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City of Life and Death [Blu-ray]

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As far as definitions for Hell on Earth go, the assault on the Chinese city of Nanking by the invading Japanese army in 1937 is certainly on a par with the horrors of the worst of the Nazi concentration camps. Ruthlessly and systematically wiping out of the Chinese army soldiers defending the town, the abuse, torture and mass execution of citizens and the notorious rape and murder of the city's women engaged as "comfort women" for the Japanese troops is one of the darkest moments in the history of modern war crimes.

It's a harrowing subject with material of such a degree of obscenity that, despite it being a popular subject for film with several documentary attempts and another film about John Rabe released around the same time as this one, it's a difficult one to approach within the limits of what a conventional war movie can show. Appropriately then, Lu Chuan adopts a style and approach similar to Steven Spielberg in Schindler's List, shooting in eye-catching widescreen black-and-white, taking in multiple viewpoints that chart the complete breakdown of any recognisable human qualities into barbarism on an unimaginable scale. Initially, there's the view from the Chinese soldiers defending the city, as well as the view from a young Japanese officer Kadokawa. The city taken, the view switches to the "Safe Zone" (which in reality is far from safe at all) established by the Nazi representative in the town John Rabe, seen mainly from the perspective of his Chinese assistant Mr Tang, his wife and family.

City of Life and Death is an exceptionally well-made film, a true war epic, although, like Schindler's List, it could also be accused of being much too attractively photographed in glossy black-and-white, effectively glamorising a subject that should simply be unwatchable. It's hard to imagine however how else a film about the Rape of Nanking could be made. What matters is how honestly and effectively the film approaches the subject and the historical reality, and while it spares us graphic detail of the worst abuses, the full mounting horror of what occurred and the impact it must have had on individuals caught up within it is unquestionably fully felt. A powerful and moving film then and essential viewing, but like Schindler's List, perhaps not one you'd want to come back to watch very often.

So once again the god of Asian cinema has shined upon me and delivered something new to my doorstep. While admittedly, I'm often hesitant to embrace the genre of film I refer to as "soul-scorchers" since they tend to revel in a combination of realistic atrocity and overwrought sentimentality that I find manipulative and distasteful, I am still of the opinion that one must partake of them from time to time if only to be reminded just what your fellow man is capable of. I found "City of Life and Death" to be an effective, yet somehow disconnected chronicling of some of the events of the second World War in Asia. I would in fact, consider this mandatory viewing to those whose knowledge of WWII only reflects the Eurocentric viewpoint we were all taught in school. Europe and America were not the only countries involved in this worldwide atrocity that has bafflingly been referred to in our country as "the greatest generation". Apparently, body counts is the way we are keeping score on that. I'm personally glad my generation is lagging a bit. The film covers the Japanese conquest and subsequent tyrannical reign in the Chinese capitol of Nanjing, where the story is told from several viewpoints, all sympathetic, and often opposing.

I'm not quite sure what people will make of this one. While it certainly avoids the overt sentimentality of your typical Hollywood stuff, the actors all give strong emotional performances. But the lack of a prominent score removes much of the manipulative elements and the filmmaker simply lets the black-and-white imagery and the trials of the characters speak for themselves only occasionally filling otherwise silent scenes with an unaccompanied piano or violin. At times it feels as though punches are being pulled, but at the same time the director obviously felt strongly about presenting the events in an entirely neutral manner and allowing the viewer to make of it what they will. It almost feels like more of a historical documentary at times in that aspect. The battle that happens early in the film is extremely well put together and very clearly illustrates the events and strategies at play where scenes often fall into chaos and rely on violence and explosions. I was very impressed with the realism. When the Japanese armor arrives, the Chinese have only two options: scatter or surrender. Those who surrender are all penned up like cattle down to the little boy who was only fetching ammo. As they are marched out of their pen, you certainly get a bad feeling, but when you see they are being marched to the sea, my blood ran cold as I tried to imagine what the victims must have felt like knowing the inevitable. Some are buried while still alive after being cut down like wheat by a machine gun scythe, but most are simply left where they lie. Too much trouble to bury all of the roughly 300,000 who were massacred during this ordeal.

