Exposing the 'truth' about the Nanking massacre

Posted: Friday, May 22, 2009 11:19 AM
Filed Under: Beijing, China

BEIJING – "City of Life and Death" might sound like your average escapist action film helping to usher in the summer movie season. 

But it’s not.

The 2-hour black and white epic recounts the early days of Japan’s occupation of Nanking (now known as Nanjing) in 1937. Over six weeks, Japanese troops committed brutal atrocities against hundreds of thousands of residents of the wartime Chinese capital. 

Estimates of those killed vary wildly, but historians say around 200,000 to 300,000 people were slaughtered.  It’s a dark episode of World War Two that doesn’t get much mention in the West, but here in China no one has forgotten.

Courtesy of Lu Chuan Film Studio

Japanese troops take over Nanking in the "City of Life and Death."

"In China, everyone knows about the Nanjing Massacre," said 38-year old filmmaker Lu Chuan, who directed "City of Life and Death." 

"But as far as I know, nobody outside of China knows [about it]… I think it’s important to let people outside of China know the truth, because wars and massacres are everywhere."

Portraying Japanese in a new light
But Lu’s film does more than "tell the truth."

Using an ensemble cast of Chinese and Japanese actors, the movie tries to portray Japanese soldiers in a much more humane light than previously seen in China-made movies of that era.

"I think it's the first time in China for a Chinese movie to tell the story from a Japanese angle," Lu told us over tall glasses of watermelon juice on a recent sweltering afternoon near Beijing’s Ritan Park. "It's the first time for Chinese audiences to watch in a Chinese film that the Japanese soldiers are human beings, not beasts."

That might seem like an honorable aim, but the response from Chinese moviegoers has been anything but impressed. 

Courtesy Lu Chuan Film Studio

Hideo Nakaizumi plays a sympathetic Japanese soldier in "City of Life and Death."

"Seventy years ago 300,000 Chinese people were humiliated by the Japanese, and 70 years later, more than 300,000 Chinese people are humiliated by Lu Chuan," wrote one irate blogger after seeing the movie, whose Chinese title is "Nanjing! Nanjing!"

Another Chinese person accused the director of making a film designed to please Western audiences instead of portraying history the way the viewer felt it should be depicted: "Lu Chuan used Chinese people face to lick westerners’ butts."

They ‘never said sorry’
The filmmaker, who studied at the Beijing Film Academy, said he was shocked by the reaction, which included e-mailed death threats. "I thought that the Chinese audience would support me," he said. "I did the right thing in the right way. I wanted to do something for the country, because I love the country and I love the people."

Lu thinks some of the anger is not so much over his film but the fact Japan has yet to fully accept responsibility for the Nanking Massacre. The Nazis, he observed, killed more people in Europe, "But they said, sorry. Japanese officials [and] the Japanese government never said sorry to China [or] to the Chinese people for the war and the massacre. I think this is the main reason for their anger."

The controversy hasn’t stopped people from flocking to the movie. In the month since it’s been out in theaters, "City of Life and Death" has brought in $23 million. Not bad in a country where the average movie ticket in big cities is still quite steep – from $6 to $12 – and the typical monthly take-home pay is just under $300.  But that’s still only half of what China’s all-time box office winner, Titanic, earned several years ago.

Courtesy Lu Chuan Film Studio

Director Lu Chuan sets up a scene with a child actor.

And there have been some supportive reviews. "The movie shows us the night of despair and the dawn of hope," writes one fan. "It deserves respect."

The state-run English newspaper, China Daily, called the movie "a fresh approach to a familiar chapter of Chinese history… Lu Chuan…depicts the war in a more humane fashion rather than playing on local sensitivities and creating simple black-and-white portraits of good and evil."

Hoping to ‘build a bridge’
Given Japan’s own sensitivities to that time, it seems unlikely that the movie will find a distributor in China’s neighbor, but Lu says he is optimistic. "I want to build up a bridge between China and Japan, a bridge of communication, that helps people to get more from the history," he said.  "If we want to have a stable relationship, I think they need to know more about the history."

The film might fare better in the United States.  American independent movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has seen it twice, said Lu, who hopes "City of Life and Death" will pick up distribution in the United States before long.

EMAIL THIS