With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

U.S. movie about 1937 Japanese assault of Nanking to open in China

AN AMERICAN movie about Japan's mass slaughter of Chinese citizens in the World War II era will be released in China next week amid renewed friction between the country's over the atrocity's actual death toll.

"Nanking" will premiere in Beijing Tuesday and be released across in China on July 7, the film's publicists said Monday.

The movie examines the Japanese killings by mixing archival footage and actors' readings of witness accounts from Westerners who protected Chinese refugees. Among the actors are Woody Harrelson and Mariel Hemingway.

Historians generally agree the Japanese army slaughtered at least 150,000 civilians and raped tens of thousands of women in the rampage in Nanjing in 1937 that became known as "The Rape of Nanking," using the name by which the city was known in the West at that time.

About 100 Japanese ruling party lawmakers drew criticism from China after saying last week that documents from their government's archives indicated only about 20,000 people were killed in the 1937 attack.
Read entire article at AP