Harrowing account of the horrors of war

THE fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II has not been ignored by Chinese cinema, though history devotees might have wished it had been. Last January's release, 1941 Hong Kong On Fire, and July's Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre, were Category III excursions into the gore of Japanese atrocities: exploitation films which would have been camp and hilarious if the subject matter were not so serious.

Evidently, the best has been saved for last. Don't Cry, Nanking 1937 is one of the most mature film treatments of modern Chinese history to have emerged from post-1949 mainland Chinese cinema. While not an overwhelmingly emotional movie-going experience on the level of Schindler's List, for the most part it avoids the more obviously manipulative political and sentimental ploys resorted to by so many mainland epics.

Make no mistake about it, the film is as politically correct as possible, down to the geographic origins of cast and crew. Taiwan provided most of the funding and major cast members; Hong Kong, the producer John Woo; and China, director Wu Ziniu and much of the behind-camera talent.

But obvious political messages are kept to a minimum, as Wu, with admirable restraint, relates one of the most horrific chapters in the Sino-Japanese War: the Rape of Nanking.

Then the capital of the Republic of China, the city was occupied by the Japanese in December 1937. An orgy of death and destruction followed, the majority of the estimated 300,000 victims were unarmed civilians.

Hong Weijian's script is more successful in the passages focusing on a single family, consisting of a Chinese husband (Qin Han), his Japanese wife (Saotone Ai ), and their two children. It is largely through the family's eyes that we experience the utter terror of war.