Movies like Lanterns on Blue Waters

If you like "Lanterns on Blue Waters" you are looking for bilingual movies about / with world war two, island, fishing, emigration, loyalty, letter and family conflict themes of Drama genre shot in Japan.
Find your next favorite and similar movies in two steps: 1. Identify all themes of interest from this film (block below). 2. Look for them in the presented list.
Lanterns on Blue Waters (1983)
 6.7
 9
Lanterns on Blue Waters (1983)
Original name: 波の盆
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 112 min.
Story: The story of a Japanese man who as a 16-year-old went to Maui to work in the sugar cane fields in order to support his family back in Japan. Now 89 and still living in Hawaii he is visited by his granddaughter who brings him a letter from his disinherited and recently dead son. This brings back memories of his life with his wife and family following the attack on Pearl Harbor, in particular of his son who had gone off to join the war for the Americans.
Style: bilingual
Plot: world war two, island, fishing, emigration, loyalty, letter, family conflict, grandson, flashback, national identity
Place: pearl harbor, hawaii, hiroshima japan

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Most similar movies to Lanterns on Blue Waters

The list contains related movies ordered by similarity. Recommendation engine sorted out realistic, serious, minimal cast and cult classic films with plots about world war two, flashback, family relations, island, fishing, father son relationship and letter mostly in Drama, War and History genres. Some movies like Lanterns on Blue Waters: The Face of Jizo (2004), Rhapsody in August (1991), Cefalonia (2005), The Shadow Within (1970), The Chadwick Family (1974). The matching attributes are highlighted in bold.
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The Face of Jizo (2004)
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 99 min.
Story: Based on a play by Hisashi Inoue, it focuses on the sufferings of the survivors of Hiroshima. The film takes place during 4 days in the summer of 1948, as the ghost of her father visits Mitsué (Rié Miyama). He had somehow learned that she has ...
Style: minimal cast, retro
Plot: world war two, atomic bomb, father daughter relationship, one location
Place: hiroshima japan
⇓ similarity ⇓
95%
Rhapsody in August (1991)
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 98 min.
Story: The story centers on an elderly hibakusha, who lost her husband in the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, caring for her four grandchildren over the summer. She learns of a long-lost brother, Suzujiro, living in Hawaii who wants her to visit him ...
Style: lyrical, melancholic, atmospheric, sincere, serious ...
Plot: world war two, memory, anti war, grandmother, depression, brothers, family relations, samurai, haunted by the past, society, battles, parents and children ...
Time: year 1991, 90s, post world war two
Place: japan, hawaii, usa, asia, tokyo
⇓ similarity ⇓
83%
 6.5
 134
Cefalonia (2005)
Genre: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 210 min.
Story: Cefalonia tells the real story about what happened in September 1943 on the Greek island of Kefalonia (Cefalonia in Italian), when the 12,000 men in the Italian 33rd Acqui Infantry Division, following Italy's surrender to the Allied, refused to ...
Plot: world war two, fascism, german occupation, italian history, island, italian army, mass murder, bravery, nazi, soldier, truce, surrender
Place: greece
⇓ similarity ⇓
82%
The Shadow Within (1970)
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 97 min.
Story: When a married man begins an affair with a woman from his past, he comes to suspect her young son intends to murder him.
Plot: adultery, obsession, suspicion, chance meeting, youth, bus trip, fishing, murder, flashback, widow, paranoid, childhood memory ...
⇓ similarity ⇓
73%
Movie in collections
The Chadwick Family (1974)
Genre: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 113 min.
Story: A father finds himself taking care of a family that in addition to his son and three daughters, also consists of two sons-in-law and his youngest daughter's Chinese boyfriend.
Plot: large family, family conflict, fiance fiancee relationship, family relations, fiancee, publisher, widow, island, newspaper, failed pilot, chinese american
Place: california
⇓ similarity ⇓
71%
From Here to Eternity (1979)
Genre: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 360 min.
TV show
Story: Soapy look at events of Pearl Harbor just previous to the Japanese attack.
