User reviews

Filmmakers Guttentag and Sturman have produced a short but unforgettable documentary about one of the ugliest stories in twentieth century warfare: the event known as "the rape of Nanking." During a brief period in late December 1937 Japanese forces bombed the city of Nanking, then the capital of China, moving on after assaulting Shanghai. Much of the city's population fled. But the poor had to remain, lacking the money to get out. Troops then moved in and brutally executed several hundred thousand civilians using guns and bayonets and fire, and raped tens of thousands of woman, leaving most of the once beautiful, prosperous city in ruins. They also immediately executed, by various methods, thousands of captured soldiers.

The positive side of the story is that a group of foreigners, perhaps less that two dozen, who had been resident in Nanking remained there to help save the helpless civilians (and soldiers who had fled) and created a Safety Zone to protect them. It was not respected, but nonetheless they were able to save perhaps another couple of hundred thousand people.

The presentation lasts only 88 minutes but is packed with mind-boggling material. Using a ground approach similar to the Culture Project's theater events 'Exonerated' and 'Guantanamo,' in which a group of actors dramatically read actual accounts, the foreigners' stories (and that of one Japanese soldier) are reconstructed by Stephen Dorff, Woody Harrelson. Mariel Hemingway, and others. In between their accounts there are interviews with Chinese survivors and some Japanese soldiers involved in the massacres.

The most important foreigners are Bob Wilson, Minnie Vautrin, and John Rabe, whose accounts are voiced by Harrelson, Hemingway, and Jürgen Prochnow, respectively. Wilson was a surgeon born in China, son of a missionary, who stayed on after the bombing. Vautrin was a missionary and head of the education department of a college; she hid her women students and saved them from being raped. Rabe was a German businessman and Nazi Pary member who protected hundreds of Chinese civilians on his estate. He and Wilson and Magee were the most active in establishing the two-square-mile Safety Zone that provided a shaky but essential shield for refugees who fled their homes.

There are some film clips of killings. John Magee (voiced here by Hugo Armstrong) was an Episcopal minister and a filmmaker who helped maintain a hospital. His film footage of maimed and disfigured victims of the atrocities was smuggled out of the country and only discovered in the 1980s in Germany.

The accounts of the foreigners provide a sense of the time line and the main events of Nanking. But it is the Chinese survivors, bravely describing unimaginable horrors, who make the most vivid impression. I say "unimaginable," but we have heard about them as children, perhaps, and all imagined them. But here they are, described as vividly as if they happened yesterday, to a mother and a baby brother, right before the eyes of a seven-year-old. What must it be like to have been that seven-year-old and to carry such memories through all one's life? That is what one doesn't want to imagine.

Some of the Japanese veterans are smiling as they speak. They acknowledge the rapes and atrocities and massacres and tell how they did it. (How can they be smiling? Perhaps out of embarrassment. Or is the word shame? These are the most troubling moments of the film.) The dozen or so high ranking Japanese officers who were convicted of war crimes afterward have a memorial in their name in Tokyo and it is a place where right-wing pro-war Japanese like to hold rallies. Getting the films of Japanese survivors was a tricky business, because people in Japan don't want to acknowledge, or even talk about, this moment in their history. They have often denied that things were as bad as some said. The evidence of the film, and the accounts of the Japanese veterans themselves, disproves those denials. We have witnesses, and that is the basic function of this film: to bear witness. Japanese officials complained that foreigners were not supposed to be there, that this was the "first time" (hardly) a war had taken place with neutral observers. "We did not want to be observed," they said.

But this is not, of course, meant as the attack on one nationality or an incitement to revenge. It's a story of madness in wartime and hence an indictment of war itself. And the film is also a moving account of the bravery of the few foreigners who saw the horrible events as a challenge to perform acts of extraordinary courage and goodness. The film is a heavy burden to take on, but it is not without hope, and proof of the ability of the Chinese to endure.

