"The Rape of Nanking": $2 million documentary (#190, Topic J)

Today's Washington Post reports that a $2 million documentary "The Rape of Nanking", produced by a film company set up by a well-known local billionaire, AOL vice chairman Ted Leonsis, is near completion. Good news indeed. According to the report, Leonsis saw Iris Chang's (author of Rape of Nanking) obituary two years ago and read her best-selling book afterward. That the Japanese army massacred 300,000 innocent Chinese in Nanking (now Nanjing) in 1937 left a deep impression on Leonsis -- producing a documentary became Leonsis's "preoccupation;" it became a "labor of love." Reading the story, it seems that the documentary will focus, in addition to depicting Japan's brutality, human decency among 12 westerners who created a safe zone that protected 250,000 Chinese from the Japanese army -- without their intervention, the death toll would be some 550,000! Among the 12 westerners was a German, the head of Nazi party in Nanking, who played a key role and whom Chang depicted as the "Oskar Schindler of China," a reference to the hero in Stephen Spielberg's movie, "Schinder's List." Thus, the documentary will pay tribute to him, as well as to several American missionaries -- and Japanese as well. The WP also reports that broadcasting rights in China has been secured by CCTV, China's national TV network. With 500 million TV households in China, the documentary will have a large audience and significant impact. Excellent. Last September, my wife and I were in the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum; I was greatly disturbed by the skeletons scattered about on site. On the way out, I also read many comments by visitors: two impressed me greatly. One, by a high-school student, said that she will study hard and do something positive as she grows up. The other one, by an elementary-school student (who could not write the word 恨 [hate] and had to do it phonetically), in addition to expressing his sentiment toward the Japanese, also stated that he will study hard. Good for them. Ted, thank you for doing a good public service. We look forward to the docmentary's completion and release so that, as you said, we "may pay to see the movie in a theater or buy a DVD or watch on the Internet." Or, perhaps, all three.