Sadly Over-hyped

Please don't spend money on this.

Brilliant and touching

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

I once lived in Nanking for almost 4 years when I was a university student. There is a John Rabe's house located nearby Nanjing Univercity(Gulou District). Everyone in my university knows the existence of Nanking maccacre in 1937, but that's just a number for us, not a vivid emotional impressions. Our propaganda department taught us to hate Japanese simpily and all the wars between China and Japan was filmed every every year. They simply mixed the Japanese militarism and the general Japanese citizens.From this movie, I can get the truth of that massacre, it's not that simple, in fact, everyone suffers a lot from that war, not only the Chinese victims but also Japnese girls or the soldriers. The war is terrible and cruel, it hurts everyone in it. As I know, from our Chinsee history, during the dynasty changing, a lot of citizens have been killed to consolidate the new born govenment. So that's not only the problem of Janpanese, I think that's the dark side of human being. When there is no constaints to the human beings, the evil will occupy the heart of human beings. I just don't want to see any war between human beings. But I know it's impossible, I just hope everyone can understand that the life and love is very valuable.

The Japanese killed my grandfather's brother in WW2 ,the Japanese have yet to apologies or even properly acknowledge The Japanese killed my grandfather's brother in WW2 ,the Japanese have yet to apologies or even properly acknowledge The Japanese killed my grandfather's brother in WW2 ,the Japanese have yet to apologies or even properly acknowledge The Japanese killed my grandfather's brother in WW2 ,the Japanese have yet to apologies or even properly acknowledge The Japanese killed my grandfather's brother in WW2 ,the Japanese have yet to apologies or even properly acknowledge The Japanese killed my grandfather's brother in WW2 ,the Japanese have yet to apologies or even properly acknowledge The Japanese killed my grandfather's brother in WW2 ,the Japanese have yet to apologies or even properly acknowledge

There are so many horrors that people inflict upon the other, lesser, people in this world. Of course, to be able to do those atrocious things, you have to somehow dehumanize them or make them less then yourself. And it seems to work for so many inhabitants of this maddening planet. Average, exhausted person tries to block out all the things that don't fit their small, petty existence. We do not know which countries our leaders bombed in last 20 years. That doesn't make us participants in war crimes, but in the same time not every German or Japanese committed the atrocities on Jews or Chinese. They just averted their gaze from the disturbing or unpleasant. Without the passive onlookers, the monsters would be hiding in the sewers where they belong. Alas, courage is a rare commodity and heroes first scapegoats here and everywhere else .

The film is a documentary-style retelling and visualisation of the events that made up the 'Rape of Nanking.' The city of Nanking was the Chinese capital in 1937, and was captured during the Sino-Japanese War by the Japanese. What followed was a well-observed series of atrocities committed by the conquerors against the native Chinese population. This movie looks predominantly at the fate that befell the refugees who gathered in an International Safe Zone, supposedly protected by international guarentees. The Japanese army systematically hunts down and murders Chinese army personnel, machine gunning or burning them alive - the imagery of such events is incredibly chilling and poignant. Then the occupiers start chipping away at the Zone, finally extracting women to become 'Comfort Women' for serial rape over three weeks by the Japanese army by threats. Nothing is portrayed too full frontal, but those who die on the job are slung onto carts without pity, thought or clothes! Yes, some of the images are extremely powerful and make 'Schindler's List' as a movie look more like a Teddy Bear's picnic ( not the subject matter, of course). Characters who are highlighted gradually succumb to death in one way or another in the randomised violence by those who have total power over others. One survives, care of one sympathetic Japanese soldier, who commits suicide for letting a boy go, and life is seen to go. Powerful and gripping - those who complain are just being pernickety. Because, of course it is only a partial view of what went on overall in Nanking in 1937 - let's face it we did not piles of emaciated bodies being buried with tractors in 'Schindler's List,' did we?