Movies Like Portrait of a Fanatic

If you liked Portrait of a Fanatic (1982), a movie directed by Wang Tung, here are 20 movies with a similar feel, based on TMDB's recommendations. Each one links to its cast, trailer and where it's streaming.

1
Shutter Island (2010)
★ 8.2/10
World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.
2
Sight (2023)
★ 6.4/10
Ming Wang is an impoverished Chinese prodigy who flees Communist China to become a pioneering eye surgeon in America. When tasked with restoring the sight of an orphan in India, who was blinded by her stepmother, Wang…
3
Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998)
★ 7.2/10
Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even…
4
The Last Emperor (1987)
★ 7.6/10
A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and…
5
Woman in Gold (2015)
★ 7.3/10
Maria Altmann, an octogenarian Jewish refugee, takes on the government to recover artwork she believes rightfully belongs to her family.
6
The Blue Kite (1994)
★ 7.2/10
A young man recalls his childhood growing up in a poor alley in Beijing during the 1950s and 1960s.
7
Dead to Rights (2025)
★ 7.8/10
During the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, a postman poses as a photo developer, helping Japanese forces while secretly sheltering Chinese refugees. He later risks his life evacuating them and revealing evidence of the…
8
Hidden Blade (2023)
★ 6.3/10
Follows the story of underground workers who risked their lives to send intelligence and defend the motherland, set after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor when the Wang Jingwei regime declared war on Britain and the U.S.
9
Red Sorghum (1988)
★ 7.4/10
An old leper who owned a remote sorghum winery dies. Jiu'er, the wife bought by the leper, and her lover, identified only as "my Grandpa" by the narrator, take over the winery and set up an idealized quasi-matriarchal…
10
To Live (1994)
★ 8.2/10
Married couple Fugui and Jiazhen endure tumultuous events in mid-20th century mainland China as their personal fortunes move from wealthy landownership to peasantry.
11
Rise of the Legend (2014)
★ 6.4/10
In 1868 during the late Qing Dynasty, rampant corruption on the Imperial Court inflicts much suffering in people's lives. For years, the Black Tiger’s fearsome boss Lei Gong has been trying to get rid of the leader of…
12
M. Butterfly (1993)
★ 6.6/10
In 1960s China, French diplomat Rene Gallimard falls in love with opera singer Song Liling – but Song is not at all who Gallimard thinks.
13
A Touch of Sin (2013)
★ 7.2/10
Four people in different provinces are driven to violent ends: An angry miner is enraged by corruption in his village. A migrant discovers the possibilities of owning a firearm. A receptionist is pushed beyond her…
14
Railroad Tigers (2016)
★ 6.1/10
A railroad worker in China in 1941 leads a team of freedom fighters against the Japanese in order to get food for the poor.
15
Cliff Walkers (2021)
★ 6.7/10
In the puppet state of Manchukuo in the 1930s, four Communist party special agents, after returning to China, embark on a secret mission. Sold out by a traitor, the team find themselves surrounded by threats on all…
16
Under the Hawthorn Tree (2010)
★ 7.8/10
The daughter of a right-winger, schoolgirl Jing Qiu is sent to the countryside for reeducation, and tasked to help write a textbook. There she meets Lao San, a young soldier with a bright future ahead. Despite the…
17
Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955)
★ 6.1/10
A widowed doctor of both Chinese and European descent falls in love with a married American correspondent in Hong Kong during China's Communist revolution.
18
Blood Brothers (1973)
★ 6.4/10
Set in the waning years of the Ching Dyansty, this dramatic, tragic, romantic, blood-soaked martial arts tale of betrayal and revenge explores one of the most sensational scandals in Chinese history and marked the true…
19
Kaili Blues (2016)
★ 7.1/10
Chen Sheng goes off in search of his nephew who has been abandoned by his father. Along the way, he encounters numerous people from his past and also those from his future.
20
In the Heat of the Sun (1994)
★ 7.8/10
Beijing, 1970s. The Cultural Revolution has driven most adults to the provinces leaving 14-year-old Monkey and his pals with free rein over the city. They hang around, get up to no good, and discover that unsolvable…