"Nanking" is a film that derives a devastating power from its staid remembrance of humanity's capacity for suffering, its capacity for evil and its capacity for good. It catalogues one of the most horrifying events in the history of the continent. As an overture for the Second World War, the Rape of Nanking was hell on earth. Nanking, the then bustling capital of China, was savagely brutalised by the invading Japanese military force in the summer of 1937. First, the air raids began tearing through the city's economy, destroying the lives of its citizens, leaving them helpless to the inevitable slaughter by the approaching troops. As the city's expatriates and those with money scurried to flee, a foreign contingent made up of the clergy, teachers and professionals stayed behind to protect and aid the destitute.

Directors Bill Guttentag and Bill Sturman pay tribute to those 22 men and women whose courage and kindness enabled them to establish a provisional safety zone that provided refuge for over 200,000 civilians, despite being outnumbered by a belligerent army angered at having the "eyes of the world" on them. Somewhere between being a cogent docudrama of heroism and a harrowingly powerful documentary of an unfathomable catastrophe, the vivid characterisations of these Americans and Europeans are crafted through the film's well-envisioned and excellently staged readings by its weathered performers that include: Woody Harrelson, Mariel Hemingway, Stephen Dorff and most notably Jurgen Prochnow. The letters and anecdotes of the expatriate saviours that provide the point-by-point narration carries with it a cutting, painful urgency and is delivered with compelling ideas of responsibility and personal anguish by the thespians and various composite characters.

Much of the film's haunting intensity comes from its use stock footage to recall the horrors of the past. The seamlessly inducted black and white archival footage of wartime atrocities capture the sorrow and ad hoc sentiments of people long gone, even as their cries and pain linger and reverberate throughout history. It adds to its sentience by summoning the voices and memories of Chinese survivors, their tears and pained expressions leading the way to the film's most enduring interviews. When one interviewee recalls how his mother breastfed his infant brother even as she was dying from being bayoneted through the chest, this anecdote ominously carries with it the burden of indescribable truth and inexplicable iniquity and a discovery of unknown depths of madness. Then the interviews with the surviving Japanese soldiers show remorselessness and the descriptions of the matter-of-fact executions and acts of depravity convey a sense that living through the war has changed these men irreparably. The footage and interviews show how the perspectives seen through the eyes of humanity are reconfigured during times of war when sin becomes justified and decency is abandoned.

The shared human consciousness between the foreigners and ravaged citizenry is indelibly considered in Prochnow's recital of the German businessman and Nazi sympathiser John Rabe's journal entry, a detail from memory made fecund by time: "Shouldn't one make an attempt to help them? There's a question of morality here, and so far I haven't been able to sidestep it." This pronouncement is a scathing indictment of the denials, and of the deliberate obscuration of truths so oppressive that it is met with ethical and universal repercussions. The preclusions of accountability are present even today, as other parts of the world are mired in invasions, Rabe's conundrum is still a relevant inquiry that is responded with an uncomfortable silence.

In 1937, the Japanese army invades China in a cruel war and after the fall of Shanghai, the soldiers head to the capital Nanking. A group of Western foreigners led by John Rabe, Minnie Vautrin, Bob Wilson and George Fitch create the Safety Zone, a sanctuary that was not bombed by the Japanese airplanes, to protect thousands of refugees. While the Japanese soldiers reach the town on 13 December 1937, raping, slaughtering and pillaging the civilian, the heroic group of Westerns defends the lives of about 250,000 Chinese sacrificing their own freedom, and succeeds to tell the world the crimes of war committed by the Japanese army in Nanking.

The harrowing, heartbreaking and awesome "Nanking" retells the story of the genocide in Nanking in 1937 promoted by the Japanese army. In the late 90's I saw the also impressive and disturbing "Nanjing 1937" (a.k.a. "Don't Cry, Nanking") and I confess that was the first time I heard anything about this massacre. In the movie "Shake Hands with the Devil", the Canadian General Romeo Dellaire has a fantastic line when he says that "genocide is when there are cargo train, concentration camps, gas chambers". In Hollywood, usually genocide is associated to the Jews in World War II and there are dozens of excellent movies about this dark period of the contemporary history. "Nanking" uses letters and other documents written mainly by the group of Westerns that created the Safety Zone in touching and emotional lectures of great actors and actresses; disturbing and heartbreaking testimonies of survivors; a great number of footages, in a magnificent work of research; and the wonderful music score of Kronos Quartet. I immediately associated how traumatic might have been the lives of these survivors after witnessing such cruel crimes of war. Further, in Nanking there were Westerns observers that told the world part of what happened in the city; imagine in Shanghai and in the minor towns in the countryside on the way of the Japanese troops without foreign witnesses how violent these soldiers might have been with the population. These group of expatriated shows the difference that an individual can make. I was really disturbed and sad after watching this fantastic movie. My vote is nine.