Plot: world war two, world war, military base, wartime, love, us military, cheating, boxing, military
Time: 1940s
Place: hawaii, pearl harbor
⇓ similarity ⇓
61%
Letter from the Mountain (2002)
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 127 min.
Story: As the film begins, Takao (Akira Terao) and Michiko (Kanako Higuchi) have already pulled up their Tokyo roots and moved to a village that is Takao's ancestral home. They visit a thatched cottage that serves as a memorial shrine (amidado) for ...
Plot: farmer, terminal illness, senior citizen, clinic, doctor, asian, elderly, village life, rural area, mute, miscarriage, choreography ...
⇓ similarity ⇓
61%
Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005)
Genre: Drama
Country: China, Japan, Hong Kong
Duration: 107 min.
Story: Takada, a Japanese fisherman has been estranged from his son for many years, but when the son is diagnosed with terminal cancer his daughter-in-law, Rie, summons him to the hospital. Through a series of obstacles and relationships, he is brought ...
Style: emotional, touching, stylized, serious, realistic ...
Plot: friendship, tour guide, father son relationship, village, redemption, family relations, parents and children, aging, estranged father, unfulfillment, estrangement, understanding ...
Time: year 2005
Place: china, east asia, tokyo, japan
⇓ similarity ⇓
60%
Movie in collections
Gruber's Journey (2008)
Genre: Drama
Country: Hungary, Romania
Duration: 100 min.
Story: On 22 June 1941, Germany and Romania attack Soviet Russia. Several days later, Curzio Malaparte, the Italian writer who would one day pen the novel « Kaputt », a war correspondent for « Corriere de la Sera », arrives in Iasi, in the north of ...
Plot: world war two, holocaust, anti semitism, war correspondent, mass murder
Place: romania
⇓ similarity ⇓
59%
How to Be Loved (1963)
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 92 min.
Story: An actress travels from Warsaw to Paris and during the trip reflects on the last few years of her life. It goes back to the German occupation and her hiding of a fellow actor who has supposedly killed a collaborator. He is weak and a bit cowardly, ...
Style: road movie
Plot: world war two, identity, wartime life, airplane, german soldier, rape, theater, murder suspect, flashback, tank, suicide, cigarette smoking ...
Place: poland, eastern europe
⇓ similarity ⇓
59%
 7.1
 230
Almost a Man (1966)
Genre: Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 93 min.
Story: Jacques Perrin was awarded Best Actor at the 1966 Venice Film Festival for his gripping portrayal of a young writer's descent into madness. Alienated, neurotic, and plagued by guilt, Perrin retreats from reality, loses interest in work, and ...
Style: existential
Plot: psychoanalysis, mental disorder, alienation, world war two, brother brother relationship, flashback, neurosis, hunting, house
Place: italy
⇓ similarity ⇓
58%
 7.0
 281
Station (1981)
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 132 min.
Story: A detective goes out of his way to crack the case of a serial killer who specialises in murdering police officers.
Plot: humanity, love, olympics, police officer, shooting, train station, suicide, snow, divorce, live action, suicide note
Time: year 1979, year 1968, year 1976
Place: hokkaido
⇓ similarity ⇓
57%
The Sea and Poison (1986)
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 123 min.
Story: Downed American fliers in WW II are vivisected by Japanese surgeons in medical experiments.
Style: retro
Plot: world war two, mental disorder, nurse, torture, bomber, vivisection, air force, doctor
Time: 1940s, year 1945
Place: japan
⇓ similarity ⇓
56%
 7.1
 103
Farewell, Kuro (2003)
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 109 min.
Story: Based on a true story set in Matsumoto city, Nagano, during 1960s. A stray dog wanders into a high school's grounds. The dog, named Kuro, stays at the school and becomes a special friend to everyone.
Style: tear jerker
Plot: loyalty, dog, school, friend, animal
⇓ similarity ⇓
56%
 7.0
 2K
True Mothers (2020)
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan, France
Duration: 140 min.
