City of Life and Death
Written and Directed By: Lu Chuan
Starring: Liu Ye, Gao Yuanyuan, Hideo Nakaizumi, Fan Wei, and John Paisley
Director of Photography: Cao Yu, Editor: Teng Yun, Production Designers: Hao Yi and Lin Chaoxiang, Music: Liu Tong
Rated: Unrated, but brutal and necessary violence throughout
Director Lu Chuan fills his historical epic City of Life and Death with faces. Faces stare right at the camera. Confused faces. Horrified faces. Faces that are unforgettable. Some by themselves; others in a sea of hundreds. The effect reminds the viewer in this difficult and powerful film of a simple premise: these are people.
And such a reminder is necessary in this retelling of the destruction of Nanking during the early stages of the Second World War The subject has become a popular one for numerous Chinese filmmakers (most of which have never made it past its own borders) but Mr. Lu approaches the subject in a controversial way. Instead of making the film a Chinese propaganda tale, the filmmaker shows some humanity in the Japanese soldiers involved in the massacre, adding complexity that has riled many Chinese natives, but also provided a much more unique approach than his counterparts. For some Chinese critics, this is the equivalent of humanizing Nazis in a Holocaust film, something of course that is now an almost routine trope for American and European filmmakers. And the effect, along with Mr. Lu’s brutal visual style and harrowing drama, creates a brutal piece of art that challenges the idea of humanity.