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Note: On 24 May 2013 I saw this documentary again.

If I am going to recommend a documentary, then Nanking will be it. The Rape of Nanking just prior to World War II is examined in this film, which contains real stock footage of clips smuggled out of China during the time of Japanese occupation. Interviews with surviving Chinese victims, and a number of Japanese Imperial Army soldiers who took part in the campaign, are conducted by the filmmakers, and it is always chilling to learn from them first hand, on their respective perspective of those horrible years of the Japanese invasion of China.

You will definitely squirm at the tearful, vivid recollection of atrocities from rapes, shootings, knifing from bayonets, and even burning, while the archive clips bring to screen scenes and pictures of such barbaric acts. Tales of plundering, looting, the forceful taking away of young men to be shot and young girls or boys, children even, for brutal rape, are told with an unflinching eye. In fact, nothing is re-enacted in this film, opting instead for actors (such as Woody Harrelson, Mariel Hemmingway and Michelle Krusiec) to portray real historical characters and only as narrators of their personal diaries and memoirs of their stay in Nanking during the invasion and subsequent occupation.

While the rest of the world stood by and did nothing, a handful of foreigners who opted to stay in the city, did what they could by organizing themselves and setting up a Safety Zone for the Chinese refugees, using all the power that they could (which was very little, save for the fact that they are foreigners) to protect their charges from the looting, plundering, killing and rape that takes place on a regular basis outside their zone. And it is indeed this Zone which had saved thousands of lives, that this documentary paid a sort of tribute to.

If this is an anti-war picture, then I'd say it would have done a very good job, highlighting the immense amount of evil that man is capable of inflicting on fellow man. Even up until today, the Massacre of Nanjing is still hotly debated, especially on the number of unfortunate casualties and victims, and the enshrinement of war criminals which have irked the Chinese.

As a Chinese, I knew the Nanking massacre when I was young. I was frightened when I saw so many horrible pictures taken at that time. When I learned that the film Nanking would be shown, I was hesitated. I should watch it because I'm a Chinese, but I didn't have the nerve. I didn't have the nerve to see my countrymen being butchered most brutally and I didn't want to arouse the sad memories.

After a week of hesitation, I went to the cinema and watched it finally. I really want to know more about the truth. When I was sitting in the cinema and watching, my tears kept rolling down. I felt my heart so cold and my head so painful. I feel so painful for my countrymen at that time and so moved by the foreigners who risked their own lives for saving the innocent and helpless Chinese.

The massacre did happened. No one can deny. I appreciated Ms Chang who bravely wrote the book and the directors of this movie. It tells the truth yet does not arouse the hatred. A sentence in the movie impressed me a great deal, it approximately goes like this: We don't make you to hate the Japanese, we want you to know how horrible war is.

Yes, we hate war and love peace.

How do you write about a documentary on an atrocity committed during the darkest days of modern history? You feel grief, and anger, and downright bewilderment. To cast these feelings aside and think about the film on it's own is almost impossible. Can you talk about the structure of the film, whether it's well-paced, or the performances commendable? The subject itself almost consumes all of your thought, you wonder how it could ever have happened, and more important, if it is ever possible that you can ever commit such an act of brutality.

Having actors perform the roles of the foreigners who are deemed saviours of the Chinese is perhaps a bad move on the filmmakers' part. Even though they make no attempt to hide the fact that it is a performance, or rather, actors at a staged table-reading, it stands in too stark a contrast to the interviews with the Chinese survivors and Japanese soldiers. In particular, 2 Japanese soldiers, now in their twilight years, seem to be filmed at a distance, maybe even unknowing of the fact that they are being recorded. They talk about the killings and rapings impassively, even with a little hint of smugness. It ironically holds a mirror to the actors' readings of characters. Do they hate the Japanese? No, as the actress representing Minnie Vautrin said. So filled with kindness are they that it's almost as unbelievable as the monstrosity of the Rape of Nanking.

