(directed by John Woo 吴宇森) I missed seeing this in the cinema, probably because I didn’t want to see the heavily-cut two hour version that reached the UK and States. The full five hour version was released later on DVD and Blu-ray, and is absolutely brilliant. A great cast, excellent action scenes, and fantastic music from Japanese composer Taro Iwashiro make this an outstanding version of this classic tale from Three Kingdoms. ★★★★★

(directed by Jill Culton and Todd Wilderman) It’s a Dreamworks animated film, but was co-produced by Pearl Studio 东方梦工厂 in Shanghai (they had previously done work on Kung Fu Panda 3). Beautiful versions of modern Chinese cities and south-west Chinese landscapes, even including a trip to the Leshan Buddha 乐山大佛. Well worth a watch with younger children. There are versions in mainland and Taiwanese Mandarin, and in Cantonese. The film caused some controversy across south-east Asia because the heroine’s map includes the nine-dash line 九段线 (actually the ten-dash variant, if you freeze-frame the film). ★★★☆☆

(dir. Rebecca Dobbs) This BBC programme, presented by Michael Wood (who made The Story of China in 2016), does a great job explaining the life and poetry of Du Fu 杜甫. Ian McKellen reads the poems beautifully and there are also appearances from Harvard’s Stephen Owen and Oxford’s TaoTao Liu.

(dir. Liang Xuan 梁旋 and Zhang Chun 张春) This charming film should be better known than it is. The influence of Studio Ghibli is clear, but that doesn’t detract from the beautiful animation and moving story. The version on Amazon and Netflix seems to be English-only, so to see it in the original Mandarin you’ll have to pick up the DVD or Blu-ray, which in the UK is released by mangauk.com.

(dir. Tian Xiaopeng 田晓鹏) A 3D animated film made in China, this used to be on Netflix with an English dub. I have a Hong Kong-produced DVD (with both Mandarin and Cantonese audio, and simplified, traditional, and English subtitles) from yesasia.com. I hope the Japanese blu-ray that’s also available uses a different source, as the DVD picture quality is atrocious. But anyway, this is suitable for 11+ viewers, and has Monkey King teaming up with a trainee monk to defeat a demon king. The child-eating demons make it a bit nastier than you’d expect from this kind of film. Not a masterpiece of storytelling, but will provide plenty of entertainment and some Chinese language input. ★★★☆☆