Rediscovering a massacre: The filmic legacy of Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking

Abstract

In December 1937, the then-Chinese capital of Nanjing fell to the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). China, under the control of the Nationalist government (the KMT), had been engaged in full-scale conflict with Japan since July of that year in what is known as the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). During 1937, Japanese forces captured several major Chinese cities, including Shanghai, whose taking enabled the invading army to advance on the capital. By the time the IJA entered an already-bombarded Nanjing on December 13, the KMT had withdrawn its army, leaving the city officially defenceless. The events that ensued over six weeks – including mass rape and killing of both civilians and disarmed military personnel – are known collectively as the Nanjing Massacre. Its death toll remains hotly disputed particularly among Japanese historians, though the official Chinese estimate is 300,000. This figure, set in stone as if to quantify the city's trauma, has confronted visitors to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum since its opening in 1985.

Notes

 1. For an analysis of this dispute, see Tanaka Sakai, ‘Rekindling China-Japan Conflict: The Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands Clash’ at http://www.japanfocus.org/-Tanaka-Sakai/3418 (accessed October 27, 2010).

 2. Chang's work has also made a lasting impact on history education in certain parts of North America: in two Canadian provinces, content on the Massacre is included in high school history textbooks (http://www.nj1937.org/showZXXX.asp?id = 1611, accessed September 22, 2009).

 3. For further discussion of winning ‘face’ from Western countries, particularly when conflict with Japan arises, see Peter Hays Gries, China's New Nationalism, 2004.

 4. The film has attracted large numbers of ‘hits’, though many are likely to have been incidental or incomplete. The English version (part one only) had been viewed 1.358 million times by mid-January 2010 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = YoW2WYdOsvg&feature = related, accessed January 17, 2010), significantly more than the Chinese version, which had been viewed just over 450,000 times (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = TgENINXPrAM, accessed January 17, 2010). A Japanese-narrated version had been viewed approximately 100,000 times (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = hIUro3olXlY, accessed January 17, 2010). Access to youtube has been blocked intermittently in mainland China since the release of Joseph's film and as of September 2010, the site could not be readily accessed there.

 5. The website does not provide the dates for these comments.

 6. ‘Fifth generation director’ (di wu dai daoyan) is a widely used term in Chinese discourse to refer to those film-makers who graduated from Beijing film school in the early 1980s (the first to do so in the post-Mao Zedong era). Among the best-known members of this group are Zhang Yimou , Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang .

 7. This was a follow-up to Mou's 1988 ‘shockumentary’ Men Behind the Sun or Hei Taiyang 731 (‘Black Sun 731’) which portrayed Japanese biological warfare experiments (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sun:_The_Nanking_Massacre and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sun:731, accessed December 20, 2009).

 8. This film is known by two names in Chinese: ‘Nanjing Massacre’ ( Nanjing Datusha) or ‘The Forgotten 1937’ ( Bei yiwang de yi jiu san qi).

 9. Zhang Chunru—Nanjing Datusha. The film's subtitle, in Chinese only, is ‘Dedicating one's Life to the Illumination of History’ Yong shengming zhaoliang lishi.

10. This statement raises the question of what constitutes an apology. Over the decades Japanese political leaders have repeatedly issued apologies. One of the best-known instances of this was Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka's 1972 meeting with Chinese leader Mao Zedong. Mao famously went on to express gratitude for the Japanese presence in China in the 1930s, since it was this that weakened the CCP's enemy, the Nationalists.

11. Chinese title: Nanjing! Nanjing!

12. City of Life and Death won the ‘Golden Shell’ award for best film at 2009's San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain. (http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90782/90875/6769227.html, accessed January 18, 2010). Lu Chuan, a member of the ‘sixth generation’ of Chinese film directors, won ‘Achievement in Directing’ at the 2009 Asia Pacific Screen Awards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu_Chuan, accessed January 18, 2010).

13. In making this judgement, Kraicer briefly compares City of Life and Death with The Founding of a Republic ( Jianguo Daye, a film made as a centrepiece of the 60th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the People's Republic of China). Unlike City, Founding offers an unambiguous narrative of progress to an end-goal. The film's popularity was aided by the appearances of leading Chinese actors, including playful cameos by global stars such as Jackie Chan Zhang Ziyi and Jet Li . ‘A Matter of Life and Death: Lu Chuan and Post-Zhuxuanlu Cinema’ in Cinema Scope at http://cinema-scope.com/wordpress/?page_id = 1161, accessed January 18, 2010.