Since I’ve been watching movies ever since I got home from break, I thought to myself, why not write up a simple review of a movie I recommend (not gonna mention any stinkers here!) since that’s virtually all I’ve been doing since I got home. In Rochester, there wasn’t much time for movies other than the occasional blockbuster like Harry Potter or The Hunger Games. Here, however, I watch an average of three movies a day because that’s how exciting it is being back home.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not always all on movies. There’s also books. Okay I lied. There’s only been one I’ve read so far, and it was a pretty good one. The Stranger by Albert Camus. But a book is not the primary topic of blogging here, movies are the main topic.
Back to the point…again. After a long long list of movies I’ve seen that ranged from Men in Black 3 to Midnight in Paris to The Grey….there was one movie that really stood out to me. It was a foreign movie that portrayed the gruesome and pretty intense events that occurred during the Rape of Nanking back in 1937
I was scrolling across the movies Comcast offered and one of them was a little known movie that was relatively new, coming out in 2009 in China. City of Life and Death was a title that caught my eye, as I read an intriguing article about the top war movies made in Asia; this one topped the list at #1. After watching the movie, I can see why this got some rave reviews. One could describe it as half Schindler’s List with another half We Were Soldiers. As I turned off the television, thoughts dashed across my mind as I was in disbelief. This story was based on true events of when Japan invaded Nanking, a city in China and raped thousands of women. It followed the struggles of specific characters, ranging from a Chinese head assistant to a very important German figure to a well-known schoolteacher to a young boy. I think this movie had a deeper impact on me because of my Japanese roots, and it was a little hard to grasp that my heritage was the enemy. I could not understand how human beings were reduced to such unjust actions, as this opened my eyes to the cold reality of what happened in Nanking that year.
This movie was very difficult for me to watch, and part of me could barely bear to endure the entire movie. The cinematography and shot selections were very graceful as shot after shot only added more emotion and it had been a while since I’ve watched a movie where I feel like time just flew by. Before I knew it, it was approaching 2 AM (I started at midnight-ish). I was blown away by how real this movie was, and everything was just believable from the acting to the settings. It was almost as if one could watch the whole thing as it really unfolded in a separate reality.
I would absolutely recommend this movie only with a warning that it involves harsh images of war and cringing portrayals of rape. Beyond all that, this was everything one would want to see in a movie as there was a story behind it, supported by character development and an outstanding editing job. I couldn’t hear the movie but I could imagine that the sound effects only added to the emotional context towards the movie. My hat goes off to the directer, Chuan Lu, for gathering the courage and willpower to do a film like this because there aren’t many out there who have the guts to tackle a serious part of history. It’s not everyday that I watch the credits roll up at the end and say to myself, “what just happened here?” I just had to do more research on this, and I found out it wasn’t advertised very much outside of China due to their now-close ties with Japan and America. Some were afraid that the political context revealed would make countries outside China look bad and they didn’t want to hinder any relationships, as one source explained.
City of Life and Death (2009) – Directed by Chuan Lu.
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