Jeremy Zhang Film title: Nanking! Nanking Director: Chuan Lu Year of release: 2009 Before I saw the film "Nanking! Nanking", I have already watched some of the movies made back in the 80's/90's about the rape of Nanking. They are exploitation movies and never affected me or leave me with profound experience. I'm actually disgusted with them making such movies. Also most of the documentaries I watched never really do anything. But when I watched the movie "Nanking! Nanking!" directed by Chuan Lu, it really drained me emotionally. When I first time watched the movie in cinema, it shocked me. And I think Chuan Lu is a pretty courageous and a respected director. I need to explain the reason why he is a courageous and respected director. At the first of the film, the lens showed us broken fences of Nanking, and the city was full of the dense smoke. The images made audience feel repression. But it is just a beginning. When we move on with the film, we would find that there are just two colors for the film, black and white. Maybe most of the audiences will doubt that if there is a problem of the film. Why it is not in color. But audiences will agree with the color soon. There is no more other color can fit this history than black and white. It is one of the reasons that why I think Chuan Lu is a courageous director. He used the black and white to explain the war. It is pallid and helpless. We can really feel the depressive emotion, which was brought from the color of the movie. And the most difference between "Nanking! Nanking!" and other same theme movies is the position of the director. Most of the directors add their own emotion to their film, so that they try to put up the good side of Chinese soldiers into the film and forget the bad side. And they also vilify Japanese soldiers from everywhere in order to accuse Japan and vent their emotion. It is easy to lead audiences' emotion. But people always forget the real part. "Nanking! Nanking!" is the different one. Chuan Lu didn't use the Chinese soldiers or Chinese people as the mainline of the movie. He was talking about the rape of Nanking through a Japanese soldier's view. Maybe it was also not the real image of the event, but I can feel that it would be the image, which was the most close to the real. Chuan Lu is very audacious on this. He didn't stand on the position of Chinese people. He filmed the movie in neutrality. I also saw some comments of this movie online. Most people said that the description of Japanese soldiers was humanness in the movie, even though the movie showed the vulnerable side of Japanese soldiers. People cannot understand that with nation hatred. They think Japanese soldiers should be the totally devil in the rape of Nanking. So there were a lot of voice of censure on the comments of the film and the director. But in fact, we cannot lose our mind because of the nation hatred between China and Japan. We need to face the truth and we need to see the depth effects of the war. Of course, we can forget the nation hatred. But we also have to accept that Japanese armies are not the real devil. In this film, Chuan Lu tried to stand on a middle position to state the rape of Nanking. So we can feel that the whole movie is very repression but rationality. Chuan Lu is a courageous director, and he is also very respected. The movie stated the rape of Nanking. But it is not in order to lead off emotion of nation hatred. It is a warning to Chinese people, and also the whole world. It is not simply a movie for Chinese people to deepen their hates on Japanese; it is a movie for people all over the world to see, to experience and to explore what Japanese have done to Nanking in 1937, and what the war has bring to us. This movie was shot without hates without slants without sharp emotions. But the images always warn us that war is the real devil in the world. I can remember that when I came out from the cinema after the movie, the first feeling was that how good is the current world in peace. And I think that peace is the main theme of the movie, not hatred. And the movie has demonstrated the most powerful thing in the world: no matter Japanese admit the fault or not, we may forgive, but never forget.

rogerdarlington The city is Nanjing, then capital of China. The time is 1937-38 when Japanese forces occupied the place. The story is the horrific consequence of that occupation for Chinese soldiers and civilians alike. The film is dedicated to the 300,000 victims of the atrocity, a figure that is still debated. The executions, the hangings, the beheadings, the burning, the bayoneting, the burying alive, the rapes - all of which happened - are all shown, but not overly dwelt upon. Instead young Lu Chuan, who both wrote and directed, tells a human story, focusing on a limited number of individuals, not all Chinese. This 2009 work was originally shot on colour film and then desaturated into black and white and the cinematography by Yu Cau is very impressive.We are offered politically correct depictions of the bravery of the Chinese soldiers and the nobility of Chinese civilians, especially the women, but the focus on the international safety zone brings to the fore the role of John Rabe, often called the German Schindler, and other nationals. Surprisingly, however, Lu gives an important role to a (fictional) young Japanese officer called Kadokawa who is shown as compassionate and horrified by what his fellow soldiers are doing - a characterisation that understandably proved controversial in China.When I was in Japan, where they talk of the 'Nanjing Incident', at the Memorial Museum in Hiroshima of all places I found that the Japanese are still downplaying the scale of this slaughter. When I was in China, where they call it the 'Nanjing Massacre', not least during my time in Nanjing itself the history was still live and feelings remain raw. I wish that this film could have been seen as much in Japan - which has still not faced up to its wartime crimes in the way that Germany has done - as in China and indeed Europeans and Americans should know more, as they would by viewing the film, about the rape of Nanjing.

poe426 Having just recently subjected myself to the almost documentary-like horrors of the Russian film COME AND SEE (about as sobering an experience as can be had), I opted to push my luck and try CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH. I've seen a number of documentaries regarding Japan's invasion of China, so I knew what to expect (although I DIDN'T expect the opening scenes, which harked back to the gritty, hand-held carnage of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN). In fact, CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH is actually more than a little forgiving in some of its depictions: characters who may or may not have been as sympathetic to the "lesser beings" are given the benefit of the doubt (no doubt by way of presenting a more "balanced" view of rape and wholesale slaughter). (Note: in one documentary I saw, a recaptured prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp was hung for all to see and a note was pinned to his chest: "I'm back," it read. And you thought the Nazis had no sense of humor...)

galahad58-1 This is an important movie. It is a movie that shows the brutality of the Japanese army towards the Chinese people. It is an honest showing of how the Japanese raped, butchered and beat the people of Nanking. Nanking was not the only Asian city the Japanese brutalized people, they did it also in Korea and Vietnam. It is ashame that this movie will not get the recognition that it deserves. Why? Because it is about Chinese people being butchered. This film is the Chinese version of Schindler's List and it is deserving of recognition for it's subject matter. Interesting fact: not one single Japanese soldier/commander was ever hunted down and tried for these war crimes. That should have been just as important as hunting down the Germans for their war crimes. One race is not more important than another.