I saw the film at Sundance as part of a packed house for a third or fourth screening. I've seen the story of Nanking depicted before but never with the confidence I had that this was how it really was. It was like watching three Shindlers save the Chinese, and Spielberg's Shoa, all rolled into one perfect film. A panel of actors speak the lines from letters and diaries of European/American witnesses and Chinese and Japanese survivors tell their stories themselves on film. It's not just a narrator interpreting the events - it's the voices of the people who were there. The story line is well honed accompanied by stills, 16 mm smuggled out by one of the foreigners, and the actors provide voice for the foreigners. It is an incredibly moving and informative film. I sat next to two couples, two Japanese American men married to Chinese American women. One wife had seen the film the night before, and our night she brought everyone else back with her. I spoke with one of the husbands and he said that out of scale of 5 he gave it a 7. For the rest of the week I ran into others who saw the film and everyone said that they thought it was the best documentary they had ever seen in their lives. I totally agree.

This is a documentary about the infamous massacre during WWII. The subject matter is worthy. It's a lesser known aspect of the war especially in the west. It's still controversial in the east and it's an important fissure in world diplomacy.

The most unusual part of the film are the famous faces reading the actual letters, testimonies, or interviews of the witnesses to the events. It is not the usual operating procedure for a reason. It doesn't work well. The famous faces are distracting and it's hard to remember who they're supposed to represent. Instead of the famous faces, they should use the actual people's pictures or the actual events. The actors are not supposed to be the story. The story is the story.

Typically I wait a day to two before writing a review on a film in order to gain a deeper understanding and rationalization before reacting. In the case of this film, I'll make an exception to this practice.

I've studied genocide and violence at the university level and my awareness of the horrors that struck Nanking in Decemeber of 1937 are well beyond superficial. This film is an absolute must-view for those driven to bringer greater peace, justice, and truth to the world regardless of heritage.

Of course there will always be a swell of controversy among descendants of Japanese and Chinese heritage, which is an unquestionable shame, especially for those in the former group. The list of excuses, denials, and sophisticated cover-up I've often witnessed, firsthand, by many of my Japanese-American friends is disgusting. However, I am not interested in fueling a debate inspired by closeted nationalism, racial/ethnic pride, and partial history, the end results have so often led to circular frustration beyond comprehension. The evidence of the "Nanking Genocide (not massacre) is overwhelming and indisputable. These realities are clearly demonstrated throughout this emotionally paralyzing film. I would further declare that any person of Japanese lineage strong enough to view this film will undeniably depart with a shaken conscious.

Effectively, "Nanking" utilizes written, verbatim historical documentation, mostly from Western figures who were present during the swift and unforgettable tragedy of December 1937. People who thankfully recorded their experiences by pen and further confronted the horrors of the Japanese army with unbelievable courage. The pen is indeed mightier than the sword. Throughout this spirit-crushing reel, the historical dialogue is channeled via familiar Hollywood actors, and actual survivors of the genocide - all genuinely driven by objective, therapeutic, and moral-seeking resolve. While the dialogue strikes deep, archival footage is shown, a good deal of it pulled from Japanese sources - see end credits for reference. Also, without detail, you will be amazed at the number of ironies that unfold in "Nanking."

Tears built and inevitably rolled down my face many times throughout "Nanking" as I couldn't help but think of the numerous countries complicit in Nanking's spiral into hell, and the subsequent genocide's that have transpired since. One being Darfur, Sudan which continues at this very moment. Even more, the denial by people, especially with Japanese heritage, is just utterly perplexing and beyond tragic.

I'll refrain from further analysis and opinion only to suggest that you find courage in your moral capacity to spend roughly two hours of a day with a good friend or family member to see this film of monumental tragedy and courageous heroism. We cannot call ourselves human without facing the wickedness within. The soul requires to be wholly cleansed from time to time. Nanking has such effects/affects.

