The Sun Rises On Us All (2025) ***

Xin Zhilei won a Volpi Cup for best actress at the Venice Film Festival for her excellent performance in this memorable Chinese drama.

Better Days (2020) ***

Chinese drama about bullying and murder. A coproduction with Hong Kong (which submitted it for the Oscars).

The Cloud In Her Room (2020) ***

Sister (2019) ***

Very touching animated film from China.

A Touch Of Sin (2013) ***

Weird film from China.

The Flowers Of War (2011) ***

A Chinese "Schindler's List", set during the Rape of Nanking.

The Warriors Of Qiugang (2010) ***

Short documentary about villagers from Anhui province in China taking on a chemical company that is poisoning their water.

Curse Of The Golden Flower (2006) ****

House Of The Flying Daggers (2004) ****

Hero (2002) ****

A superb and ambitious historical drama from China.

Not One Less (1999) ***

Directed by Zhang Yimou. Tribulations of a 13-year-old schoolteacher in a small village in China.

Shanghai Triad (1995) ***

A lush period drama about Chinese gangsters.

The Day The Sun Turned Cold (1994) ***

A son suspects his mother of poisoning his father. Somber, very well directed film, set in a wintery Chinese village.

The Blue Kite (1993) ***

Unlike Chen Kaige's "Farewell My Concubine" (1993) and Zhang Yimou's "To Live" (1994), two other Chinese films about the Cultural Revolution, Tien Zhuangzhuang's "The Blue Kite" eschews melodramatic and stylistic excesses in favor of simplicity and realism.

The Story Of Qui Ju (1992) ***

A peasant woman tries to appeal an unjust verdict. Very interesting film about life in China in the early 1990's.

Raise The Red Lantern (1991) ****

Directed by Zhang Yimou. With Gong Li. Superb melodrama about power struggles among various wives of a very rich man.

Ju Dou (1990) ***

Imaginative, visually splendid Chinese melodrama about an abused wife who seduces her husband's nephew. The film was banned in China not so much for its sexual content (quite tame by Western standards), but rather for its clear political interpretations (old senile Communists destroying young people's dreams of democracy).

Born To Defend (1986) ***

Since this is a Jet Li movie, first-rate chop-socky action is de rigeur. It's set in 1940's China and the villains are... Yankee sailors. US citizens (and sympatizers) beware: movies just don't get any more anti-American than that. The kickboxing scenes are terrific; usually pitting Li against a larger, Caucasian opponent. Co-directed (and co-starring) Jet Li and Tsui Siu-Ming, it was produced in China, not Hong Kong.

Martial Arts Of Shaolin (1986) ***

Great kung-fu fighting amid gorgeous scenery (Forbidden City, the Great Wall and Guilin).

The Highway (1935) ***