Story: After a long and unsuccessful struggle to get pregnant, convinced by the discourse of an adoption association, Satoko and her husband decide to adopt a baby boy. A few years later, their parenthood is shaken by a threatening unknown girl, Hikari, ...
Style: captivating
Plot: family relations, children, husband wife relationship, couples, father son relationship, parents and children, kids and family, male female relationship, couple relations, relationships, mother son relationship, woman ...
Place: hiroshima japan
⇓ similarity ⇓
55%
The Burmese Harp (1985)
Genre: Drama, War
Country: Japan
Duration: 133 min.
Story: In the War's closing days, when a conscience-driven Japanese soldier fails to get his countrymen to surrender to overwhelming force, he adopts the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk.
Style: odd
Plot: world war two, bird, prisoner, british army, buddhism, japanese army, soldier, pow
Time: 1940s
Place: burma, japan
⇓ similarity ⇓
55%
 7.0
 356
Hungarians (1978)
Genre: Drama
Country: Hungary
Duration: 107 min.
Story: A group of landless Hungarian peasants accept work as migrant-laborers on a farm in northern Germany where the wages are good, and the wives and family are allowed to accompany them. Though it is in the midst of World War II, they are relatively ...
Plot: world war two, humiliation, peasant, pow
⇓ similarity ⇓
54%
Islands in the Stream (1977)
Genre: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 104 min.
Story: An isolated sculptor is visited by his three sons just before the start of WWII.
Style: realistic, serious
Plot: world war two, sculptor, world war, father son relationship, fishing, art, hidden treasure, estranged father, fishing boat, island, sibling relationship, bittersweet ...
Time: 1940s, 1930s
Place: bahamas
⇓ similarity ⇓
52%
Pride: The Fateful Moment (1998)
Genre: Drama, History, War
Country: Japan
Duration: 161 min.
Story: Based on the International Military Tribunal for the Far East of 1946–48, depicts Japanese prime minister Hideki Tojo (played by Masahiko Tsugawa) as a family man who fought to defend Japan and Asia from western colonialism but was ultimately ...
Plot: world war two, justice, trial, prime minister, japanese history, court martial, pride, military, court, courtroom
Time: post world war two
Place: japan, pearl harbor, hiroshima japan, tokyo
⇓ similarity ⇓
49%
 7.9
 511
Cold Days (1966)
Genre: Drama
Country: Hungary
Duration: 96 min.
Story: Andras Kovacs' film, considered one of the most important Hungarian films of the 1960's, centers around four men who await trial for their involvement in the massacre of several thousand Jewish and Serbian people of Novi Sad in 1942. Each ...
Style: epic
Plot: world war two, train station, murder of a family, harassment, looting, bloodbath, train, prison, flashback, singing, jealousy, husband wife relationship ...
Time: 1940s, year 1942
Place: former yugoslavia, central europe
⇓ similarity ⇓
44%
The Last Letter (2002)
Genre: Drama
Country: France, USA
Duration: 61 min.
Story: Locked away in the Jewish ghetto of an occupied Ukrainian town in 1941, a mother revisits her life in a last letter to her son.
Style: minimal cast
Plot: holocaust, mother, town, persecution, world war two, doctor, monologue, jewish ghetto, nazi, letter, ghetto, human rights ...
Place: ukraine
⇓ similarity ⇓
42%
Life and Death on the Shore (2017)
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 155 min.
Story: Set in 1945 at the end of World War II. Saku arrives on Kakeromajima as the head of navy special forces. He is admired by the children on the island and he is interested in learning the island song as well as drinking with his men. Toe is an ...
Style: captivating
Plot: world war two, tragic love, wartime life, male female relationship, romantic relationship, in love, boyfriend girlfriend relationship, love story, love interest, love and romance, relationships, wartime ...
⇓ similarity ⇓
40%
Farewell, Mr. Haffmann (2021)
Genre: Drama
Country: France, Belgium
Duration: 115 min.