Without the focus on the heroic efforts of a small group of European and American expatriates, Nanking the film would be a near unbearable experience. The Nanking Massacre, or The Rape of Nanking as it's widely referred to, took place over a 6 week period in 1937. The Chinese capital city was invaded by Japanese troops, resulting in 200,000 (or more depending on varying estimates) innocent people raped and slaughtered. Tales of civilians being forced to have sex with corpses or family members, unborn foetus's being cut out of their mother's belly with bayonet's, or the gang-rape of small girls and boys are all confirmed here. But Nanking achieves its power not through shocking and repulsing but by showing the triumph of the human spirit in the face of hell on Earth.

Although plenty of archival footage is used - from the beautiful, pulsating Nanking sitting proudly as China's capital, to it's destruction through heavy bombing - a bulk of the film consists of readings by actors of diary entries written by the likes of Nazi party member John Rabe and American missionary Minnie Vautrin. Rabe and Vautrin were part of a small, wealthy group of men and women who decided against fleeing Naking, and set up a 'Safety Zone' inside the city. The actors, including the likes of Jurgen Prochnow, Mariel Hemingway, Woody Harrelson and Stephen Dorff, are earnest and understated in their delivery, and this helps give these moments an urgency, when it could have come off as trying to add some Hollywood gloss to a devastating event.

The Japanese agreed to the implementation of the safety zone, but their soldiers would parade the grounds, raping women at will and dragging men off to be executed on mass for being suspected enemy soldiers. Still, the protection offered by Rabe, Vautrin, Bob Wilson et al is estimated at being responsible for the survival of 200,000 Chinese lives. This is hard stuff to watch, one of the most despicable war crimes ever committed - interviews with Chinese survivors and seemingly remorseless and disconnected Japanese soldiers hit particularly hard - but this is essential viewing, proving that in order to move forward, we must look back.

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I imagine it's hard enough to make a compelling documentary with those depicted being alive. That said, when those whose diaries are the basis for said documentary have long since passed on it must be a minor miracle if the project works in even a small way. Oh, yes add in that few people cared at the time the actual events occurred, either by ignorance or indifference, and that very same lack of interest still exists today...So, why bother? Perhaps, because it has been said that a society who fails to recognize its mistakes is doomed to repeat them. If you believe in this simple premise then how can we not properly acknowledge what the Japanese did, while the world watched, even this many years later. Every generation needs to learn from our collective history and I believe this movie is an important tool in that lesson.

More to the point of Nanking. It is not in any way meant to be any kind of definitive documentary of all events that were related to the Japanese destruction of Nanking and therefore should not be examined as such. It tells the story of the few, the foreigners, in a very narrow time period who were responsible for the preservation of at least a quarter of a million Chinese refugees who would have most certainly been massacred. It does this by a uniquely artistic device of using some living survivors interspersed with actors portraying those who are dead yet are able to tell their stories using wording right from their diaries. By understanding that the words are the actual words of these deceased people who saved lives against the fiercest evil more than validates this approach for this viewer.

I want to recommend this movie to those interested in the atrocities of war as it relates to history and who we are and should be. All civilized humanity should fight for justice and never sit idly by as evil goes about it's business unchecked. When we sit back and do nothing evil flourishes as history proved all to well in the next seven or eight years as more Japanese and Nazi atrocities mounted. This movie reminds us of that and as such is not a "hate letter" to any sect, but shows the human capacity for both evil and good. It's our mandate to make sure good wins and I find this documentary effectively states this. Important and timely, highly recommended.

In 1937, the bustling metropolis of Nanking, then the capital of China, was invaded and occupied by the Japanese military, which reduced much of the city to rubble and brutally raped, tortured and massacred hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants. The event came to be known in history books and in lore as The Rape of Nanking.

The documentary "Nanking" not only recounts the unspeakable atrocities that occurred during that period but focuses on four Westerners living in the city at the time who, at great risk to their own welfare and safety, helped to save over 200,000 refugees and residents by carving out a "safe zone" in the middle of town where people could flee for shelter and protection. These heroic individuals included three Americans and one European: the missionary George Fitch, the surgeon Bob Wilson, the dean of the Gingling Girls' College Minnie Vautrin, and the German businessman (and, at that time, member of the Nazi Party) John Rabe.

