La Bataille de Chine

Part 6 in a series of 7 films created as a briefing for soldiers but also released for public viewing, these films by Frank Capra for the War Department are simultaneously good propaganda and good history, well told. Footage is from the field, and the historical facts behind the narration are largely accurate and informative, if "embellished". The embellishment is what makes it propaganda, yet it does not diminish the facts presented. I'm very impressed that an informed and largely accurate reading of history could be presented in a way that makes an emotional and moral point about the justness of fighting fascism, deliberate mass murder of civilians and tyranny. (And no, that fight does not justify later bombings of Dresden or Hiroshima and Nagasaki.)

Effective and well done, this is influential film-making during a time of chaos, confusion and disarray. In hindsight we can see that things turned out well for our side, yet at the time these films were made victory against world fascism was definitely not a certainty. These films helped to lay a moral foundation for the open-ended challenges faced then. They also provided a historical context and education about world events leading up to American involvement in the war that most soldiers probably did not possess. Pearl Harbor was correctly presented as a midpoint in Japan's war of aggression, not the beginning of it. This film was a "morning wake up" historical briefing for the sleeping giant's fighters.

This is a classic bit of American Propaganda from WWII. This was part of a whole series of "Informational Films" produced by the War Department to arouse the American People to greater efforts in their war against tyranny. This installment chronicles the history of the war between Japan and China that later became part of the world-wide conflict known as the Second World War.

Every little Chinese victory is exaggerated. So is every Japanese atrocity, especially the bombing of Chinese cities. China's leadership is portrayed as noble and enlightened. Japan's leadership is seen as a bunch of fanatical warlords bent on world conquest. Japan's invasion of China is described as "Phase Two" of a four-part plan to conquer the world, ending with "Phase Four", an attack "Eastward to crush the United States".

In reality, China won precisely zero real victories in that war. China's leader Chiang Kai-Shek was a dictatorial warlord who cared more about ensuring his own luxury and power base than about defeating the Japanese, who he was content to leave to the Americans to deal with. Japan's bombing of Chinese cities was little different from what the US was then doing to Germany, and would soon do to Japan. Japan wasn't out to conquer the world, just grab a colonial empire like they had seen the British, French, Russians, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Americans do for the last two centuries. Japan's ultimate aim was simply to get strong enough to avoid becoming a colony of some Western Empire themselves, and China was the only un-colonized area left. Japan never even dreamed of conquering or even invading the US, they simply wanted to weaken the US enough that we wouldn't be able to interfere, then negotiate a peace and return the outlying US possessions (like the Philippines) that they had already seized in exchange for a free hand in China and Indonesia.

On the other hand, Japan's atrocities in China (like the Rape of Nanking, which gets about 30 seconds of screen time in this film) WERE awful, and Japan's military leadership WAS a bunch of militaristic warlords.

By today's enlightened standards, this film is rather racist at times, consists of outright lies in others, and twists the truth to fit a predetermined conclusion the rest of the time. But one must put this film in its proper perspective. This was made at the height of WWII, when even Americans who knew something about Japan knew darn little about Japan. A famous anthropologist the US Military hired as an expert on Japan confidently informed the US government that Japanese pilots were unable to fly well due to universally bad eyesight. The Japanese knew us a lot better than we knew them, and only a few of them had any clue that we would be as outraged by Pearl Harbor as we turned out to be.

We were engaged in a great war to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, two fundamentally racist regimes. The fact that we had to resort to racist propaganda ourselves in order to defeat them is sad and regrettable, but understandable.

This is direct text book documentary propaganda. You could base a documentary class around this.

It is Capra's World War II documentary about China's turmoil with Japan.

Obviously, we were at war with Japan, and allied with China.

Even today, it could fool some people, but most people have seen just how horrific those "marches" were.

Back to back with Russia, China is shown in the film to strategically move everything Westward, away from Japan. Back to back with Russia, they could use industry, relatively safe with their ally, against Japan, because Russia had to do the same with Germany.

The mass migration, the mass deployments, the mass use of labor, all are shown in true propaganda form as being strategic and heroic. Incredibly, these same images are used today to show immense brutality and inhumanity, as we value human life much more today.

In the forties, patriotism and Nationalism were prize feelings, for better or worse.

Six stars. Maybe 6.5, but not enough to round up. Because the whole thing was just too Capra. The Rape of Nanking doesn't need extra tugging at the heart-strings. And the overall tone was just too simplistic. It was, explicitly, a propaganda film, so that's to be expected at some level. But nuance was never Capra's strong point, and here it's too big a problem for me to ignore.

This is one of a whole series of WW2 propaganda films made by various A-list Hollywood directors. Capra was the one who didn't get his own hands dirty, so his films have less of the "you are there" quality than the ones Ford or Huston, say, filmed on location. But they do have great production values, and they are very good at providing the viewer with tactical information.

The maps showing the troop and ship maneuvers, the terrain, the rail-lines, and such were splendid. I did think it telling that there was absolutely no mention of Mao's role, other than the elliptic comments about local rebel groups.

That said, it was a great history lesson for modern viewers about why things played out the way they did. Japan didn't want a two-front war. But they ended up starting one because of pure, stubborn Chinese intransigence. In a sense, they made the same mistake the Germans did in taking on too big an opponent (see Capra's Battle of Russia for more on that).

The history lesson aspect of Capra's WW2 films is the biggest draw for a modern audience. Because they simply can't pack the wow-factor of things like Ford shooting the Normandy invasion. But, if you are interested in that history, this is well-worth an hour of your time. 25 June 2025.

This is a well-edited account of a time in US history when the Chinese were our military allies.The "maps and diagrams" by the War Dept.,along with some tight editing,make this essential viewing for all students of history.