Seventy-two years after the Nanjing Massacre, the atrocity remains an unresolved trauma. China estimates a death toll of some 300,000, while Japan has yet to offer a formal written apology. In Chinese director Lu Chuan’s
(陸川) third feature City of Life and Death (南京！南京！), this sensitive subject is given a dramatic contour that fortunately dwells neither on excessive grief nor nationalistic indignation.
Shot in black and white, the artistically accomplished film takes a gut-wrenching look at the brutalities that took place during a six-week period starting in December 1937. Not afraid of portraying the blurring of moral boundaries on either side of the conflict, director Lu chooses to show the irrationality of war through a succession of events centering on a small number of characters, both Chinese and Japanese, examining humanity in its faults and virtues.
It is the winter of 1937. We follow a Japanese soldier and enter the devastated Chinese capital of Nanjing. The camera shifts to a Chinese resistance fighter (played by Liu Ye, 劉燁) and his men. Suddenly there is an exchange of machine gun fire and exploding grenades. We can hardly tell the Japanese soldiers from the Chinese fighters as the camera frantically switches perspective back and forth between the two sides who are shown as equals in terms of mettle and morality.
We then move deeper into the city with young Japanese soldier Kadokawa (Hideo Nakaizumi). He and his fellow soldiers stumble upon a church where Chinese men, women and children have taken shelter. Kadokawa trembles, rushes out and screams for backup. His cries linger amid the devastated landscape.
The city is soon filled with corpses of executed Chinese soldiers and civilians. Those who manage to survive find shelter in a refuge area operated by a score of Westerners including the “good Nazi” John Rabe (John Paisley). Female teacher Jiang (Gao Yuanyuan, 高圓圓) helps to oversee the camp and is a heroic archetype willing to risk her life to save others. Rabe’s Chinese assistant Tang (Fan Wei, 范偉) plays the role of collaborator as he tries to save his family by striking a deal with the Japanese.
Meanwhile, the camera takes us on a journey through the conflicted Kadokawa’s own personal hell, as he is destroyed bit by bit by the inhumanity that surrounds him.
To visualize an atrocity rarely visited by cinema, director Lu blends gripping realism with a lyrical style that gives his imagery its haunting power. The elegant black-and-white cinematography by Cao Yu (曹郁) exudes a sense of sober detachment and spares the audience from experiencing the full effect of the violence and gore, which may have appeared intolerably monstrous if filmed in color.
However, as a dramatic reflection on a national trauma, the film is designed to imagine the unimaginable. The bulk of the film shows civilians and soldiers being herded into groups and massacred, women gang raped and children killed. The violence is portrayed in an almost matter-of-fact manner. It sickens and repels, but posits no deeper significance. Strangely enough, it is only when the director is done with the raping and killing that his cinematic poetry begins to surface, enthralling the audience with its rich complexity of composition and imagery.
With production designer Hao Yi’s (郝藝) sets of destroyed buildings and streets, Nanjing resembles an impressionistic limbo that reflects the psychological frenzy and spiritual void of its inhabitants. The Japanese soldiers look no better than their ghostly victims, tramping through the desolate landscape like phantoms.
The most unforgettable cinematic moment takes place toward the end of the film. A Japanese victory ritual is performed with rhythmic drumming and dancing by soldiers. The men perform ceremonial gestures, slowly marching down the empty, ruined streets. The sight is eerie and unworldly, much like the atrocity itself. An unthinkable horror has been rendered in cinematic form right before our eyes, yet it remains unfathomable even seven decades later.
Cheng Ching-hsiang (鄭青祥) turned a small triangle of concrete jammed between two old shops into a cool little bar called 9dimension. In front of the shop, a steampunk-like structure was welded by himself to serve as a booth where he prepares cocktails. “Yancheng used to be just old people,” he says, “but now young people are coming and creating the New Yancheng.” Around the corner, Yu Hsiu-jao (饒毓琇), opened Tiny Cafe. True to its name, it is the size of a cupboard and serves cold-brewed coffee. “Small shops are so special and have personality,” she says, “people come to Yancheng to find such treasures.” She
Late last month Philippines Foreign Affairs Secretary Theresa Lazaro told the Philippine Senate that the nation has sufficient funds to evacuate the nearly 170,000 Filipino residents in Taiwan, 84 percent of whom are migrant workers, in the event of war. Agencies have been exploring evacuation scenarios since early this year, she said. She also observed that since the Philippines has only limited ships, the government is consulting security agencies for alternatives. Filipinos are a distant third in overall migrant worker population. Indonesia has over 248,000 workers, followed by roughly 240,000 Vietnamese. It should be noted that there are another 170,000
In July of 1995, a group of local DJs began posting an event flyer around Taipei. It was cheaply photocopied and nearly all in English, with a hand-drawn map on the back and, on the front, a big red hand print alongside one prominent line of text, “Finally… THE PARTY.” The map led to a remote floodplain in Taipei County (now New Taipei City) just across the Tamsui River from Taipei. The organizers got permission from no one. They just drove up in a blue Taiwanese pickup truck, set up a generator, two speakers, two turntables and a mixer. They
Hannah Liao (廖宸萱) recalls the harassment she experienced on dating apps, an experience that left her frightened and disgusted. “I’ve tried some voice-based dating apps,” the 30-year-old says. “Right away, some guys would say things like, ‘Wanna talk dirty?’ or ‘Wanna suck my d**k?’” she says. Liao’s story is not unique. Ministry of Health and Welfare statistics show a more than 50 percent rise in sexual assault cases related to online encounters over the past five years. In 2023 alone, women comprised 7,698 of the 9,413 reported victims. Faced with a dating landscape that can feel more predatory than promising, many in
RSS