The movie relies on amazing archival footage - much of it furtively spirited out of the country by those who shot it - interviews with aging survivors and enemy perpetrators, and readings taken from actual journal and diary entries by the Westerners to tell its story. The last are performed by professional actors - among them, Woody Harrelson, Mariel Hemingway and Jurgen Prochnow - who, seated in folding chairs, take on the roles of the writers.

The result is an eye-opening and heartbreaking look at both the best and the worst that the human race has to offer.

This film can be hardly classified as a documentary, or if so, then a really poor sort of.

Despite the fact that the authors declared that their intention is not to make an anti-Japanese, but an anti-war film, what this one does is nothing but trying to shock the viewer with showing as much cruelty as possible within the limited time frame.

It does not try to search for reasons, why things ended up this way, or why the conquerors behaved the way they did. It does not show the consequences or the aftermath either. It simply accepts the fact that the Japanese were cruel themselves, tortured, killed and raped people, enjoyed slashing them with bayonets.

If the authors wanted to make an anti-war film, they should have at least mention that this cruelty is part of the basic human nature, and it is very hard to find any of the nations that upon conquering, had not done something of the sort in the past: e.g. what the Khmer Rouge, the Russians, or Mao did with even their own people, or the Nazis with the Jews, the British during the Boer wars, the Turks with Armenian holocaust, the list goes on and on.

Instead, the movie simply throws devilish Japanese acts to your face. I felt it just tries to stir up my hatred, in a very primitive way – though it will surely work well with the masses.

Before you ask or assume: I am European, without any interest on defending Japanese war crimes.

Just simply: these sort of films do not help at all.

In 1937, the ancient capital of China, Nanking, was surrounded by the expansionist troops of Japan. For many days, the city was bombed until it was forced to surrender. Then, in an act of evil barbarism, the Japanese entered the town and executed 10s of thousands of prisoners of war. I have read about this incident in Iris Chang's "THE RAPE OF NANKING" and in this book as well as in this documentary, surviving Japanese soldiers rationalized this as "necessary" and that they "had no choice since they couldn't feed all these prisoners"! One even seemed to smile and laugh about it in the documentary--at which point I found myself ready to scream at the screen! That's because no matter how you try to justify this massacre, what happened next is subhuman and evil, as half the city was butchered--men, women and children. Young women, old women, children and even boys were repeatedly raped, then murdered. Living noncombatants were used for bayonet practice and Japanese officers had contests to see how many and how quickly they could behead these civilians! It was indeed a holocaust, though sadly today few recall that it occurred--including MANY within Japan itself.

This story of the fall and rape of the city of Nanking in 1937 by the Japanese is explained in this film using an unusual combination of interviews with survivors, film footage, photos and recreations of the voices of witnesses to the horror who are now long dead. One reviewer thought that the way they had actors portraying the dead Western witnesses to the slaughter was tacky, but I am not sure how else they could have done this effectively. Regardless of how it was constructed, the topic was so gut-wrenching and sad that the film couldn't help but be a very emotionally draining documentary. This is not fun to watch, but also very necessary lest we forget.

If I had any criticism of the film is that perhaps it wasn't quite graphic enough--though it was very graphic. I've seen film and photos that were worse than many of the ones used in the film. I've also seen interviews with evil ex-soldiers in Japan today who contend that none of this is true or make excuses--even though there are boxes of evidence to the contrary (such as many photos soldiers took with "trophies" that were then sent to their families--these "trophies" were rows of severed Chinese heads for which they were responsible).

By the way, I mentioned Ms. Chang's book and I learned that not too long after writing it, Ms. Change committed suicide. That is a great loss and you wonder what the impact her research had on this.

This is a disturbing and fascinating film. It inter-cuts original newsreel film and film made by witnesses to the atrocity, face-to-camera reminiscence by some of the Chinese eyewitnesses, interviews (apparently made some years ago) with surviving Japanese soldiers who were involved in one part of the massacre, and a small cast of mostly American actors reading excerpts from diary entries, letters and other documents written by some of the 15 Europeans who tried so valiantly to maintain the "safe zone" in the old town of Nanking during the massacre.

