AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

ryanmark-35319 A very interesting film, Nanking tells a story that many westerners may not have ever heard which is a definite shame as it is certainly a story which needs to be heard by the world of the cruelty of war, especially circa 1938.While watching it you can tell the effort that went into preparing the information for a western viewer who will most likely be hearing this for the first time. For a viewer who is well educated of the events in Nanking - this film is certainly not for them and should be considered an introduction. Regardless of this, the film does a good job of delivering the information to the audience. Even though not all questions are answered, I feel that the film did this intentionally in order to entice the viewer to go away and do their own information - something which I agree with whole hardheartedly as if a documentary can keep a viewer's interest even after the film is over, they have done their job.However, while watching I cant help but feel that the film had a strong Anti-Japanese agenda (despite claims within the film and by the director of the contrary). The film makes itself out to be an anti- war film and not an anti-Japanese but I don't believe this is the case. This is especially clear towards the end where it points out that Japanese soldiers involved in Nanking are enshrined at Yasukuni shrine to this day where politicians often visit.I have visited Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo and it could not be a more peaceful place. Yasukuni shrine is important to Shinto - the religion of Japan. Enshrined at Yasukuni is the souls of everyone who died for the Emperor of Japan between the years of 1867–1951, the film makes extra effort to point out that this unfortunately includes Japanese war criminals. Something which isn't mentioned is another shine at Yasukuni called Chinreisha is dedicated to the souls of everyone who died in wars across the world - this includes the Chinese, British, Germans, US, etc. The shine also includes 3 monuments to all the dogs, carrier pigeons and horses who died in war. This isn't mentioned in the final part of the film. Changing the rules of the shrine to exclude those who committed war crimes would be rewriting both history and the Shinto religion.Regardless of this the film did a good job at delivering information for the most part. I have seen criticism of having the cast and that the film would've been better as more of a documentary style - and while I agree with this - I feel that the cast introduced people to the story well (even though I do agree Mariel Hemingway overacts). I have to take points off for reasons explained above however. Definitely do not watch if you're eating your dinner

Roland E. Zwick In 1937, the bustling metropolis of Nanking, then the capital of China, was invaded and occupied by the Japanese military, which reduced much of the city to rubble and brutally raped, tortured and massacred hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants. The event came to be known in history books and in lore as The Rape of Nanking.The documentary "Nanking" not only recounts the unspeakable atrocities that occurred during that period but focuses on four Westerners living in the city at the time who, at great risk to their own welfare and safety, helped to save over 200,000 refugees and residents by carving out a "safe zone" in the middle of town where people could flee for shelter and protection. These heroic individuals included three Americans and one European: the missionary George Fitch, the surgeon Bob Wilson, the dean of the Gingling Girls' College Minnie Vautrin, and the German businessman (and, at that time, member of the Nazi Party) John Rabe.The movie relies on amazing archival footage - much of it furtively spirited out of the country by those who shot it - interviews with aging survivors and enemy perpetrators, and readings taken from actual journal and diary entries by the Westerners to tell its story. The last are performed by professional actors - among them, Woody Harrelson, Mariel Hemingway and Jurgen Prochnow - who, seated in folding chairs, take on the roles of the writers.The result is an eye-opening and heartbreaking look at both the best and the worst that the human race has to offer.

jzappa How does one visualize the diaries of unfilmed people who are no longer living? Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman employ actors to read, as if in a playwrights' initiative, the records of the tortured souls buried by time and the formal writings of human history. At first, I thought the story was somehow cheapened by this technique, but upon reflection, I see the power of its subjectivity. As a freshman in high school, I saw a documentary in a history class about "The Rape of Nanking" in 1937, which truly stunned me with its depictions of the utmost brutality and heartless destruction that went on when the Japanese invaded. That was one thing. Another was seeing this film, which not only interweaves stock footage and photographs on par with those of the Holocaust, but features Chinese survivors who tell their stories, their overwhelmingly horrific stories. And as for the survivors who can't speak for themselves, actors speak their very words for them. In a sense, that is one of the more essential aspects of what actors do: Identify.It's not often that I connect on a personal level with historical accounts of atrocity. I hear of Jews, gays and gypsies being cooked alive, gassed, starved and other such things and I can only recognize the horror and be disturbed by indefensible fright and indescribable shock that I see in a victim's eyes, for instance. The story of Nanking from the mouths of these people seems to me like a whole new world of terror. It is thus evidenced that human beings are capable of the most unspeakable cruelty and insurmountable venom. Perhaps it's that German and Japanese culture have a history of thinking very uniformly, whereas Americans, in spite of how cruel and despicable we've been throughout our history, have a record of being torn by internal struggles. This documentary glimpses the other side of the coin: Are human beings capable of surviving their experience with the same unspeakable cruelty and insurmountable venom?Maybe the reason I felt at first as if the film was deterred by the artifice of actors could be because the most riveting moments are all interviews with real Chinese survivors. The most arresting moments by far are the unexpected interviews with Japanese who were in the army during the Sino Japanese War committing the atrocities. At least one of them chuckles at a recollection.

joaosantos20 This is a really must see documentary. It portrays a fact not well known and that should not ever be forgotten and instead should be remembered forever. It is not violent in itself, it just tells a story, real people and their tragic live story's. Of course it's shocking but so were their lives. It shows us how mankind can be cruel and vicious for no apparent reason, how someone can make others suffer in the way that it happened is horrendous. Great cast of actors, but the real central piece are the life real testimonies of the survivors. Some stories that should never have happened.What were those soldiers thinking, and the persons in charge of Japan at the time.You must see to comprehend, and everyone should see in order that no one has to live trough that ever again.