Movies Like My Bittersweet Taiwan

If you liked My Bittersweet Taiwan (2004), a movie directed by Zheng Dongtian, 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
Devils on the Doorstep (2001)
★ 8.2/10
During the Japanese occupation of China, two prisoners are dumped in a peasant's home in a small town. The owner is bullied into keeping the prisoners until the next New Year, at which time they will be collected. The…
2
Buddha Mountain (2011)
★ 6.7/10
In Chengdu, China, a retired female opera singer named Master Chang takes in a trio of young tenants into her boarding home. The tenants include a rock singer and a college student who has run away from home.
3
Rip Girls (2000)
★ 6.3/10
A teen-age girl and her father come to an island on Hawaii, they find a closer relationship to each other and think about changing the island. During her adventures, Sydney finds friends, a new hobby with her fantastic…
4
Weekend in Taipei (2024)
★ 6.5/10
A former DEA agent and a former undercover operative revisit their romance during a fateful weekend in Taipei, unaware of the dangerous consequences of their past.
5
The Children of Huang Shi (2008)
★ 6.7/10
About young British journalist, George Hogg, who with the assistance of a courageous Australian nurse, saves a group of orphaned children during the Japanese occupation of China in 1937.
6
Skin (2009)
★ 6.4/10
Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.
7
A City of Sadness (1989)
★ 7.5/10
The story of a family embroiled in the "White Terror," the Kuomintang government's anti-communist political repression that was wrought on the Taiwanese people from 1947-1987.
8
Good Boy (2026)
★ 7.2/10
Tommy, a volatile 19-year-old, revels in drugs, parties and violence. After getting separated from his friends on a drunken bender, he is abducted by a shadowy figure. He wakes to find himself imprisoned in the…
9
Shanghai (2010)
★ 6.1/10
An American man returns to a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor and discovers his friend has been killed. While he unravels the mysteries of the death, he falls in love and discovers a…
10
The Joy Luck Club (1993)
★ 7.2/10
Through a series of flashbacks, four Chinese women born in America and their respective mothers born in feudal China explore their pasts.
11
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.
12
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…
13
Empire of the Sun (1987)
★ 7.5/10
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…
14
Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (2019)
★ 6.3/10
Nancy Drew, a smart high schooler with a penchant for keen observation and deduction, stumbles upon the haunting of a local home. A bit of an outsider struggling to fit into her new surroundings, Nancy and her pals set…
15
Chang Can Dunk (2023)
★ 6.7/10
Chang, a 16-year-old, Asian American, bets the high school basketball star that he can dunk by Homecoming. The bet leads 5' 8" Chang on a quest to learn to dunk—not only to impress his crush, Kristy, but to gain the…
16
The Trials of Cate McCall (2013)
★ 6.4/10
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
17
Bastard Out of Carolina (1996)
★ 7.1/10
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as…
18
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (2008)
★ 6.5/10
The Great Depression hits home for nine year old Kit Kittredge when her dad loses his business and leaves to find work. Oscar nominee Abigail Breslin stars as Kit, leading a splendid cast in the first ever "American…
19
Little Lord Fauntleroy (1980)
★ 7.3/10
Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American…
20
Mexicali (2026)
★ 7.7/10
A former special forces contractor is forced out of retirement as an avocado farmer in Mexico when local gangsters try to force him and his family off their farm.