Now ask yourself this: how do yo know when things literally can not get any worse? How about when a nazi is the voice of reason and compassion? How cruel does an occupying force have to be to make a god-cursed nazi cry? Watch the film and find out. After most of the troops are disposed of, the Japanese army spares no expense brutally hunting down any possible survivors, even barging into hospitals and shooting the wounded in their beds. But it's the abominable practice of rounding up "comfort women" that finally makes the sympathetic German overseer of the international "safe zone" set up to offer shelter for refugees crack. Mothers, sisters, and daughters all forced to prostitute themselves to the army who slaughtered their friends and family and destroyed their homes. These women literally serviced one soldier after another until they died hoping that their sacrifice would prevent the army from slaughtering the remainder of their people. Now, let it be noted that Japan has denied the existence of these practices. And let me add that only the lowest of the lowest scum would deny an act that has literally thousands of living witnesses. What's that? You say rape and genocide are old news? You want more personal violence? Well how about a Japanese soldier tossing a small child out of a window a few stories off the ground while the parents look on? Something for everybody here.

Many of the characters in City of Life and Death are based on actual people and their historical accounts of the events of the Nanking Massacre. One, at least, is still alive to tell the story. I wouldn't get attached to most of the cast, though. There's a whole lot of death in this city and not so much life. Plenty of character development to go around, though. The German, Chinese, and Japanese viewpoints are all presented admirably, heroic sacrifices are made, and one prominent character makes it out to the other side only to decide he cannot live with what he's seen. Powerful stuff all around. There are also some very interesting moments that stand out. I was particularly fond of the Japanese victory parade sequence. The barbaric garishness of these troops dancing in unison through the rubble-filled streets of the city they emptied with their brutality is both a fascinating look at the culture and a black irony that borders on the comedic. The tragedy of a scene where the Japanese try their hand at benevolence by allowing a wagon of condemned men a chance to be rescued by their sobbing family members is almost palpable. The women are told that they may only take one man each, else they will be shot. So if your father and husband are both on the wagon, better make the choice, ladies.

City of Life and Death can't exactly be called an entertaining film, but it is a fantastic historical portrayal of some of the horrors of the second World War in Asia. If you were wondering why Japan isn't allowed to keep an army to this day, this film may answer that question for you. Some viewers may feel a bit disconnected from the events due to the film's unusual style, but that's all part of the extremely objective viewpoint fostered throughout by the director, Lu Chuan. You are simply there to observe the trials and tribulations as they happened and are not nudged to shed tears by sappy music or excessively dramatic shots and shoe-horned romance. That is both the film's strong and weak point. If they wished it, it could have been a much more horrific film to shake you to your very soul. But as it is, it is a fairly sterile telling of a few of the atrocities visited upon the people of a single city in China while the world looked the other way. And it does a great job of it. The cast and crew were extremely brave and Chuan suffered quite a bit to get the film made with resistance from both the Chinese people (who objected to the balanced POV), and the Japanese actors he attempted to garner for the soldier roles. Most prominent Japanese actors refused and some of those who accepted reportedly suffered nervous breakdowns on the set after realizing just what their people had done and having to re-enact the deeds. But the fact that neither side seems to be happy with the finished product means the filmmaker did his job and effectively portrayed the reality of the situation and didn't get hung up on emotional exploitation. Big thumbs up on that.

Although widely reported at the time, the events in Nanking during the period 1937 to 1938 was really only brought to popular awareness in the Western world with the 1997 publication of Iris Chang's book "The Rape of Nanking". Since then, there have been a number of film and television productions that have been based on the fall of Nanking. "City of Life and Death" is a recent entrant in the Nanking genre, but it is probably one of the best due to its high production values.

