Iris Chang: The Rape of Nanking

It's depressing to think that this may be the only film that will ever be made about Iris Chang.

The film splices together actual footages of Chang's TV appearances, interviews with her parents, her editor, and people who helped research her book "The Rape of Nanking", with dramatized scenes of Chang (played by Olivia Cheng) laced with first person narrations (meant to visually integrate notes from her diaries or book which explains some of her motivations and psychological/emotional states).

The problem is that the director can't seem to decide if this film should be about Chang or about "The Rape of Nanking" (even though she has written other books...). We end up learning more about "The Rape of Nanking" than we do about Chang and the days leading up to her suicide (or her life prior to writing "The Rape of Nanking"). Strangely, her husband and friends are omitted from the film altogether (at least in the version I saw, which focused almost exclusively on interviews with her parents and editor), which simply adds to the feeling that you are watching something that might as well not have been made, because it tells you nothing that you do not already know.

I had only the briefest knowledge of the Nanking atrocities. The savagery inflicted on the Chinese, and at the end of the film the Bataan Death March of American soldiers has to be one of the worst, if not the worst, treatment of human beings by supposedly civilized people. I am not minimizing the genocide of WWII at all, as I am the son of a Holocaust survivor. The fast that they found people (Japanese) who allege it never happened is no surprise, looking at apologists for the Holocaust, and currently COVID-19.

The end, focusing on the author, is unnecessary and detracts from the film, so you may want to cut viewing short by say ten minutes.

What could have been a factual record that really detailed the horrific crimes committed against the people of Nanking, this documentary became a sappy, unfocused, maudlin, melodramatic and bloated opus about not only the war but of a young journalist's emotional bravery and her deep dive into these horrific events of the late 1930's. This double narrative hijacked the focus of what this documentary should have been. Worse, the important information that is there is watered down by this sappy over emotional young woman's point of view. Instead of allowing the horrible chapter to stand on its own, the documentary deteriorated into a personal journey about this young woman's "valiant" efforts and her own slight reasons for unearthing this sad tale.

Unlike other reviewers, I had no problem with the film as it stands: it accomplishes that it set out to do: portraying Iris Chang, beginning with her attendance at a display of photographs from that horrific massacre, and continuing with the process of her research, which included taped interviews with survivors, and discovery of documents of major importance.

That it incorporates footage and photographs of the unspeakably horrific massacre directly illustrates her discoveries, and follows her progress through the writing of "The Rape of Nanking," and sufficiently details her work on her next project -- the "Bataan Death March" -- for which she was making taped interviews when she fell ill and ultimately committed suicide.

It therefore accomplishes two purposes which need not be viewed as separate: providing insight into Iris Chang and her work on the history of the massacre, and in a sense ensuring that her work is not forgot by presenting that history, and the evidence she gathered, in her behalf.

To correct the other two reviewers: in addition to her parents, her editor, and survivors, her husband is in fact interviewed.

I agree that the song's lyrics can cause the viewer to wince. But the film is a powerful indictment and remembrance of the massacre, and a moving portrait of a person of measureless compassion who knew the worth of human dignity, even as it is probable that she was ultimately also a victim of the very horror she courageously brought to the attention of a forgetful world. That she must not be forgot is underscored by the fact that there is a statue honoring her at the memorial to the victims of the massacre in Nanjing.

I lasted about thirteen minutes into this when they start playing some saccharine nonsense song that is supposed to evoke feelings of some sort that might be useful in a story that had focus and purpose, but instead is just another annoying intrusion that makes you wonder what is supposed to be going on in this film. The film cannot seem to decide if it is about Iris Chang, or her book. It would even have been good if it were about Iris Chang writing her book, but it's not that either. The confusion created by having footage of Iris speaking interspersed with footage of an actress doing things that are not clearly explained as supposing to be Iris doing those things really destroys the viewer's ability to follow along sensibly.

This is a terrible shame. A great disservice to Iris and her important work.