Nanking
Nanking Image
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Metascore
77 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 16 Critics What's this?

User Score
8.8 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 8 Ratings

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  • Summary: Nanking is a powerful reminder of the heartbreaking toll that war takes on the innocent, and a testament to the courage and conviction of a few individuals determined to act in the face of evil. The film tells the story of the Japanese invasion of Nanking, China in the early days of World War II and focuses on the efforts of a small group of unarmed Westerners who established a safety zone where over 200,000 Chinese found refuge. The events of the film are told through deeply moving interviews with Chinese survivors, archival footage, and the chilling testimonies of Japanese soldiers, interwoven with staged readings of the Westerners' letters and diaries as performed by Woody Harrelson, Mariel Hemingway, Jurgen Prochnow, and Stephen Dorff, among others. (THINKFilm)… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 16
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 16
  3. Negative: 0 out of 16
  1. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: James Greenberg
    90
    Not only is the film a powerful historical record and a warning for future generations, it is an essential reminder to people, including many in Japan today, who might deny that this massacre ever occurred. As such, Nanking honors the highest calling of documentary filmmaking.
  2. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    80
    What makes the film bearable is the knowledge that a few people did what they could to hold the line against humanity’s worst instincts. The voices in Nanking speak for the persistence of good in times and places where a moral crevice opens to reveal a vision of hell on earth.
  3. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    80
    Nanking both calls attention to a horrifying set of war crimes that remains little known in the West and crafts an impossible-but-true hymn to the power of the individual conscience.
  4. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    60
    Individually these elements are powerful, but they fail to mesh or collide with one another in any satisfying way, and the movie's score only exacerbates the problem.

See all 16 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 3
  3. Negative: 0 out of 3
  1. HarrisL.
    9
    Saw this deeply moving and difficult documentary on Christmas Eve. And a movie depicting the slaughter of several hundred thousand Chinese by invading Japanese seems hardly the move to see on Christmas Eve. But the courage and clear moral choices made by 20 westerners to do what they could to save the lives of innocent victims of war, rape and oppression answered for me better than anything else I've seen this holiday season the question "What would Jesus do?" He'd have stayed behind, as every other western national fled, to take a moral stand against brutality and war. Hard to watch but a reminder about how people can make a profoundly moral decision to stand up, and back against, the force of evil. I highly recommend this film.… Expand
  2. ChadS.
    8
    In Atom Egoyan's "Ararat", the Canadian filmmaker depicted the Armenian massacre at the hands of Muslim Turks, as a film within a film, a reenactment in front of a Armenian director's rolling cameras. To show the true face of genocide without some sort of distnaciation is unfilmable. "Nanking" knows this. That's why "Nanking", narratively, bears a striking resemblance to Mario Van Peebles' "Badassssss!"". And like Louis Malle's "Vanya on 42nd Street", the filmmaker shows the actors' arrival at the set before they settle into their respective characters. And sure enough, "Nanking" can't help but feel like theater(or more to the point, performance art), when recognizable actors such as Woody Harrelson and Mariel Hemingway deliver dramatic readings of their real life counterparts, alongside newsreel footage of war atrocities, and the testimonies of actual witnessess to said war atrocities. They're a necessary evil. So deal with it. Without names, however, "Nanking" wouldn't get the funding, or make the art-house circuit, or receive a proper DVD release. But because the story of Japanese occupation in China's capitol is such a horrific account to stomach, the actors do eventually disappear into character. Ultimately, what matters is that the story gets out to the uninitiated. Knowing what you now know about the Japanese during wartime, you'll never look at their national cinema in the same way. Especially the films of Yasujiro Ozu. Now that you know, they'll look like propaganda films.… Expand
  3. JanschieD
    5
    This documentary is well made. However, another exactly similar documentary was already made and shown sometime ago concerning Japanes "war crimes". (There were many). Somehow, this film doesn't have any of the impact of the former - nor does it carry the impact or inspiration of its precursor book, The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang. It hardly explains the why's of the atrocity. It does a good job of presenting the chronology of the events- and most of these are done so in a very moving way. The narrating actors are generally good to superflous - but, on the whole, they really add nothing to the story. The interviews with Chinese victims are very poignant - the ones with Japanese soldiers are repugnant - not one of these old men demonstrate a drop of remorse - and this is manipulation. Other records show that there was and is a great amount of rethinking on the part of these common soldier perpetrators. Lawrence Rees's recent book on the World War 2 Japanese armies is a good starting point. In summary, a satisfactory attempt about a difficult and relatively unknown terrible crime among many that has gone mostly unpunished. Chang's book "The Rape of Nanking" is a much better introduction to this compelling subject.… Expand

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