Celebrate AAPI Month With These Unforgettable Asian Stories From Around the World

The last decade has been historical for Asian representation in film and television, with not one, but two Asian stories winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards® (Parasite and Everything Everywhere All at Once). But outside the Hollywood sphere, outstanding Asian stories have always existed. May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and we’re celebrating by highlighting some of our favorite unforgettable Asian films from around the world, representing the roots of AAPI. Whether they’re by rising Asian filmmakers to watch or spotlight real-life Asian trailblazers, these films showcase the immeasurable impact that Asian stories and storytellers have had on film and beyond. Celebrate Asian excellence by streaming them on Kino Film Collection this month.

A Great Wall (1986)

The first American movie shot in China, A Great Wall is a delightful comedy about a San Francisco computer programmer who quits and moves his family to stay with his sister in Peking where he nostalgically searches for the traditional China he left behind. The culture clash develops in unexpected, hilarious directions, which all come to a head in a climactic ping pong battle.

Wife of a Spy (2021)

Master filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival for this riveting, gorgeously crafted, old-school Hitchockian thriller set in 1940 on the eve of the outbreak of World War II. When the population of Japan is divided over its entry into the war, a well-to-do actress is torn between loyalty to her husband, the life they have built, and the country they call home.

A Touch of Sin (2013)

Winner of Best Screenplay at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and directed by master filmmaker Jia Zhangke, this daring, poetic and grand-scale film focuses on four characters, each living in different provinces of China, who are driven to violent ends.

Liar’s Dice (2013)

An official selection of the Sundance Film Festival, Liar's Dice is a deeply affecting road movie set in picturesque mountains on the Tibetan border to the roiling industrial city of Delhi. The film follows Kamala, her daughter Manya, and a baby goat, as they search for their husband and father, who hasn’t been heard from since he took a distant construction job five months prior.

Denise Ho: Becoming the Song (2020)

Denise Ho: Becoming the Song profiles the openly gay Hong Kong singer and human rights activist Denise Ho. Drawing on unprecedented access, the film explores her remarkable journey from Cantopop superstar to outspoken political activist and artist who has put her career on the line to support the determined struggle of Hong Kong citizens to maintain their identity and freedom.

The Scent of Green Papaya (1993)

An Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, Cannes winner The Scent of Green Papaya is set in 1951 Saigon, where 10-year-old Mui enters household service for an affluent but troubled Vietnamese family. Despite her servile role, Mui discovers beauty and epiphany in the lush physical details that envelop her. As she comes of age, her relationship with a handsome pianist grows.

The Nightingale (2013)

This Chinese entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards follows a widower who honors his late wife's request by returning to his hometown with his granddaughter to free his bird. During their journey at the edge of China, in all its magnificent natural landscapes, they discover new values, particularly the ones of the heart, and the importance of family and tradition.

The Sweet Requiem (2018)

When a young, exiled Tibetan woman unexpectedly sees a man from her past, long-suppressed memories of her traumatic escape across the Himalayas are reignited and she is propelled on an obsessive search for reconciliation and closure.

Made in Hong Kong (1997)

The first independent film released in post-Handover Hong Kong, director Fruit Chan’s atmospheric character study is a rough-and-ready piece of work that ends in the city’s overcrowded subsidized housing projects. The result is a tough portrait of a city on the brink that follows a high school dropout who sees little hope for his future.

Mountains May Depart (2015)

Mainland master Jia Zhangke scales new heights with Mountains May Depart. At once an intimate drama and a decades-spanning epic that leaps from the recent past to the present to the speculative near-future, Jia's new film is an intensely moving study of how China's economic boom and the culture of materialism it has spawned has affected the bonds of family, tradition, and love.

Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (2023)

Winner of the prestigious Camera d’Or for best first film at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, the enthralling Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell from Vietnamese filmmaker Pham Thien An is a reverie on faith, loss, and nature expressed with uncommon invention and depth that follows a thirty something man after he leaves Saigon for a trip back to his rural hometown following a family tragedy.

Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2017)

In Tsai Ming-liang’s minimalist film, the Fu-Ho Grand, a movie palace in Taipei, is closing its doors. Its valedictory screening: King Hu’s 1967 wuxia epic Dragon Inn plays to a motley smattering of spectators, including two stars of Hu’s original opus, Miao Tien and Shih Chun, who watch their younger selves with tears in their eyes.

Fire in the Mountains (2022)

In a breathtakingly beautiful Himalayan community, a mother toils to save money to build a road in a Himalayan village to take her wheelchair-bound son for physiotherapy, but her husband who believes that a shamanic ritual (Jagar) is the remedy, steals her savings.

The Reason I Jump (2021)

Based on the best-selling book by Naoki Higashida and winner of the Audience Award at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, The Reason I Jump is an immersive cinematic exploration of neurodiversity through the experiences of nonspeaking autistic people from around the world.

The Woman Who Left (2017)

Winner of the Golden Lion at the 2016 Venice Film Festival, Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz’s epic story of revenge deferred functions as a tale of urban theater and class warfare. After 30 years in prison, a woman discovers that her friend and fellow inmate committed the murder of which she was accused. This leads to her release and the subsequent discovery of the man who framed her.