The plot is based around the fall of Nanking, and the subsequent atrocities, as seen through the eyes of Kadokawa, a young Japanese soldier experiencing the horrors of war, and the evils perpetuated by his comrades as the populace is ruthlessly suppressed by the Japanese. Sections of the narrative are provided from the Chinese and Western participants, notably John Rabe, the "Good Nazi", who oversaw the "Safety Zone" together with his Chinese assistant Mr. Tang and his wife. These individuals attempted to protect a number of civilians as well as wounded KMT soldiers by harbouring them in the Safety Zone, even though the Japanese regularly ignored the neutrality of the Safety Zone.

Filmed entirely in black and white, "City of Life and Death" had a decent production budget of around $12,000,000 according to Imdb.com, and this is clearly apparent in the battle sequences. The main battle sequence is simply stunning and will invite comparisons to the final battle sequence in "Saving Private Ryan". There appear to be a staggering number of extras as well, and this adds significant impact to the crowd scenes - notably the opening sequence in which Chinese militia attempt to break out of Nanking while the regular KMT soldiers attempt to keep them within the city. The editing and cinematography is top drawer stuff. A minor grizzle is that at certain points in the narrative, postcards written in english are used as fact/caption cards to update the viewer on background events - because these are already in english, the captions are only translated into Chinese subtitles. However, the english cursive script on the postcards is actually quite hard to read in the time available.

Given it is a Chinese film, it was interesting to see that the key role of Kadokawa is sympathetically treated, and the film's director was critised for this in mainland China. Japanese actor Hideo Nakaizumi gives a compelling performance as Kadokawa, and one gets a sense of the character's moral dilemmas. His compatriot Ryu Kohata puts in a chilling turn as Kadokawa's superior officer. Ye Liu (from "Curse of the Golden Flower") is steady in his role as a KMT soldier, and is overshadowed by the female members of the cast, particularly Jiang Yiyan as Mrs. Jiang.

"City of Life and Death" is not easy viewing; the battle sequences are intense, and the atrocities are realistically depicted (scenes of rape are treated with relative restraint). It is most certainly grim to watch. Nonetheless, "City of Life and Death" is one of those rare "must see" movies, in the vein of Schlinder's List, for its tragic portrayal of the events of 1937, in Nanking.

CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH is a masterpiece - of film making, of finding the midline of response to war from both sides, of cautiously but successfully blending intimate stories with the gory atrocities of war, and of recreating a period of history we too soon forget unless prodded by works such as this. Lu Chuan both wrote and directed this vision of the 1937 decimation of Nanking, the capital of China, by the Japanese that lasted in action for only six weeks but that has been a permanent festering wound on the history of mankind that will always be a reminder to what War is about.

Subtitled NANKING! NANKING! the audience is led to expect a film honoring the Chinese who bravely fought to resist of the Japanese invasion and ultimate destruction of the then capital of China. Instead the writer/director elects to put us in the midst of the war, showing all aspects of how war changes and affects and destroys people. The black and white film is able to create the illusion that we are actually in 1937 Nanking. We meet several important personalities from that time: the Chinese Resistance leader Lu Jianxiong (the inordinately gifted and handsome actor Ye Liu), the Chinese schoolteacher Miss Jiang (Yuanyuan Gao) who fights constantly to save her people, the Nazi German John Rabe (John Paisley) who maintains a Safety Zone to protect the Chinese until the Nazis recall him to avoid insulting their Japanese allies, Rabe's Chinese assistant and translator Mr Tang (Wei Fan) and his wife (Lan Qin) who despite the suffering they endure from the Japanese still are selfless in the choices they make to help their people, and Kadokawa (and impressive Hideo Nakaizumi) who as a Japanese soldier is a symbol for those warriors who are conflicted about the cruelty inflicted on the Chinese. These individuals provide stories with the story that allow the viewer to connect to the human aspect of the victims and the perpetrators of the annihilation we are witnessing. There are devastating scenes of the forced 'comfort houses' created to keep the Japanese soldiers happy, the demanded selection of 100 Chinese women to provide physical gratification to the enemy, the massacre of thousands of citizens - men, women, children - and the destruction of the very city itself. But Lu Chuan balances these with some very tender moments, such as the first sexual encounter of a virgin soldier with a prostitute and how he interprets this experience as love to the point of providing as much gratitude and safety to the prostitute as he can, and the incredibly tender scenes between Lu Jianxiong and a little boy who brings him bullets.

