Chuan Zhen's long and troubled path to film about monk's life

It was in 1990 that Chuan Zhen, a 22-year-old monk at the Xixia temple and new graduate from a Buddhist seminary, had the idea to make a film about the heroism of Ji Ran.

But it took 15 years before he turned his idea into reality and Xixia Monastery 1937 has been shown less than 50 times.

His plan first ran into opposition from the abbot of the temple and the local government. 'My teacher told me that the time was not ripe.'

On the mainland, anything that deals with the second world war, Japan and religion remains sensitive - and this project involved all three. Furthermore, no monk on the mainland had made a film.

So Chuan Zhen enrolled in the history department of Nanjing University and became a guide at the temple, recounting the story of Ji Ran to every visitor. He calculated that while he could reach 10,000 people in one year, a film could reach millions. He began working on the film but opposition was so intense he had to give up a third of the way through.

In the late 1990s, things turned in his favour, as more information was published abroad about the Nanking Massacre, including the diaries of John Rabe, a representative of Siemens, who witnessed the killings. The moment was propitious.