I have posted many foreign films on this blog. Primarily, because it’s a great time on
Netflix. The American movies are
dreadful and mostly low budget crap you would have ignored at the video store
(RIP Video Stores). But the foreign
films offers a cornucopia of new voices, visions and POV’s that are both
profound and universal. Today, I would
introduce 2009’s City of Life and Death, directed by Chuan Lu, one of
China’s youngest promising directors.
City of Life and Death is about the Invasion and occupation
of China by the Japanese, in particular, the city on Nanking. The movie is shot in black and white and is
as brutal as Schindler’s List with beautiful vision and horrific shock!
The shock to me and why I watched it was my consistent
romanticizing of the Samurai culture. Yes,
I love Samurai movies. However, the
atrocities of Japan inflicted to both China and Korea seems like the remnants
of that Samurai culture and a country that paid homage to warrior and his
bloody and proud lifestyle.
The following scene is towards the third act of the movie in
where Japan is celebrating their occupation of Nanking. PLEASE NOTE: the dance is not historically
correct. However, director Lu is trying
to portray the romanticizing of the Samurai culture. Many Japanese consider this scene a propagandist
and incorrect scene but the poetry of what the director is conveying is
riveting.
City of Life and Death is not an easy movie to see. But to understand China and Korea’s continued animosity towards Japan is explained a little bit more. And reflecting on the romanticizing of the
Samurai culture makes you think twice.
One last thing, Japan gives the world hope. When you see how brutal their society was and
how they have evolved now, the world can feel comfort in the fact that societies
can change for the better.