The cast is stunning and while many of us do not recognize the faces, they are obviously some of the cream of the crop of Chinese and Japanese actors. Yu Cao is in charge of the very realistic and photographically perfect cinematography and the musical score by Tony Liu is not only appropriate for the theme of the film but also provides some very simple Western piano music for the intimate scenes. There are multiple choices of subtitles including English. CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH not only documents a piece of martial history that is important to remember, but it is also another way of viewing how WAR can alter the minds and lives of those on both side of the battle. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, June 11

What the hell is wrong with people? This is a film that will leave you feeling numb and almost ashamed to be a human being. Now I've seen the movie Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre, plus I've read two in-depth reviews of this movie. But nothing could totally prepare me for the atrocities I was about to witness in CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH. The fact that this story is totally true makes it impossible to disregard, even for the most jaded of gorehounds like myself.

Superbly acted and shot in beautiful black and white, Director Lu Chuan somehow brings an element of grace and elegance to a barbaric story. The fact he seems to be holding back on the overall horrors of this terrible moment is evident. It's almost like he slices your throat and then gives you an oxygen mask to breathe.

There is an early war scene that stands alone as one of the most powerful and haunting scenes ever filmed in the history of cinema. I won't comment on the details, but it is guaranteed to leave you frozen in your seat. It is completely riveting, however it also proves to be this film's only downfall. The entire rest of the movie seems pretty anti-climatic.

For any person with a thirst for history, regardless of the harsh realities that this encompasses, CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH is essential viewing. To ignore the evils of yesterday simply embraces its return. Thank you Woopak.

This is a docu-drama of a Chinese soldier, a Japanese soldier, a Chinese teacher, Nazi businessman Rabe and his Chinese secretary in the 1937 Rape of Nanking, China.

Director Lu used montage on Japanese atrocities of massacre in stabbing, burying alive, burning, machine-gun mowing, head chopping with mountains of corpses, a horror scene of hell. It was impossible to condense the large scale of over six weeks slaughters and raping of innocent Chinese people in this film. However, he successfully chilled viewers the cold-blood horror.

Of significance was his choice of emphasize - the close-up shot the Chinese soldier of endurance and defiant; the sun beam through the window on the raised hand in volunteering to be the first "comfort woman"; and the challenge eye-sight and words "shoot me" from the teacher who saved six male strangers as relatives by changing six sets of clothes.

In the film the non-historical Japanese victory drum dance and the memorial service for the fallen soldiers in China illustrated the Bushido loyalty to the Emperor. Such blind faith carried over even after the unconditional surrender in 1945 with government officials including Prime Minister make frequent tribute visits to Tokyo Yasukuni Shrine where housed the executed war criminals of Tokyo Trial.

The recent book The Undaunted Women of Nanking included side by side the diaries of Minnie Vautrin and Tsen Shui-fang, validating the Japanese war crimes. The Japanese soldier, Kadokawa in the film looked more like American than Japanese in outfit; the gun is not the typical German Mauser. At the end of film, he released the two Chinese after personal reflection and killed himself, still in his blind loyalty to the Emperor system.

