20 Best Chinese Movies on Netflix
Netflix is full of movies, but if you are looking for something a bit different, something more exotic and not so well known, you are in the right place, as we are bringing you the best Chinese movies you can watch on Netflix.
There are a lot of Chinese movies on Netflix, from animated classics to some lesser-known gems. Check them all out below, and find your next watch.
Incantation (2022)
Ruo-nan had broken a religious taboo by accident six years ago. It caused death for her boyfriend and family. She passed a dark period of superstition, and hides these secrets and pains from other people.
Wish Dragon (2021)
Determined teen Din is longing to reconnect with his childhood best friend when he meets a wish-granting dragon who shows him the magic of possibilities.
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Rise of the Legend (2014)
In order to break into the biggest gang in the city, Wong Fei Hung must bring the head of the leader of the “North Sea” gang. When he fulfills this task, he slowly and internally destroys the “Black Tiger” gang, which cooperates with foreigners and treats its workers very badly.
Your Name Engraved Herein (2020)
As martial law ends in 1987 in Taiwan, two male students, Chang Jia-han (A-han) and Wang Bo Te (Birdy), fall in love amid family pressure, homophobia, and broader social change. A new student, Birdy, arrives at an all-boys Catholic high school, where he and A-han soon become best friends; both are musicians in the school band, where they engage in antics while exchanging long glances.
The school’s priest and band leader, Father Oliver, reminds the students to “profiter du moment” (live in the moment), leading A-han to deepen his bond with Birdy. The two boys take a trip to Taipei—ostensibly to mourn the death of President Chiang Ching-kuo—and grow closer through their adventures in the capital. Despite the mutual interest, the pair remain hesitant to act on their budding attraction. The introduction of co-educational schooling adds a wrinkle to their relationship, as the arrival of female students irrevocably transforms classroom dynamics.
Birdy catches the eye of a female classmate, who offers the hope of socially-acceptable heterosexual romance, but A-han holds onto his affection for Birdy. Repeated incidents of conflict and reconciliation draw the pair together and break them apart, before fate finally takes them in different directions.
The Wandering Earth (2019)
As the sun is dying out, people all around the world build giant planet thrusters to move Earth out of its orbit and sail Earth to a new star system.
Yet the 2500-year journey comes with unexpected dangers, and in order to save humanity, a group of young people in this age of a wandering Earth fight hard for the survival of humankind.
Nezha Reborn (2021)
Three thousand years after Nezha fought the sea, Li Yunxiang, a young motorbike rider in Donghai City, discovers that he is Nezha reborn. Before he has mastered his powers, his old enemies appear, and he must settle a 3,000-year-old grudge with the Dragon Clan.
Green Snake (2019)
Green Snake was saved by Xunya, whose primordial spirit was a dragon, when she fell into the River after being struck by lightning. She suffers from a cold toxin from time to time, but she survived. Xunya built Sansheng Inn by the riverside for Green Snake to live in. He also turned a magic scroll into a teenager called Zhesheng to keep Green Snake company.
300 years later, Shenxiu asks Zhesheng for one of the best rooms in the inn, with clothing stained with liquor as an excuse. Zhesheng says no in anger. Xiaorou is saved by Green Snake when threatened by Rui, a dog spirit, but later, she insists that her husband was seduced and hidden in the inn by Green Snake. While they argue, Xiaorou turns into a bat, fights with Green Snake and asks her to hand over the most valuable treasure in Luochuan River.
White Snake 2: Green Snake (2021)
Verta the green snake-demon must find a way to escape from the modern Shura City of mortals, in order to rescue her elder sister Blanca the White Snake from the demon-slaying monk Fahai without her demonic abilities.
The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity (2020)
Once upon a time, a demon snake was born from human desires. Four priests teamed up to capture the vicious beast, and it happened in the Forbidden City, inside the body of the Empress.
Since then, every time the monster tries to awaken, the priests gather to prevent the evil from being unleashed. When one of them named Hongrou dies, the other three must work together to find out who killed him and protect the city from the rebirth of the demon.
The Yinyang Master (2021)
Qing Ming, a Yinyang Master, is a half-human half-demon officer of the Yinyang Bureau guarding demon souls and a supernatural artifact called the Scale Stone. After he is framed for the death of a guard team and his senior, Cimu, he escapes and starts a new life, traveling between the human and demon worlds.
Seven years later, when the demon king threatens to return, Qing Ming becomes embroiled in the robbery of Imperial tributes being delivered by Boya. He is also hunted by Bai Ni, head of the Yinyang Bureau, with whom he had a pact. Trapped in a fighting arena in the demon world, Qing Ming escapes with an injured Bai Ni, Boya and their friends.
It is revealed that Qing Ming has been caring for and training a team of demons to fight against the Demon King’s return. Bai Ni is healed by Qing Ming and recovers the Scale Stone which had been inadvertently swallowed by one of Qing Ming’s demons. On her way back to the Bureau, Bai Ni is ambushed by Cimu and his henchwoman the Snow Lady, and the Scale Stone is stolen.
