Best Taiwanese thriller movies

Storm Over the Yangtse River (1969)

Storm over the Yangtze River tells the true story of undercover intelligence agent "Yangtze Number One" and his colleagues in Jianli County of Hubei Province, who risk their lives to carry out the "Dead Bridge Plan" to secure the "Yangtze 180 Blockade". Li Lihua gives an iconic performance as a strong and charming agent of an intelligence unit, engaging in a risky mission to save her unit chief-cum-lover, who is regarded as a traitor but actually is a double-dealing agent against the Japanese occupation. The film garnered four awards at the 1969 Golden Horse Awards, including Best Leading Actor and Best Leading Actress.

Monga (2010)

Set in the 1980s, “Monga” centers on five boys (Mosquito, Monk, Dragon, White Monkey and A-Lan) who join the "Gang of Princes" who are tired of being pushed around. As the "Gang of Princes" rise in stature, they come into conflict with other gangs jealous of their rising power.

Intoxicant (2008)

A hacker named Intoxicant is threatening to destroy a famous internet forum. While people are gathering in the system and expecting something to happen, six different users begins to suspect each other. When the countdown of annihilation begins, the chaos between trust and truth is about to grow.

Locust (2025)

In Taiwan, as the 2019 Hong Kong protests erupt across the strait, Zhong-Han, a young silent thug, leads a life divided between his work in a family restaurant and parties in the dark Taipei underworld. But when a questionable businessman wants to buy the restaurant, Zhong-Han is drawn into a whirlwind of events that confronts him with the corrupt power games of his country.

ANGEL (2021)

When a girl goes back to a guy's house following a dating app hook-up, she becomes suspicious of his true intentions after discovering his obsession with cooking ramen broth, and a strange AI digital assistant called Angel.

Nana's Game (2018)

Tang Guan-guan is a single-minded and ruthless TV producer at the WTV television network. She is charged with creating a unique reality TV program like no other – for fans of horror and suspense. The show involves sending five contestants to spend 72 hours in a house where a terrible murder is supposed to have been committed. The house is notoriously spooky and located in a remote area, far away from other signs of civilisation, and some say that it is haunted by terrifying ghosts. At stake is a large cash prize, and the producer and her long-suffering crew decide to select their contestants from the world of social media and popular entertainment.

Asphyxia (2021)

Zoom Hunting (2010)

Yang Ruyi (32), a fashion magazine photographer, lives with her elder sister Yang Ruxing (33), a rational, introverted detective fiction author. Ruyi has inadvertently photographed a couple making madly passionately love. Few days later in a shopping center not far from her home, she finds the woman already married, leading a child and is with a different man. Ruyi shares her secret with Ruxing who is suffering from writer's block. The two sisters begin to observe the couple; gradually Ruxing even writes some of her observations into her novel, without letting Ruyi knows it. Late one night, Ruyi views two people are arguing, but as she picks up her camera to photograph she can only see two vague, dark outlines wrestling one another; Ruyi calls the police but upon arriving, nothing seems out of order. Ruyi is convinced she has mistaken nothing; she enlarges the photo and discovers a third outline looks pretty much like her older sister...

Ballistic (2008)

Lawrence Lau directs Ballistic, a crime thriller that uses the turbulent world of Taiwanese politics to tell a riveting story of cops, corruption, and how righteousness still has value in this grey-shaded world.

Supercop.com (2000)

Pin, Pai Pin Pin, KK, and Elly are four friends who are trying to get through the program together at a South Korean academy for training policewomen, run by a strict and cruel Madam Cheung. All of them graduate with honors except for KK, who disgraces her family by not graduating at all. When her father is brutally murdered by a mystery man with a tiger tattoo, KK vows to make it through the training program and become a real policewoman.

The Very Last Day (2018)

A fan abducts a best-selling writer for recounting how he raped her 20 years ago in his latest book. Despite the physical and psychological ordeal, the novelist keeps claiming his innocence.

Crisis (1983)

A family implodes after the reading of a will. They fight over the inheritance, forming and re-forming alliances, and spend most of the film searching for a crucial key.

Agent No. 88 (1964)

1964 Taiwanese spy film. Winner of the Golden Horse Grant at the 3rd Golden Horse Awards.

Rainy Night's Killer (1974)

Wandering endlessly between pure incoherence and a tragedy rife with dramatic possibilities, Lau Kwok-Hung sets up the murder mystery of a, low and behold, killer who strikes during rainy nights.

Breaking Through the Black Whirl (1982)

Gangland killer Wong Biau is convicted and sent to prison for murdering Lin, chief of a rival gang who happens to be the brother of Wong's girlfriend. Actually, Wong is innocent. Years later, Wong is freed and making a start to be a law-abiding citizen. But Lin Wai-ying, his former girlfriend, now the leader of the rival gang, makes repeated attempts to kill him...

Coming with a Gun (1981)

Taiwanese thriller.

Heart Beat (1989)

Taiwanese thriller.

Little Kids Beat the Boss (1990)

Lily Under the Gun (1982)

In a valiant attempt to rescue her younger brother, a young woman goes head to head with a group of ruthless gangsters.

Farewell to the Channel (1987)

A young man is pulled into crime and then murder. He falls in love with a beautiful young prostitute who sells herself to a brothel to pay off his debts. When the young man tries to buy her contract from the brothel owner, he kills one of the bosses' thugs in a fight. A crime syndicate that the young man willingly affiliated himself with failed. Now on the run from both criminals and the police, the star-crossed lovers flee through Taiwan. A powerful morality tale, the film exposes the dangers of the underworld economy, and the ubiquity of crime and violence on the island.

The Female Chivalry (1974)

Chia plays a government agent, Iron Phoenix, who’s after a bunch of crooked miners, and Barry plays a boastful young man without much fu talent. Iron Phoenix teaches Barry some martial arts skills, mainly because it helps her investigations about the miners, as she waits for her chance to strike and close down their illicit operation.

The Widow from Tokyo (1984)

Misfortune sets in for the protagonist of this story when her husband dies of poisoning. She leaves Tokyo to join her father-in-law in Hong-kong where her immoral and lecherous brother-in-law harasses her. Then, her father-in-law is also murdered. Are the killings linked? And why is her brother-in-law also injured and handicapped?

The Mad Rose (1982)

After being brutally raped by a drunken cabbie Rose becomes a recluse and plans her revenge. She takes on a new identity as the Mad Rose the vigilante. Tracking down rapists and criminals is her new occupation and she seems to relish the work. The Taipei cops soon get wind of her violent antics and set about trapping her. (IFD films website)