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"City of Life and Death:" the most realistic battle sequence ever filmed. Period.

Posted by tinear (A) on April 10, 2011 at 09:57:45

I've seen the contenders, but this Chinese film, in the first 15 minutes, raises the bar. What makes it all the more remarkable is that the fighting is urban close quarters: the fight for the old Chinese capital of Nanking during WWII. The Japanese, of course, prevailed.
In this huge budget Chinese film that was a box office smash (around the world, I don't think it found a distributor here), Japanese soldiers are shown massacring, raping, and pillaging after Nangking fell in a very short time. The story centers on a young Japanese sergeant and his gradual dehumanization as he first observes and then participates. Within the occupied city, some of the women had been protected by the German ambassador (the Nazis were friendly both to the Chinese and the Japanese prior to the invasion of China), but as he is forced to flee, their position becomes dependent on the good will of the Japanese commander and the influence the Chinese liaison to the Germans can wield.
That key Chinese official, Mr. Tang, and his wife and children, become additional focal points for the story. As they become increasingly alarmed by the cold-blooded murder of the civilian males, a further horror becomes evident: the Japanese force captured females to become "comfort women:" they are forced into prostitution, expected to serve man after man ( 15-minute frame is considered, "normal") until shock, infection, or internal injuries cause death.
Earlier, possibly the most horrific scenes ever filmed, masses of POWs are mercilessly executed in variously different ways, i.e. drowning, live burial, burning, machine-gunned, exploded by grenades, bayoneted.
This film hasn't won many awards, even in China, because not long after its initial popularity, some Chinese began to protest over the fact that the director chose to focus so much on the Japanese soldier and his friend: though they perform absolutely brutal acts, they are also shown as human beings (making it even more horrific, to my eyes).
This is not the artistic equal of the masterworks of some Russians or of Kubrick, and others, but it has a greater impact because of its extremely powerful cinematography and the fact that so much of the violence is systematically perpetrated on defenseless women.
Strongly recommended.

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