This film is a story of black of white, life and death, yin and yan, fact and fiction, strong and weak, good and evil, humanity and violence. To the victims and survivors, the film is a memorial. To young people, it is a review of history to fight for humanity and justice. To foreigners, it illustrates the contribution of endurance and courage of Chinese people in engaging Japanese invaders in China mainland so that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan would not be able to join forces in Middle East to conquer the world. Moreover, is it a communist exploitation of nationalism to stage anti-Japanese propaganda as always alleged by Western media? To the Japanese, it sugar-coated the Japanese atrocities on an imaginary Imperial solder with humanity and mercy. This film challenges all to check why the perpetrators still keep on whitewashing, distorting and even denying the Rape of Nanking. Will they follow soldier Kadokawa to Nanking for atonement and contrition?

The Undaunted Women of Nanking: The Wartime Diaries of Minnie Vautrin and Tsen Shui-fang

City of life and death by director Lu Chuan is one of the greatest war-movies ever . The movie is about when the japanese army occupied the former capitol of China , Nanjing ( Nanking ) in 1937 and killed over 200.000 and raped tens thousand of chinese women . The movie is pretended in black and white and with a amazing music score by Liu Tong . Definitely not for the weak-hearted , absolutly terrifying . 5 big stars

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Chuan Lu, the talented director of 'City of Life and Death', was faced with a quandary in attempting to recount the "Rape of Nanking", perhaps the single greatest series of atrocities committed by the Japanese occupation force during the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Just as the Jewish people always say "never forget" when it comes to remembering the Holocaust, the Chinese people also feel compelled to "never forget" and recall their own Holocaust. But Mr. Lu can't ignore the fact that the Japanese people of 1937 are not the same people of today, and his compulsion to reconcile the past and the present was perhaps his greatest challenge in writing the screenplay.

Ironically, Lu ended up receiving death threats, not from the Japanese but from some Chinese people who felt that he did not extract a sufficient enough "pound of flesh" as compensation for those who suffered during the Occupation. I can recall my own grandparents, who had relatives that were killed in the Holocaust, speak ever so harshly of the Germans and wanted nothing to do with any of them--even those born after the War. Because it was an emotional issue, they ignored the Biblical admonition found in Ezekiel 18:20: "The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father's iniquity". The same can be said for many Chinese people who are unable to forgive the Japanese, even though rationally it makes no sense that those born after the war are blamed for their parents or grandparents' crimes. While Director Lu's reconciliation strategy is a noble one, I'm not completely convinced the way he went about expressing his attitude of 'forgiveness' toward the Japanese, enhanced the story, strengthening its verisimilitude.

Where the film is successful, is in the multitude of indelible images that re-create the horror show that was 1937 Nanking. The images from the film's opening sequence are shattering as they suggest an escalating atmosphere of terror that affected both the Chinese civilian and military population . One image that really sticks in my mind are the Chinese soldiers trying to escape the walled city and are unsuccessfully held back by their commanders. For those soldiers who stayed behind, they're shown to be courageous as they fight back against an overwhelmingly superior force. When they are finally defeated and surrender, the brutal Japanese soldiers take no prisoners. Some are herded into a warehouse with the doors locked shut and then the building is set on fire. Others are marched to the ocean and almost all are machine-gunned to death. Before they're murdered, the soldiers shout "Long live China" and again show their courage against their brutal occupiers.

Worse is what happens to the civilian population, especially the Chinese women. The Japanese force the leaders in the 'Safety Zone' (an area where refugees were supposedly protected by an agreement with international observers) to select 100 women to serve as prostitutes over a period of three weeks for the Japanese soldiers. The women are strapped to beds and are raped continuously through the day and night. Some fail to survive the ordeal and who can forget the scene where the soldiers carry out the nude corpses in a wheelbarrow? The strategies of the Japanese troops recall the sadism of their Nazi counterparts in the book & film, 'Sophies Choice'. You'll recall that Sophie was forced to select one of her children over another by the Nazis. In Nanking, the Japanese play their own little sadistic game--they lead families to believe that their loved ones will be let go--but then order the families to choose only one!