As a history teacher, I have taught a little 20th century East Asian history. I knew of the Nanking massacre. I have read some of the documents used in the film and seen some of the still pictures. I hadn't seen any of the film before, though. It's very shocking stuff. That said, the most powerful and emotional moments of the film for me were the interviews. Especially the accounts of the old people, children at the time, who saw their family members killed or experienced rape.

Some of the comments I've read on the message boards here question whether this is a legitimate documentary. The Europeans (and some of the Chinese and one Japanese) are portrayed by actors. They do their job very well, but there is always a problem with dramatisation. How much can we trust the actors' interpretation of their lines? And how far has the editing gone? Then also, why choose just these people to represent the European community? Where were the Danish and British voices? Also, although they had tried to put themselves into character as prim missionary, grey businessman, reticent doctor, at least three of the actors were familiar faces to me, and in the beginning I found my thoughts wandering off the topic as I tried to identify them. (Mariel Hemingway, Jürgen Prochnow and Woody Harrelson.) Contrary to some of the voices on this message board, I don't think Nanking is anti-Japanese propaganda, or simply out to shock. I think the film makers are sincere when they say (through the words of their European witnesses) that the film does not set out to vilify the Japanese as a people. (Though I note that the Chinese witnesses uniformly refer to "Japanese devils" – at least in the subtitling.) But isn't it often the case that a film made to condemn the atrocities of war is always likely to be interpreted differently depending on the prejudices the audience brings with them? If you already think the Japanese are devils, this film will confirm you in your belief. If you distrust Americans, you will find more fuel for your prejudice here. If you think all war is hell, you'll go away convinced that this film is a great contribution to the cause of pacifism.

I tend towards the latter. And I think I could use this film in class to teach history.

"Nanking" (documentary, 2007): When we think of Evil and War, we think first of the Nazis, Germany, and Jews. Though this is simplistic, we at least have these household terms as points of reference. We HATE everything around the names Nazi, Swastika, and Hitler. What our history has failed to do is discuss the Japanese at and before that same era with their attacks upon China, and, how they were no less brutal than the Nazis. Ill even go further than that and say their blood lust was more brutal, random, passionate, and less calculating than the Nazis. WHY we, as Americans, have allowed our history to be written so clearly and sharply about the Germans, yet so vaguely and softly about the Japanese, is a question I suspect has embarrassing answers. See this documentary. It wont answer all your questions, but it will initiate them.

The filmmakers - Oscar-winning documentary Bill Guttentag, along with Dan Sturman - employ a strong method of spreading newsreel footage with wrenching on-camera interviews of survivors and actor sequences reciting from Westerners ' letters and memoirs on the scene.Some of the actors (Mariel Hemingway, Woody Harrelson, Jürgen Prochnow, Stephen Dorff) are familiar, while others are less familiar (Hugo Armstrong, John Getz). They straight address their lines to the camera and noteworthy is the story they jointly say.

I watch movies for two reasons: to be entertained, and to be informed. This is one of the most informative movies that I have ever seen.

The actions of the Japanese soldiers in 1937 as they invaded China was on a par with many of the atrocities that we have seen in our lifetime in Bosnia, Darfur, etc. It is a story that will stick with you for a long time.

This is the story of a handful of foreigners who stayed behind as others fled and tried to save as many Chinese as they could. They saved over 250,000 by setting up a safe zone. Another 200,000 were killed and 20,000 women, between 12 and 60, were raped by the Japanese soldiers.

The Japanese killed all young men just because they may be soldiers. They gang raped every night as many women as they could. It was an atrocity that clearly shows the level to which soldiers go in time of war. It is easy to commit these heinous crimes when you look upon the enemy as gooks, or nips, or chinks.

A powerful film that should be seen by everyone.

I recently watched "Nanking" at the Seattle International Film Festival. OK, I can understand why the movie would get a high rating (as of the time of the writing of this review, it averaged 8.3/10 out of 87 votes). It has an amazing amount of details and footage about the Nanking Massacre, as well as information about the Safety Zone that I had never known about until I saw the movie. Nevertheless, I must respectfully disagree with previous voters' opinions on "Nanking".

