an opera training school in Peking in 1924. Their resulting friendship will span nearly 70 years and endure some of the most troublesome times in China's history.

8.0