Of all the characters here, Mr. Tang is the most compelling. Tang was John Rabe's interpreter and assistant. When Rabe informs him that he's being recalled back to Germany, Tang makes a pact with the devil by informing the Japanese commanders that there might be Chinese soldiers hiding out in the safety zone; he does this to obtain a safe conduct pass in order to save his family. This admission creates the pretext for the occupiers to violate the agreement and invade the safety zone in order to commit more atrocities. Tang soon learns that the Japanese had no intention of honoring their side of the bargain and a Japanese soldier ends up throwing Tang's daughter out the window. In an act of redemption, Tang trades places with a soldier and remains behind as his wife escapes when she leaves Nanking with John Rabe.

Lu is unsuccessful when he attempts to throw a bone to the Japanese people of today by creating the unconvincing character of Kadokawa. According to Lu, he based Kadokawa's character on diaries he read of Japanese soldiers who were in Nanking during the massacres. Although there may have been a few soldiers who were repulsed by what they saw, the vast majority were more like Ida, Kadokawa's sadistic direct superior. Lu has trouble fleshing out his Kadokawa character--he shows his sensitive side to a Japanese 'comfort girl' who he claims that one day she'll be his wife. And later, Kadokawa shoots Miss Jiang as a mercy killing and then does himself in, as he is unable to cope with his guilt. But it's really not enough--Kadokawa is an anachronistic presence, designed to suggest that Japanese people weren't that bad, even back then. But in 1937, the mindset of the average Japanese person, was decidedly quite fanatical.

What Lu merely needed to do was put a disclaimer at the beginning of the film, noting that Japan transformed itself after the War and that the son should not pay for the iniquity of the father. Without Kadokawa (or perhaps having him as a greatly reduced presence), 'City' would have been much more true to life and there would have been no misunderstanding Lu was blaming the Japanese born after WW II, who bear no responsibility for the bloody scenes that happened so long ago.

I wanted to see this after having seen, `City of War' last year which allegedly tells the story of John Rabe, who is acknowledged for having saved thousands of Chinese during what has gone down I history as `The rape of Nanking'. This film aims to tell the true version of events and includes the efforts made by John Rabe and the small international delegation that stayed on to help the Chinese.

Director Lu Chuan tells the unrelenting horror story of the six week occupation in an observational way but it is impossible to not become partisan as the Japanese are seen to be little short of murdering monsters. He uses several characters to tell the story and has interestingly included an Imperial Japanese Army soldier who has a guilty conscience. He even feels he is having a relationship with on of the euphemistically titled `comfort girls'. This depiction of a confused and caring Japanese soldier actually brought death threats to Lu and his family as being over sympathetic and it was removed from some mailnland Chinese cinemas, however it was saved by the personal support from Li Changchun, a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China.

That aside this is unrelenting in its quite often graphic depiction of the murders, beheadings rapes, and mass executions that took place taking the lives of 300,000 Chinese.

It is shot entirely in black and white and is actually lit brilliantly to give it a period feel (probably to reflect that these events took place in 1937). However the cinematographic beauty aside, this was a very harrowing and sobering film, which I must confess I found hard to get through. That is not because it runs for 130 mins, but because I found the constant brutality a bit much and I do not consider myself to be a bit soft on such matters. The only film I ever walked out of for gross content was `Salo -or 120 days of Sodom' (I was actually in my own home at the time). Even though this is blisteringly real, beautifully shot and exceptionally well acted, I found it both demanding and moving.

As I said above this is not for the faint hearted and accusations of anti Japanese propaganda should be dismissed as this tends towards trying to examine the human spirit in the depths of loss and despair. A truly excellent and stunning piece of cinema.

This movie shows the Japanese Rape of Nanking in 1937 and it had a very profund effect on me. It leaves a person shaking with disbelief. It is hard to think that human beings can be capable of such things - great evil and great good.

I think this is one of the best War movies ever. There was nothing glorious about it. I watched war for the savage and disgusting mess it really is - for civillian people caught up in it - the soldiers de-humanised by it. I would recomend any person to watch this film - it packs a huge emotional punch that will leave most people reeling.