Story: Paris 1942. François Mercier is an ordinary man who only aspires to start a family with the woman he loves, Blanche. He is also the employee of a talented jeweler, Mr. Haffmann. But faced with the German occupation, the two men will have no other ...
Plot: world war two, nazi, jew persecution, family relations, pregnant woman, letter, police arrest, husband wife relationship, body swapping, doll, newspaper, arrest ...
Time: year 1941, 1940s
Place: germany, paris france
⇓ similarity ⇓
39%
Movie in collections
The Tree We Hurt (1986)
Genre: Drama
Country: Greece
Duration: 75 min.
Story: Shot over a capricious summer, this film reveals a world of innocence shattered for some children in their school by corporal punishment. It moves at its own pace to reveal a world of children and adults with animals, birds, nature and sea. The film ...
Plot: boy, summer, friendship, reconciliation, meeting, greek, loyalty, greek island, tree, wasp, sea, group of friends ...
Time: 60s
Place: greece, hellas
⇓ similarity ⇓
39%
The Flower of the Lake (1999)
Genre: Drama
Country: Greece
Duration: 90 min.
Story: Kastoria, a region in Western Macedonia at the turn of the century. Greeks, Turks, Jews and other nationalities live together under the rule of the Ottoman empire, amid the despair, the uncertainty and the confusion brought about by the 1897 war ...
Plot: greek, death, revolution, partisan, captain, snow, wound, turk, family man, bazaar, fisherman, lake ...
Time: 1900s, 90s
Place: greece, hellas, ottoman empire
⇓ similarity ⇓
39%
Sons and Daughters (2001)
Genre: Drama
Country: Italy, Argentina
Duration: 92 min.
Story: We are in Argentina in 1977, a woman gives birth to twins. With the complicity of the midwife he manages to hide the child, second child. The first, a boy, is taken into custody by the regime's guards. The scene moves to the Milan of today. The ...
Plot: adoption, twins, coup, hotel room, soldier, train, beach, flashback, internet, ship, fishing, parachute ...
Place: latin america, argentina
⇓ similarity ⇓
39%
 8.2
 1K
Vidheyan (1994)
Genre: Drama
Country: India
Duration: 112 min.
Story: Thommy, a Christian migrant labourer from Kerala is an obedient slave of his aggressive, tyrannical landlord Bhaskara Pattelar. Thommy obeys all the orders of his master, whether it is to make his own wife sexually available to his master or in ...
Style: cult classic, slang, sexual
Plot: master servant relationship, sexuality, loyalty, suicide, river, attempted murder, uxoricide, obedience, freedom, murder of wife, slave, fishing ...
⇓ similarity ⇓
38%
Blood & Orchids (1986)
Genre: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 240 min.
Story: Hester Murdoch is found naked and nearly beaten to death by four young Hawaiian men on the beach and taken to the hospital. Some of the men didn't want to get involved, fearing they might be blamed, because she was white, but do so anyway. ...
Plot: interracial relations, false accusation, trial
Time: 1930s, year 1937
Place: hawaii
⇓ similarity ⇓
38%
 7.0
 93
Sour Grape (1974)
Genre: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 76 min.
Story: Two years after receiving news of his father’s death in WWII a young boy continues to wait for trains from the front. The boy lives with his crippled uncle rather than with his mother, who has remarried and has another child. Then one day the ...
Plot: world war two, father son relationship, soldier
Time: 1940s
Place: armenia
⇓ similarity ⇓
37%
Signs of Life (1968)
Genre: Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 90 min.
Story: During World War II, three German soldiers are withdrawn from combat when one of them, Stroszek, is wounded. They are assigned to a small coastal community on the Greek island of Kos while Stroszek recuperates. The men become increasingly stir crazy ...
Style: serious, psychological, realistic, tense, atmospheric ...
Plot: world war two, soldier, german soldier, world war, psychiatry, nazi, war, summer, mental illness, island, driven mad, dull life ...
Time: 1940s, year 1968, 20th century
Place: greece, germany, europe, mediterranean sea, italy
⇓ similarity ⇓
37%
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