Nanjing! Nanjing! (2009)

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1. 

   Siskoid

   City of Life and Death is a bleak experience recounting the 1937 Japanese occupation of the Chinese city of Nanking, and the resulting massacre and other atrocities. Filmed in beautiful black and white, as if bringing historical photographs to life, it sometimes plays without dialog, a lingering and sad stillness breaking up the violent (but not gory) action. The ensemble cast includes both Chinese and Japanese characters (and some from the international community too) and gives the film a narrative akin to long vignettes, several lives inhabiting this bombed-out husk of a city, lives touches by both horror and fleeting hope. It's a difficult film to sit through, but definitely a worthwhile experience. From the 2-hour making of documentary on the second disc, it wasn't any easier to make it. This is one of those films, like Apocalypse Now and Happy Together, whose production was rife with problems. Cost overruns, twitchy investors, embezzled funds, lay-offs, weather problems, unhappy actors, drastic script changes, shoddy workmanship, the director's flaming appendicitis... But you wouldn't know it from the finished product, which seems so well-assured and authentic. 8 years 10 months ago
2. 

   FrankHowley

   Great cinematography. 12 years 5 months ago
3. 

   Snurreleif

   Great film about the Japaneese soldiers who killed and raped Nankings inhabitants, and their victims. 12 years 12 months ago

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