Comments on: Nanking succeeds at the office but fails in history

By: Tina

Tina — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:09:13 +0000

I don’t think it’s possible to make a realistic, humane, all-perspectives-taken-in movie about history because history is too subjective for such things. I’m glad the movie did great commercially though… shows that people still care about the past.

By: idarklight

idarklight — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:33:55 +0000

Straight up real?
Straight up real is not Rabe kneeling in helplessness.
Straight up real is not Rabe’s assistant being a complete traitor.
Straight up real is not Japanese soldiers committing suicide due to the massacre.
Straight up real is not Japanese soldiers letting the Chinese go.

There have been exactly zero recorded instances of any of the above.

The human perspective?
Lu Chuan would rather show the perspective of someone who committed atrocities then committed suicide, of someone who only saw the cowardice and treachery of the Chinese, of someone who saw no good in the people he killed, but simply felt pity

than the perspectives of those who were killed, raped, who had their families wiped out, their home destroyed?

You go ahead and try to make a movie from the perspective of the poor Nazi’s who had to eliminate the cowardly, weak Jews and we’ll see how far you get.

By: Hank

Hank — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 05:52:38 +0000

See the movie people. The Japanese are not shown as “good” in the movie. In fact teh guy who plays the Japanese sergant does a great job of making me want to kick his evil head in. The Chinese people are not shown as “weak”. They are all shown as humans. This is not, thankfully, a China flag waving call to hate the Japanese kind of movie. This is a very strong portrayal of what it must have been like for all parties involved. I actually like the idea that the main character is Japanese soldier who witnesses the atrocities first hand and is torn. The Chinese characters not brave??? You obviously didn’t watch the film. Liu Ye’s character and his fellow soldiers who did not flee (and the majority of the Chinese army did in fact flee) are portrayed as brave as they get. Same with Gao’s character who essentially sacrifices herself when she is caught trying save condemned Chinese soldiers one at a time. Yes some of the Chinese are shown to be selfish but do you actually believe that none were?

I believe the critics of the movie are politically motivated. Those on the Ultra Nationalist Chinese side will want the Japanese portrayed as the ultimate evil who make that stupid evil laugh with the bad guy music playing in the background. Those on the Ultra Nationalist Japanese side will of course say this movie is a bag of lies and that none of this happened. And then there are the foreign China bashers who will say this is another commie propaganda flick.

WATCH THE MOVIE. I think Lu Chuan’s motivation was to show the events from 2 perspectives 1) the human perspective and 2) straight up real.

By: maiyue

maiyue — Tue, 26 May 2009 20:45:45 +0000

What? Japanese are shown good in this movie?? o_o”"
I’m not sure if I really support this “see japanese from another viewpoint” thought that is quite common in china now. I mean every person knows deep in his heart that japanese are normal humans too despite the inhumane things they did but still people shouldn’t forget about history… and what was done to us. ´_`
still i’m going to watch this movie, I’m a big fan of Liu Ye.

By: idarklight

idarklight — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:18:08 +0000

What psychology? The lead was nice. He almost never did anything wrong. The one time he went to a prostitute, he decided to marry her. Everyone else were one-sided, heartless soldiers who didn’t care about killing a baby or two for dinner.

If that’s the psychology he understands, then everyone else in his troop must’ve been horrible.

However the militarists understood WAR and that the Army was a lawnmower, it reached the objective no matter what it takes. And, if you happened to be in the way of the lawnmower, you got cut down.

Except lawnmowers don’t rape the grass before cutting it down. Or use them for medical experiments. Or dig its roots out and destroy all the seeds.

I don’t think Lu Chuan deserve death threats, but I also think Iris Chang didn’t deserve death threats. But if I had relatives who died in Nanking, I would want to kill him, too.

By: KY

KY — Mon, 25 May 2009 16:41:36 +0000

I think Lu Chuan understands the psychology of the Imperial Japanese Army. He was a career soldier. At the time, most of soldiers were bakers farmers and taxi drivers like normal people from the provinces. However the militarists understood WAR and that the Army was a lawnmower, it reached the objective no matter what it takes. And, if you happened to be in the way of the lawnmower, you got cut down. I don’t think he doesn’t deserve the death threats.

By: Billy

Billy — Tue, 12 May 2009 05:44:08 +0000

interesting, I was hearing alot of good international press about the movie, wanting to pick it up for global distribution and it being the next schindlers list and what not…. I’ll have to check it out for myself before I come to any conclusions.

By: cfensi

cfensi — Tue, 12 May 2009 00:19:08 +0000

idarklight watched it, and many of the reviews echo this statement.

I didn’t think that Lu Chuan would be the best director for the job when I made my post on this long ago, but I didn’t think he’d be so completely off the mark. And what pisses me off most is the fact that Zhang Yimou, who was who I had been setting my hopes on in making a really moving Nanking massacre movie, has decided not to because of Lu Chuan’s film. *cries* He could have been so good at it…the last scene of Red Sorghum left images in my mind for weeks, and he was so good at capturing the realistic relationships between people struggling to survive in To Live. His characters have all seemed so real to me, and he wouldn’t have made such holllow caricatures of the Nanking victims or the Japanese soldiers.

By: idarklight

idarklight — Mon, 11 May 2009 23:29:41 +0000

I have…and not exactly legally. *hides in shame* I just had to know what was causing all the fuss, and I can’t exactly fly to China to watch one movie.

Yeah, the director of the John Rabe museum was pretty unhappy about Lu Chuan’s portrayal of John Rabe, as am I.

This movie, imo, would be parallel to doing a movie about how this really nice Nazi killed this Jew who was a thief… it’s entirely possible, and we would feel for the nice Nazi guy and be glad the Jew was dead, and it should be noted there are probably some nice Nazi’s and not-so-nice Jews. However, such a movie is just irresponsible and not right.

By: kale

kale — Mon, 11 May 2009 23:12:05 +0000

so Idarklight, you have watched the movie? Did you watch it online? thanks.