Cimu is revealed to have coveted monster power since seeing Qing Ming demonstrate it when they were younger, and he makes the Snow Lady his familiar in order to hatch a plan to steal the Scale Stone. In the present time, Cimu uses the retrieved Scale Stone to turn himself into a powerful demon and uses his new power to start a demon invasion of the human world.
While Boya and Qing Ming’s demons defend the bridge between the two worlds, Cimu defeats Qing Ming, who has to make a bargain with the Demon King to obtain his powers. He defeats Cimu and releases his bond with Bai Ni, Boya and his demons, electing to leave them in the human world while he returns to the demon world.
Double World (2020)
Seeing the neighboring country become more and more powerful, a warlord organizes a competition to reveal the best warriors. A young man is eager to bring honour to his clan.
The Soul (2021)
The founder of a corporation developing a futuristic cancer treatment is brutally murdered, and a prosecutor sidelined by the illness asks to lead the case, assisted by his newly pregnant detective wife.
Dynasty Warriors (2021)
This movie is adapted from a video game of the same title. The story is set in the turbulent late Eastern Han Dynasty. Ambitious Dong Zhuo controls the court and the commonality, and heroes from all over the country begin to rise.
A Sun (2019)
Its story centers on Chen Jian Ho (Wu), a troubled teenager who has been arrested, and Hao (Hsu), Ho’s accomplished brother who commits suicide due to familial pressure. It explores Ho’s re-entry into society and his father’s efforts to acknowledge his son, something he had never done. Juvenile delinquency and suicide are the film’s main themes, with visual motifs including light and dark.
Ip Man (2008)
The film focuses on the life and work of Ip Man who allegedly lived in the city of Foshan during the Second Sino-Japanese War in the 1930s.
He is one of the wealthiest men in town and gives the impression that he has no need for additional work other than devoting his entire life to the painstaking practice of the Chinese martial art of Wing Chun…
Shanghai Fortress (2019)
Based on Jiang Nan’s eponymous 2009 sci-fi novel, the film depicts the human race’s last stand in Shanghai fighting against aliens who try to seize a hidden energy source on earth in 2042.
Fist of Legend (1994)
After returning home to occupied Shanghai after years of studying abroad, Chen learns that his beloved teacher has been killed in battle against a member of the Japanese Black Dragon Clan. Chen embarks on a heroic, solitary journey to uncover the real killer, a journey on which he will clash with Japan’s most dangerous fighters.
Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (2010)
Chen Zhen, believed dead, returns to 1930s Shanghai under a false name. He joins a mob boss for info on the Japanese incl. a long kill list and at night fights the Japanese masked.
Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
Amidst the chaos of pre-revolutionary China in 1940 Shanghai, the downtrodden Singh (Stephen Chow) seeks to raise his status in hopes of joining the elite and ruthless Ax gang. When he tries to extort money from a local in a crowded apartment complex called the Pig, his comical attempts at intimidation draw the Ax gang into the fray.
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The inhabitants of Svinjec find themselves in a dilemma and have to fight for their lives, and some legendary masters of martial arts will show themselves. Singh must now face his own mortality to discover the true nature of the kung fu master.
Animal World (2018)
Zheng Kaisi works a low-paying job and struggles to pay his mother’s medical bills, relying on help from his nurse girlfriend, Liu Qing. At his friend Li Jun’s behest, Kaisi mortgages his mother’s apartment for a property scheme, but this backfires and leaves Kaisi with even greater debt.
Anderson, the owner of Kaisi’s debt, invites Kaisi onto the ship Destiny, where passengers from all over the world play rock paper scissors for money. On the ship, players are given cards that correspond to rock, paper or scissors, and three stars, which are lost or gained when they lose or win matches. Players need to finish all their cards and have at least three stars in order to win and get off the ship. Kaisi is approached by fellow player Zhang Jingkun, who suggests they team up to tie all their matches so they can use all their cards and keep their stars, but Jingkun betrays him and leaves him with one star.
Kaisi teams up with Li Jun, who is also on the ship, and Fatty Meng, a fellow one-star player. Kaisi’s talent for math and probability enables him to pick the right matches to play and help his teammates. Jingkun tempts Kaisi into abandoning his teammates but Kaisi refuses and reveals to all that Jingkun has marked the cards. Jingkun is left with one card, and no one but Kaisi is willing to play with him. Kaisi, wanting revenge by forcing Jingkun to slap himself, agrees to the match despite it allowing Jingkun to finish his cards. Kaisi loses all his stars and is taken to the “black room”, where he waits for his teammates to save him.
Li Jun and Fatty Meng follow Kaisi’s strategy and win the stars they need. However, Fatty Meng convinces Li Jun to sell the stars instead so they can wipe out their personal debt. Kaisi manages to trick his way out of the black room, and takes the money earned by his former teammates to pay for the freedom of another player who was also betrayed.
Kaisi returns to Liu Qing a changed man. In an epilogue, Kaisi realizes that Anderson is the man who killed his father.
