Monk turned film backer finds safer ground with depiction of war heroism

In the eyes of religious authorities and his peers, 40-year-old monk Chuanzhen was a problem monk because he protested during the 'June 4 incident', studied history, Chinese and philosophy at Nanjing University and loves to make friends with foreigners.

That was until three years ago when the young monk with a commercial touch successfully promoted the name of Qixia Temple in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, with a film.

The movie Qixia Temple 1937, described as the Chinese version of Schindler's List, tells the story of the Qixia monastery's abbot who saved the lives of 24,000 refugees during the Nanking Massacre.

But few people knew about the story before Monk Chuanzhen settled down at Qixia Temple after graduating from Buddhism school in 1990 because the tale was never written down and only passed down through senior monks.

Inspired by the power of electronic media, he decided to shoot a film to tell more people about the story and Qixia Temple.

Within half a year, he raised about four million yuan to finance production by asking for devotees' donations and government funding.

Although the box office was lacklustre and amounted to less than 100,000 yuan, the name of Qixia Temple had spread widely, Monk Chuanzhen said.