The Opium Wars

Easy Rider

June 1969 •English

Wyatt and Billy, two Harley-riding hippies, complete a drug deal in Southern California and decide to travel cross-country in search of spiritual truth.

Mountain People

June 1979 •Thai

Customs of the mountain people has always been strict and respectful to themselves. Doing something wrong will be considered as being disrespect to the spirits. Marrying someone from a different tribe is also wrong. Giving birth to twins, she and her husband together with the kids will have to leave the tribe.

Tokyo Decadence

January 1992 •Japanese

A submissive hooker goes about her trade, suffering abuse at the hands of Japanese salarymen and Yakuza types. She's unhappy about her work, and is apparently trying to find some sort of appeasement for the fact that her lover has married.

The Furnace

December 2020 •English

To escape the outback, a young Afghan cameleer falls in with a mysterious bushman on the run with stolen Crown gold.

Raiders of the Golden Triangle

June 1985 •English

The Thai government sends a man in undercover to a guerrilla compound to bring down Thailand's biggest drug lord, who supplies opium to most of the world.

Once Upon a Time in America

May 1984 •English

A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.

The Last Emperor

October 1987 •English

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 dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.

Hop - The Devil's Brew

February 1916 •English

Temptress Moon

May 1996 •Chinese

Set in the decadent 1920s, Temptress Moon tells the very complicated story of a wealthy family living on the outskirts of Shanghai. Their youngest daughter, Ruyi, is brought up as a servant to her opium-addicted father and brother. Meanwhile, her brother-in-law Zhongliang has a successful, if illegal, career seducing and blackmailing married women in the city. When he comes to Ruyi's home the two fall in love, and trouble ensues.

Kung Fu Killer

August 2008 •English

China is in unrest, as the Republic falls prey to Warlords like Kahn Xin, who holds an entire province hostage to the opium trade—and destroys all who oppose him. Only the revered Wudang monks dare stand in Kahn’s way in order to protect the very soul of China. Among them is the Westerner, White Crane, a spiritual master of the martial arts and protector of the innocent. Revenge is not in Crane’s heart—until a mercenary army storms the temple and slaughters the beloved female Grandmaster Myling. Out of the ashes of the temple ruins, Crane rises—with vengeance in his heart. Crane comes upon Jane Marshall, a New York lounge singer and her gangster boss Bingo Quo. But it’s Bingo’s dangerous professional ties to Kahn that draw both Crane and Jane deep into the Warlord’s lair. Now torn between the spiritual Wudang teaching and the cold-blooded life of an assassin, Crane is about the cross the fine line between justice and revenge.

Opium and the Kung Fu Master

July 1984 •

A small town is protected by one of the famous Ten Tigers of Kwangtung. The town is very safe as Ti Lung and his Kung Fu students patrol for criminals. Enter the rival Kung Fu school whom Ti Lung's students have beaten in a lion dance competition and then humiliated in a brawl. The rival school is joined by an opium dealing Kung Fu master who plans to turn the town into a community of addicts!

The Opium Eater

December 2010 •English

A coat-and-tie-wearing social worker scours the countryside in search of wild opium poppies.

The Sign of the Poppy

December 1916 •English

Tell Your Children

June 1938 •English

High-school principal Dr. Alfred Carroll relates to an audience of parents that marijuana can have devastating effects on teens: a drug supplier entices several restless teens, Mary and Jimmy Lane, sister and brother, and Bill, Mary's boyfriend, into frequenting a reefer house. Gradually, Bill and Jimmy are drawn into smoking dope, which affects their family lives.

Blind Woman's Curse

June 1970 •Japanese

Akemi is a dragon tattooed leader of the Tachibana Yakuza clan. In a duel with a rival gang Akemi slashes the eyes of an opponent and a black cat appears, to lap the blood from the gushing wound. The cat along with the eye-victim go on to pursue Akemi’s gang in revenge, leaving a trail of dead Yakuza girls, their dragon tattoos skinned from their bodies.

Brevet Major Pauline Cushman-Fryer: Civil War Spy

March 2017 •English

Performed by Constance Smith, Pauline Cushman-Fryer tells us how she became a Union Spy, was almost hanged, was granted the rank of Major by Abraham Lincoln, and died lonely in San Francisco from an overdose of opium.

The Secret Sin

October 1915 •English

Blanche Sweet has a dual role in this picture -- she plays twin sisters, Edith, a sweet, normal young girl, and Grace, who is a drug fiend. They live in poverty with their parents and their father (Hal Clements) finally finds work. Because he is faithful to his boss (Thomas Meighan), he is offered a partnership.

The Opium War

June 1997 •Chinese

The story of the Opium War between China, in the waning days of the Qing Dynasty, and the British Empire, in the 1830s, and the subsequent takeover of Hong Kong by Britain; through the eyes of the key figures, fiercely nationalistic Lin Zexu, and opportunistic British naval diplomat Charles Elliot.

The Five Accursed Gentlemen

September 1920 •French

When five gentlemen humiliate a merchant in a Tunisian bazaar, the latter curses them, telling them the order of their deaths within a given time frame. The men begin to die in the order they were chosen...

Human Wreckage

June 1923 •English

An attorney's wife is determined to fight the evils of addictive substances.