归来 (2014)
-文革时期的浪漫
黄金时代(2014)
-影后汤唯演绎著名文学作家萧红
闪光少女(2017)
-民乐系女孩的爱恨情仇
谁先爱上他的(2018)
-亡故的同性恋人和同妻
阳光普照(2019)
-聚焦青年犯罪/抑郁的家庭伦理片
For those who want something more than blockbuster or 烂片 titles:
Prime Video has a nice collection of great Chinese, HK, and TW art flicks, some which are banned in the mainland.
Ash is Purest White - 江湖儿女
Touch of Sin - 天注定
Lust, Caution - 色, 戒 (Cantonese)
Kaili Blues - 路边野餐 (Guizhou dialect)
Eat Drink Man Woman - 飲食男女 (Taiwan)
Love in a Fallen City - 傾城之戀 (Cantonese)
Lost in Beijing - 苹果
Youth - 芳华
Also, the most extensive collection of Kung fu / shaolin stuff, if you’re into that.
This is what I can think of so far, please reply if you know of more movies on Western streaming platforms!
Ohh yeah… I forgott… Not every region has the same movies… sad german noises
I wasn’t including those good Cantonese movies by Stephen Chow and those featuring Andy Lau
Us and Them
A Sun
These are my two favorites
I unfortunately just have a really hard time finding anything I like on Netflix in Mandarin. Almost all the Chinese movies I really like are filmed in Cantonese, and I don’t do well with dubs into Mandarin.
I watched the first half of Us and Them last night with my (Chinese native) wife and it just got boring and too awkward. It’s just not my genre unfortunately where it’s about two young people who have a very awkward relationship and like each other but never try to be together. Plus that whole “guy taking care of girl while she sleeps around with other guys and talks about it to him while he obviously has feelings with her” is just not enjoyable for me and is like Forrest Gump (Forrest and Jenny) to the extreme. It makes the guy seem like a total loser and the girl seem like all she does is take advantage of him. I hated Meteor Garden because it looked like it was for pre-teen girls, and the male characters were just dumb. The main girl was also extremely screechy and annoying. I watched “The Oath” (Singapore medical show) which wasn’t horrible, but just so ridiculously over-dramatic that it’s hard to enjoy. Plus the ending was just atrocious and kinda ruined the show.
All the real weird fantastical/magic movies/shows like Iceman or The Ice Fantasy are just super weird for me and I don’t like them at all. Monkey King is a no. I guess I’m not 100% against anime (yes I know it’s mainly Japanese), but I’d prefer not.
I’ve watched several of the old dynasty-related shows and it’s the same character types over and over and it’s annoying. I watched the entirety of Rise of the Phoenixes and the guys in there are just sooo whiny. All they do every episode (especially 六哥) is just whine and act like total bitches. And the woman are usually portrayed as very noisy, catty, and screech all the time. All I learned from that show was “陛下” because they say it 10000 times. Shows like Yanxi Palace just look like I won’t enjoy them at all.
I love fighting movies (e.g. Ip Man) and action movies, but some of the Mandarin-speaking action movies have just been…straight up bad (e.g. Operation Mekong). I can deal with not great films if the language is good or helpful, but usually the language is very obscure or horrifically spoken so I gain nothing by watching. There are a lot of decent action/fighting movies that take place during the older dynasties, but usually the language is so archaic and formal that I don’t get much out of it.
There are a few newer ones with Jackie Chan that are in Mandarin and are funny. There are usually one or two Andy Lau movies that are good and he’s speaking in Mandarin. But they’re hard to come by. I’ve seen all the Jet Li movies.
Apparently the OG Legend of the White Snake TV show from 20-30 years ago is really good and my wife says I would enjoy it, but I’m not yet ready for it as it’s only with Mandarin subtitles and no English. We tried the new Netflix LotWS and she hated it and I didn’t like it that much.
What am I missing? My problem is that the male roles in most of the non-action movies I see are extremely whiny and either act like pre-teens or huge bitches, and it’s just not enjoyable for me personally. That’s really what ruins a lot of these shows/movies for me. The over-dramatic nature of most of the stuff I watch is a big sticking point. Is this just the norm for everything mainland and I need to get over it? A lot of the Hong Kong Cantonese films are not like that at all.
I could only find 3 of these
Missed “sword master” if you like your kung fu cheesy as I do then I loved this.
有个人看过"天浴? 英国名字是: Xiu Xiu the Sent Down Girl
我没看过这部电影，看得怎么样?
well actually horror/thriller is my favorite genre. here’re my chinese horror top three (happened to be released in the same year):
double vision (2002)
-serial murder and chinese occult
three: coming home (2002)
-a heart-breaking love story. ‘dumplings’ from the project sequel is also good
inner senses (2002)
-hallucination, psychological trauma and suicide
I recommend 银河补习班 it’s one of my favorite movies. You can watch it on 优酷 or find it on google
yeah, definitely more choices on amazon prime!
饮食男女超棒，非常爱李安导演，父亲三部曲还有另外两部推手和喜宴，也都非常棒!
check these movies i highly recommend:
- 姜文的荒诞新中国政治寓言
一步之遥(2014) - 冷峻的东北小镇凶杀案
白日焰火(2014) - 徐皓峰代表的克制新派武侠
师夫(2015) - 未成年少女性侵案
嘉年华(2017) - 金马奖最佳摄影最佳音乐
地球最后的夜晚(2018) - 聚焦美籍华人的家庭伦理片
别告诉她(2019)
Lust, Caution - 色, 戒 (Cantonese)
I thought 色， 戒 was a mixture of Mandarin, Cantonese and Shanghainese?
I thought 芳华 was great, but I generally love 冯小刚 so I’m biased.
I don’t have netflix and none of the prime mentioned movies worked in germany (not at all besides one, which wasn’t prime included)
Edit: even better when you are specifically looking for chinese movies and they are only available as the dub. WHO ASKED FOR THE DUB???
alles gut, sehr in ordnung.
VPN works for Netflix in some cases.
Use a VPN. Should use a VPN anyway really.
imdb评分很烂，虽然是比《上海堡垒》好一点。尽管已经是中国最拿得出手的科幻，背后还有刘慈欣这个大IP撑着，但是观感确实不佳。
u/soundadvices listed some really good ones. I really liked touch of sin, but really anything by Jia Zhangke has been great (especially 站台). I guess they may be kinda slow for some people though but they are up there in quality with the greats of ‘foreign cinema’ and you get to hear some pretty unusual (for film) accents/dialects.
I also get liked The Great Buddha (佛普拉斯) from a few years ago. The music in the film is by 林生祥 who I really like too.
I am also currently enjoying 誰是被害者, it’s a cop series (not movie) but also void of the things you mentioned.
There have been a lot of threads here recently about this topic seems a lot of people are sick of those old tropes.
trust me, you are not the only one. most chinese movies/series are indeed cheesy and dumb nowadays. guess netflix cares more about box office and popularity. that sucks.
with the tightening censorship and rising idol economies, i don’t think we still have the nurturing soil for good movies compared to decades ago.
see if you can find these three:
The Last Emperor (1987)
Farewell My Concubine (1993)
To Live (1994)