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Pacific Historian
New Movie: NANKING
American movie about 1937 Japanese assault of Nanjing opening in
China amid new debate
By MIN LEE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
An American movie about Japan's mass slaughter of Chinese citizens in
the World War 11 era will be released in China next week amid renewed
friction between the country's over the atrocity's actual death toll.
"Nanking" will premiere in Beijing July 3 and be released across in
China on July 7, the film's publicists said Monday.
The movie examines the Japanese killings by mixing archival footage
and actors' readings of witness accounts from Westerners who
protected Chinese refugees. Among the actors are Woody Harrelson and
Mariel Hemingway.
Historians generally agree the Japanese army slaughtered at least
150,000 civilians and raped tens of thousands of women in the rampage
in Nanjing in 1937 that became known as "The Rape of Nanking," using
the name by which the city was known in the West at that time.
About 100 Japanese ruling party lawmakers drew criticism from China
after saying last week that documents from their government's
archives indicated only about 20,000 people were killed in the 1937 attack.
The head of the group accused China of inflating the number of
victims for propaganda purposes.
In response, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said 300,000 people
died in the massacre and accused the lawmakers of ignorance.
Anti-Japanese feeling over the Nanjing atrocities among the Chinese
public remains strong. Demonstrators vandalized Japanese shops and
smashed windows at Japanese diplomatic offices in Shanghai and
Beijing in April 2005 to protest alleged whitewashing of atrocities
in Japanese textbooks.
Many Japanese conservatives are disgruntled over what they claim are
exaggerated stories of Japanese brutality during World War II.
The film, directed by Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman, was partly shot
in Nanjing.
"Nanking" apparently has the blessing of the Chinese government,
which carefully controls foreign productions either shot or released
in the country.
Guttentag said in a recent interview with The Associated Press that
while the directors submitted an outline of the movie to the Chinese
government, local authorities did not interfere with its editorial direction.
