Nanjing! Nanjing!

It is said that evil can only manifest itself when we do nothing to stop it. When we simply allow for it to happen whether in our lives or in the lives of others. The Japanese soldiers who invaded Nanking justified their horrific acts by claiming pride and duty towards their beloved country. Barbaric and without mercy, these troops of doom descended upon the city like the worst nightmare ever conjured by humans. Imagine an army of serial killers and rapists wreaking havoc without being reined in and you'll get an idea. Kudos and hats off to the director for having the courage to bring this shameful blemish in world history to life. Unflinching, painful and without apologies.

I'm an overseas Chinese, growing up listening to my grandfather telling the stories about how bad the Japanese Military treating the Chinese people in WWII.

I saw some of the movies made back in the 80's/90's about the rape of Nanking, to me they are exploitation movies and never affected me or leave me with profound experience. I'm actually disgusted with them making such low movies. Also most of the documentaries I watched never really does anything.

I watched Nanjing! Nanjing! - City of Life and Death tonight and it really drained me emotionally, the movie really depicting the real face/real ugly side of war, where the victims are always the people, doesn't matter what wars or which countries.

The movie itself doesn't really do the finger pointing like other movies, but it just showing, in my opinion, the fair view on what was going on back then without taking sides.

And it's show one thing, the most profound thing to me, that The Chinese people can endure a lot of hardship that life throw at them and that's possibly why their cultures and civilization last for a long time.

Highly recommended for people who never really know this part of history, as Chinese I know about it, but for lot of my westerners friends who never been to China, they only heard about it but didn't realize how crazy it was and how significant is this event for the Chinese people. Most people know the atrocities the Nazis did in WWII, but not the Japanese Atrocities.

Watched it and let's pray there won't be WW III or any wars at all actually.

I've been really impressed by this film. The way it makes a contrast between the fragility of the Chinese position and the vast and enormous military resources at the hands of the Japanese to simply dispose of the Chinese population just the way they want, remorseless and unlimited in their decisions, creates in the spectator a sense of utter despair and impotence, as the starting violence and euphoria transforms into raw and premeditated brutality. But this same perspective makes you appreciate more intensely the triumph of the defeated's mentality over the conquerors' one, the silent resistance that becomes an unified wall against the oppression and ruthless rule of the Japanese military, whom at the end began to fall apart morally. The action is awesomely captured, photography is great, and direction is remarkable, some scenes hit you really hard, but not to the extent to consider it a sadist or heavy-to-watch film. Henceforth, one of my favorites war movies of all time.

A very fine movie, strong and rather heavy. I was relatively familiar with the events that took place in Nanjing therefore I was not surprised by the atrocities I saw reenacted on the big screen.The device of shooting the film in black and white was effective, in the sense that it created an impression akin to a documentary or a current affairs reportage of the age. Alessandro Ahmenabar may have said that he wanted "Agora" to give the impression that it reported events from 4th century A.D. Alexandria like a CNN live correspondence but I think "The City of Life and Death" was the movie that succeeded on that, giving to the spectator the impression of watching the events in live coverage.

Although it portrayed numerous atrocities, it masterfully avoided the trap of succumbing to "pornography of violence". It also tried to treat the incidences of mass rape and "comfort women", which after all are the reasons that the conquest of Nanking became notorious and was named The Rape of Nanking, in a relatively discreet manner, the only one possible.

The actors were expressive and one must note that this multi-person drama, lacking a protagonist was reminiscent of the technique of the films of Robert Altman also lacking a protagonist.

It was also a good idea to create a positive and repentant Japanese character in order to alleviate the obnoxious impression that the viewer would form about the Japenese people in general.

I do not know whether there is a propaganda value in this movie but judging it a work of art, being not involved in Sino-Japanese affairs, I find it outstanding.

The city is Nanjing, then capital of China. The time is 1937-38 when Japanese forces occupied the place. The story is the horrific consequence of that occupation for Chinese soldiers and civilians alike. The film is dedicated to the 300,000 victims of the atrocity, a figure that is still debated. The executions, the hangings, the beheadings, the burning, the bayoneting, the burying alive, the rapes - all of which happened - are all shown, but not overly dwelt upon. Instead young Lu Chuan, who both wrote and directed, tells a human story, focusing on a limited number of individuals, not all Chinese. This 2009 work was originally shot on colour film and then desaturated into black and white and the cinematography by Yu Cau is very impressive.

We are offered politically correct depictions of the bravery of the Chinese soldiers and the nobility of Chinese civilians, especially the women, but the focus on the international safety zone brings to the fore the role of John Rabe, often called the German Schindler, and other nationals. Surprisingly, however, Lu gives an important role to a (fictional) young Japanese officer called Kadokawa who is shown as compassionate and horrified by what his fellow soldiers are doing - a characterisation that understandably proved controversial in China.

When I was in Japan, where they talk of the 'Nanjing Incident', at the Memorial Museum in Hiroshima of all places I found that the Japanese are still downplaying the scale of this slaughter. When I was in China, where they call it the 'Nanjing Massacre', not least during my time in Nanjing itself the history was still live and feelings remain raw. I wish that this film could have been seen as much in Japan - which has still not faced up to its wartime crimes in the way that Germany has done - as in China and indeed Europeans and Americans should know more, as they would by viewing the film, about the rape of Nanjing.