Source: Shenzhen Daily

04-28-2009 17:35

During almost every screening of Lu Chuan’s “City of Life and Death” some people have left theaters before the film ends. It does take courage to finish watching this latest movie about the 1937 Nanjing massacre of Chinese civilians by Japanese troops by Lu, one of the most outstanding directors in China’s film industry. Dealing with the cruelty, horror, sadness and hopelessness of war is one thing, but a deeper, more disturbing sense each Chinese moviegoer must face is the acceptance of the director’s depiction of Japanese soldiers as human beings who also suffer from the war.

Indeed, this depiction was the main reason Lu’s film drew wide attention the first day it was released on the mainland. During the first half day the film was screened in China it earned 9 million yuan (US$1.3 million), a rare success for homemade war epics. But such success might become the double-edged sword Lu had referred to during an interview in which he said his biggest fear was the film might be pulled out of theaters because of controversy it might trigger.

Other films have tried to retell the depressing history of the Nanjing massacre on the big screen, but Lu’s film is different from them. Filmed in black and white, the film is Lu’s attempt to view the massacre from the eyes of different people, including an ordinary Japanese soldier named Kakokawa, who joined the Imperial Japanese Army out of loyalty to the emperor, experiences the shock and pain in the war and ends up committing suicide in Nanjing.

Through Kakokawa’s eyes, stories of ordinary Chinese people are told, who include Lu Jianxiong, a young Chinese soldier who fights up to the last minute of his life; Jiang Shuyuan, a school teacher who serves at a refugee center to protect the wounded and weak; Mr. Tang, a craven man who trades the lives of the wounded soldiers hidden in the refugee center for the freedom of his family but sacrifices himself to save a co-worker; John Rabe, a Nazi businessman who gives shelter to thousands of Chinese civilians at his refugee center; and Xiao Jiang, a prostitute who offers her body in trade for safety and food for those in the refugee center.

There are intense scenes of crossfire in the film, but the way Lu focuses on humanity is more breathtaking.