First of all, the idea of showing the actors who read the lines was a bad move. It seemed artificial... almost conceited. Why couldn't they just show the atrocities with a voice-over? Why did they have to add extra time to the movies to show the actors? Was it just to get a feature film running time of 88 minutes? Couldn't they have added extra minutes by interviewing more Chinese people instead? There's a smattering of the Chinese point of view, and very little of the Japanese point of view. (Not there could be much for ex-Japanese soldiers to say about it that wouldn't inflame more anti-Japanese feelings.)

Secondly, I'm sure we all agree that the events were atrocious and despicable. If the rating was solely determined by the movie's content, it would get a good score from me. However, as a movie, the pacing did not let up for a moment. The audience was bombarded with image after image of atrocity. Meanwhile, a bunch of actors are reading the diaries and letters of the Westerners who observed many of the atrocities first-hand, and some of them aren't conveying much emotion (and Mariel Hemingway overacts). After a while, I got desensitized about it. I was not the only person who felt that way after the screening, either. Several others who I talked to felt the same way. I don't think this was the intended effect by the filmmakers. They wanted sympathy for the Chinese, but they ended up with a bunch of viewers who shrug their shoulders, say, "Gee, that sucked for the Chinese," shrug their shoulders, and move on. Or, at the worst, they created people who say, "Gee, that sucked for the Chinese; get over it," and actually think less of modern Chinese people for being stuck in the past.

Third... what happened after 1938? The movie doesn't explain what happens to Nanking after the Safety Zone was abolished. What happened to the Chinese people? What happened to the survivors who spoke in the movie? It's a glaring hole in the movie. It's like the fate of the city became less important after the foreigners' importance was reduced.

If it was not for these problems, I'd give the movie at least a 7/10. However, I can't give a high rating to a movie that creates the opposite effect from what is intended. You know what's going to happen? Most of the people who are unfamiliar with the Nanking Massacre and decide to watch this movie are going to pop in the DVD, watch for 15-45 minutes, and then stop the movie because they can't watch anymore. They'll remember that bad stuff happened in Nanking, and that's it.

I've been studying Japanese and Russian War atrocities for more than 30 years and STILL wonder why Hitler and the Nazis get 99% of the "holocaust" rap. Most people don't know of the rape of Nanking and countless other acts of Jap barbarism, like the fact that the Japanese were DIRECTLY responsible for over 14 million deaths NOT due to war combat, and the Russians, under DIRECT orders from Stalin, killed more than 16 million. Yet all you ever seem to hear is the 6 million Jews that the Nazis killed. YES YES YES, the holocaust was an obscene tragedy of the worst kind, but why don't we rap the Japs for their 14 million victims-after all, the world leaned on us for herding the Japs living in the US into internment camps during the war and then waiting 35 some years to repay them a part of what they lost; but what reparations have the Japanese made to the world for THEIR atrocities? THEY HAVEN'T EVEN ADMITTED IT TO THEIR OWN PEOPLE!! Japanese world history goes up to 1940,then skips to 1946 and continues to the present day!?!?!? This movie is a MUST-SEE! It is accurate, factual, and chilling! Go see it!

And Iris Chang, may you rest in eternal peace, dear lady!

While the Nazi atrocities were the most infamous events in the 1930s and 1940s, Japanese forces carried out a series of equally vicious actions in China and Korea. In 1937, the Japanese army nearly wiped the city of Nanjing off the face of the earth while committing a near genocide against the population. In the midst of the horror, a group of westerners established a Safety Zone as a refuge for people fleeing the atrocities. The documentary "Nanking" intersperses footage of the terror with readings from the diaries of the westerners who established the Safety Zone, and also interviews with Chinese citizens who survived the massacres. In addition, there are also interviews with former Japanese troops who act as if they didn't do anything wrong.

The documentary shows a good contrast between the ability to carry out evil acts and the desire to do good in the most desperate circumstances. The Chinese survivors have some of the most heartbreaking stories, probably very similar to the stories that the survivors of concentration camps have.

The point is to understand that these malicious deeds are unfortunately inevitable when a country has an empire. Much like Germany's actions in Poland or Italy's actions in Ethiopia, Japan's actions in China must never be forgotten, although Japan's government still denies it.

Another good movie focusing on the Japanese occupation of Nanjing is the recent "Flowers of War", starring Christian Bale as a clergyman giving Chinese schoolgirls sanctuary.