Movie · 2009 · Drama, History, War · 2h 12m · R · Chinese
Curator score: 8.8/10 (19.8K ratings)
Overview
In 1937, during the height of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Imperial Japanese Army has just captured Nanjing, then-capital of the Republic of China. What followed was known as the Nanking Massacre, or the Rape of Nanking, a six week period wherein tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed.
Ratings
Curator score: 8.8/10
IMDb: 7.7/10
Letterboxd: 4.05/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 92%
Metacritic: 85
TMDB: 7.4/10
Director
Lu Chuan
Production
Media Asia Films, Stellar Megamedia, Jiangsu Broadcasting, Chuan Production Film Studio, China Film Group Corporation
Cast
Liu Ye, Gao Yuanyuan, Hideo Nakaizumi, John Paisley, Beverly Peckous, Fan Wei, Qin Lan, Ryu Kohata, Jiang Yiyan, Yao Di, Yisui Zhao, Sam Voutas, Aisling Dunne, Junichi Kajioka, Asano Nagahide, Yuko Miyamoto, Kai Wang, Liu Bin, Wang Jiahui, Asano Nagahide
Curator Review
Verdict
A devastating, formally controlled war film that treats the Nanjing Massacre with stark seriousness and moral weight. Its black-and-white imagery, restrained sound design, and focus on individual human suffering make it one of the most harrowing historical dramas of its kind.
Best for
Viewers seeking uncompromising war cinema
Fans of bleak historical dramas
People interested in Second Sino-Japanese War history
Viewers who appreciate austere black-and-white cinematography
Audiences comfortable with graphic atrocity and emotional distress
Skip if
You want an uplifting or cathartic war movie
You are sensitive to graphic violence, sexual violence, or mass killing
You prefer character-driven drama with a hopeful arc
You dislike slow, grim, observational filmmaking
Overview
Lu Chuan’s film is not interested in comfort, balance, or easy moral distance. It stages the Nanjing Massacre with a severe, almost clinical precision, using monochrome photography and disciplined composition to turn historical horror into something immediate and unbearable. The result is less a conventional war drama than a witness statement rendered in cinema.
Worth noting
What makes it so powerful is its refusal to reduce the atrocity to spectacle alone. The film keeps returning to small acts of fear, survival, cowardice, and compassion, letting the scale of the massacre emerge through individual lives. That human focus gives the film its emotional force, even when the images are almost too brutal to absorb.
Bottom line
This is essential viewing for anyone interested in war cinema as a moral and aesthetic form, but it is also punishing. The film’s achievement lies in how completely it commits to the horror of its subject, and how little it flinches from the consequences of showing it. It is unforgettable, but not easy to recommend lightly.
Top Letterboxd reviews
smallclone (4.5★) · 109 likes
This is the second time I have watched this film, and I think I rate it higher now than I did previously. I cannot understand why it is not spoken about as one of the greatest war films ever made. It is a masterpiece. The black and white cinematography is perfect for the gloomy atmosphere of war, as we see the events of the Nanking massacre unfold, and together with some of the most effective surround sound I've heard outside… more This is the second time I have watched this film, and I think I rate it higher now than I did previously. I cannot understand why it is not spoken about as one of the greatest war films ever made. It is a masterpiece. The black and white cinematography is perfect for the gloomy atmosphere of war, as we see the events of the Nanking massacre unfold, and together with some of the most effective surround sound I've heard outside… more
19oldboy91 (4.5★) · 92 likes
DuBFal-War-Weeks - Film Nummer Fünfzehn (15)
14 Uhr 40 am 15. Februar 2022, Götzis, Vorarlberg, Österreich
Eine sanfte Mannesstimme stößt in das den bildschirmausfüllende, in schwarz und weiß getauchte Bild abhandenkommender Freude und Lichtblicke der den Bildrand sprengenden Mauer von Nanking. Seine Stimme folgend wie reitend auf blutgeschwängerten Wellen, geben seine Worte die Inhaltsgabe der vergangenen Jahre des japanischen Vormansches liegengelassener und ihre Schutzhülle aufgebrochenen Leibern in das China Ostasiens.
Zerbombt und ausgehöhlt des verscheuchten und pulverisierten Lebens in flammenaufgehende… more
Scott Anderson (4.5★) · 71 likes
I don't even know how to express how I feel after watching this film. I can't fully wrap my mind around it. It is like being punched in the gut repeatedly, leaving you feeling awful and queasy for over 2 hours, yet oddly wanting to go back and do it again sometime because you have so much respect for the person who was hitting you. Plus, they did it so well, their blows were like a work of art. Does… more I don't even know how to express how I feel after watching this film. I can't fully wrap my mind around it. It is like being punched in the gut repeatedly, leaving you feeling awful and queasy for over 2 hours, yet oddly wanting to go back and do it again sometime because you have so much respect for the person who was hitting you. Plus, they did it so well, their blows were like a work of art. Does… more
Andre 1904 (3.5★) · 63 likes
Lu Chuan’s Nanjing! Nanjing! is a harrowing and ambitious Chinese war drama that depicts the brutal 1937 Nanjing Massacre from both Chinese and Japanese perspectives. Shot in stark black-and-white, the film delivers unflinching scenes of horror, mass executions, and human suffering, while also attempting to show moments of compassion and moral conflict amid the atrocity. The performances are strong across the board, particularly by Hideo Nakaizumi as a conflicted Japanese soldier and Liu Ye as a Chinese resistance fighter. The… more Lu Chuan’s Nanjing! Nanjing! is a harrowing and ambitious Chinese war drama that depicts the brutal 1937 Nanjing Massacre from both Chinese and Japanese perspectives. Shot in stark black-and-white, the film delivers unflinching scenes of horror, mass executions, and human suffering, while also attempting to show moments of compassion and moral conflict amid the atrocity. The performances are strong across the board, particularly by Hideo Nakaizumi as a conflicted Japanese soldier and Liu Ye as a Chinese resistance fighter. The… more
Edgar Cochran ✝️🍋 (5★) · 61 likes
Chaun Lu is a genius and let me state briefly the reasons in a single paragraph.
This celluloid contribution is clearly influenced from the way to present a brutal historical background, to the way of dramatizing it and the technical tools to create a bigger scope of atrocities and catastrophe. Yet, he embraces these influences without hesitating and the final message becomes clear and honest. That's what counts in cinema as an art form and also as a means of… more
1978 · Drama, War · 3h 3m · R · Curator 9.3/10 (662.1K ratings)
A brutal study of war’s psychological damage and the long shadow it casts over ordinary lives.
Topics
war drama, historical tragedy, black-and-white cinematography, atrocity cinema, anti-war, Second Sino-Japanese War, bleak, gritty realism, historical trauma, ensemble drama