Lu Chuan's City of Life and Death recreates the aftermath of the seige of Nanjing. City of Life and Death is a 2009 Chinese drama film written and directed by Lu Chuan, marking his third feature film.The film deals with the Battle of Nanjing and the following massacre committed by the Japanese army during the Second Sino-Japanese War.The film is also known as Nanking!Nanking! I had heard of the film before I received the review copy. Read full review So rare that a film could be this good, yet I would never recommend someone else watch it unless I knew they could handle it. Tackling a heavy subject matter, such as the rape of Nanking on film, is not an easy task. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. Japanese troops invaded Manchuria in 1931, and by 1937 sporadic skirmishes had evolved into a full-scale war which would claim more lives than both sides of Hitler’s invasion of Russia. It is astonishingly horrifying. City of Life and Death is brilliantly awful. His review of "City of Life and Death" is... well, read for yourself. The Second Sino-Japanese War is a relatively unknown part of the Second World War here in the US. Nonetheless, "City of Life and Death" is a revelation, comfortably proving mainland Chinese film is more than capable of keeping the Communist regime happy … The … It is breathtakingly gut wrenching. Movie Review: The City of Life and Death by Forgotten Weapons. City of Life and Death (2009 - 2 hr, 10 min, 01 sec) is a historical drama written and directed by Lu Chuan. Production: A China Film Group (in China)/Media Asia (in Hong Kong) release of a China Film Group, Stellar MegaMedia, Jiangsu Broadcasting System (China)/Media Asia Films (Hong Kong) production. City of Life and Death: Film Review. What bravery or heroism exists—and it’s certainly there to be found—comes in small, fleeting moments that Lu does well not to linger over. Movie Review | 'City of Life and Death' A Tale of Nanjing Atrocities That Spares No Brutal Detail A scene from "City of Life and Death," with … City of Life and Death exists seemingly apart from the rest of the world, turning a sprawling city into a claustrophobic death camp. City of Life and Death. “City of Life and Death” does not show the Japanese invaders in a good light. Lu Chuan 's " City of Life and Death " is about Japan 's 1937 invasion of Nanjing, China, in which over the course of several weeks hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians were massacred and countless women were raped. China - Hong Kong. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for City of Life and Death at Amazon.com. City of Life and Death, a stunning re-creation of the Japanese army's annihilation of Nanking in 1937, will make you flinch, even as you admire its brilliant black-and-white cinematography, breathtaking art design and unerring direction. CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH is a masterpiece - of film making, of finding the midline of response to war from both sides, of cautiously but successfully blending intimate stories with the gory atrocities of war, and of recreating a period of history we too … Liu Tong’s soulful, evocative music is sparingly deployed to maximum effect.