Feudal Far East Films

[hivedragon]

What films and TV series that take place in feudal japan & china would you recommend. It can be high fantasy or historically accurate, real life or anime, just so long as it's not boring.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

What films and TV series that take place in feudal japan & china would you recommend. It can be high fantasy or historically accurate, real life or anime, just so long as it's not boring.

Hero is a great movie. My teacher showed the class that movie in grade 5. He just had to stand in front of the tv for the sex scene parts.

[Poison_Fish]

Red Cliff takes place during the waring states period of China and is quite an enjoyable movie.

[Bhu]

What genre are you looking for? Drama, war, comedy, etc

[Mx.Silver]

More than a few of Kurosawa's films are set in the feudal and warring state periods of japan's history (e.g. Ran, Throne of Blood, Seven Samurai, etc.). Not that you should really need to be told to watch Kurosawa's films, mind.

[Radar]

Shogun TV miniseries from 1980 is really good and fairly realistic.

[Innis Cabal]

More than a few of Kurosawa's films are set in the feudal and warring state periods of japan's history (e.g. Ran, Throne of Blood, Seven Samurai, etc.). Not that you should really need to be told to watch Kurosawa's films, mind.

This for sure. Seven Samurai is one of the greatest films to date.

[Fri]

I believe there are more than one romance of three kingdoms tv series. This one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_of_the_Three_Kingdoms_%28TV_series%29) in particular was shown in my country.

According to wikipedia, there's a new one, and both are epic (in 'using thousands and thousands of actor' meaning) serial.

[Tirian]

Shogun TV miniseries from 1980 is really good and fairly realistic.

I was going to suggest this as well. To be specific, the nine-hour miniseries version -- apparently they also edited it down to two hours for a theatrical release but that seems kind of frightening.

[Athaniar]

I'm not entirely sure if it's the correct era or not, but Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is an excellent martial arts film.

[kamikasei]

I think these fall within the specified period, though at its end: When the Last Sword is Drawn (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0359692/), and Rurouni Kenshin: Tsuiokuhen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai_X:_Trust_%26_Betrayal). I enjoyed both a lot when I saw them.

[Eldan]

Curse of the Golden Flower? It is not really set in any specific time, though. (It says it's Tang Dynasty, then gives a year outside that dynasty and goes on to show a lot of stuff that couldn't have happened then, in the wrong costumes and buildings).

[Lord Seth]

Throne of Blood. Best adaptation of Macbeth I've seen.

[kpenguin]

More than a few of Kurosawa's films are set in the feudal and warring state periods of japan's history (e.g. Ran, Throne of Blood, Seven Samurai, etc.). Not that you should really need to be told to watch Kurosawa's films, mind.

I have to third this. Kurosawa's films are not only set in the era you're looking at, they're also damn good cinema.

[Jerthanis]

He did say "Not boring"... Ran is easily one of my favorite movies of all time, but it's boring as hell.

Twilight Samurai (Tasogare Seibei) is a pretty good movie, and it sort of illustrates the difference between the Samurai caste and the technically "lower class", yet more wealthy culture that surrounds them.

The Way of the Samurai videogames are good for this, even if they're sort of hard to find and are videogames and not movies or TV shows.

[Mercenary Pen]

Adding in another vote for seven samurai, though if you're willing to stretch the definition of feudal a little I'd also recommend the anime Samurai 7, which is something of a steampunk reworking of seven samurai and continues on at its own tangent at the point where the original movie finishes...

[polity4life]

The Emperor and the Assassain is about Qin Shi Huang and is very Chinese in terms of story telling.

Someone mentioned Red Cliff. It's about the battle of Chibi during the Three Kingdoms era. If you can, try to find the extended version. The abridged version is fine but you lose so much on the edit room floor. Also, you have to have some appreciation of John Woo's style of fight scenes and suspend belief a bit as the source material for the movies paint these men as super human.

Obviously, the Kurosawa films are a must and they have been mentioned a few times already.

If you can forgive Tom Cruise instructing the Emperor of Japan on how to be Japanese, then you may enjoy The Last Samurai.

There are plenty of animated films and series. Rurouni Kenshin, the series, and the Samurai X movies that involve the same story are very enjoyable and immediately come to mind.

EDIT: I knew I forgot one. The Hidden Blade. It's a Japanese drama about a Samurai who bucks against tradition, much to the chagrin of his contemporaries, as Japan begins its journey towards modernization

[byaku rai]

It's a bit outside the specified era, but I'd suggest The Last Samurai.

[Mx.Silver]

He did say "Not boring"... Ran is easily one of my favorite movies of all time, but it's boring as hell.

Seven Samurai isn't boring. Slow, yes, but not boring. You could say similar things about Ran too.
Then there's Rashomon, which is pretty far from boring and can't really be described as slow either. Plus it's still one of the best unreliable narrator films out there.