I saw the film at Sundance as part of a packed house for a third or fourth screening. I've seen the story of Nanking depicted before but never with the confidence I had that this was how it really was. It was like watching three Shindlers save the Chinese, and Spielberg's Shoa, all rolled into one perfect film. A panel of actors speak the lines from letters and diaries of European/American witnesses and Chinese and Japanese survivors tell their stories themselves on film. It's not just a narrator interpreting the events - it's the voices of the people who were there. The story line is well honed accompanied by stills, 16 mm smuggled out by one of the foreigners, and the actors provide voice for the foreigners. It is an incredibly moving and informative film. I sat next to two couples, two Japanese American men married to Chinese American women. One wife had seen the film the night before, and our night she brought everyone else back with her. I spoke with one of the husbands and he said that out of scale of 5 he gave it a 7. For the rest of the week I ran into others who saw the film and everyone said that they thought it was the best documentary they had ever seen in their lives. I totally agree.
