Hello all,
Thanks for taking the time to come out and watch some truly uncomfortable history. Feel free to now express your opinions, emotions, observations, etc. regarding this movie on a very understudied topic, the Asian Holocaust. Some ideas: the parallels to Schindler's List, the black and white presentation, the dehumanizing of the Chinese comfort women, the feelings of superiority among some of the Japanese soldiers, putting a human face on this event, etc. I know that this is not easy material to discuss and write about but we can't ignore what has happened because of ultra-nationalism in the past.
Yosh
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i was outraged on how the women were just used. yes a very emotional movie indeed . i probably sat in the same spot for the whole me i was just gripping on to the chair knowing what happened to these women is true and u or the world didnt do a thing to stop it. i have never had such a strong concern on this topic until i see this video. great pic and enjoyed being in ur class.
ReplyDelete-hesham elkadri
this movie was very emotional and i felt that it was a very accurate picture on what happened to the chinese women and soldiers . during this movie you could only imagine what was going through the peoples minds when their families are ripped apart and killed. when Mr tangs child was thrown out of the building i clenched my seat because that would have been the most horrible thing ever to witness in ones life and the fact that no body did anything to stop the violence was just heart breaking. this was a great film.
ReplyDeleteI went into the movie not expecting it to be good but the movie surpassed my expectations by far. I wasn't expecting to see scenes of rape and it was really hard to watch. I'm glad that the movie was in black and white because I don’t think that I would of been able to stand watching all the gore and rape in color. This movie was one of my favorite war movies that I have seen so far. I think that it was a good thing that the movie ended in a happy note because it changed your mood at the end of the film but it most likely wasn’t very accurate. But I guess if could of been because people did survive all of theses horrible atrocities.
ReplyDeleteAdam Ricketts
Prior to watching the movie you had given us fair warning about how uncomfortable the movie really is. Even so, I found myself having to look away several times. I agree that we can't ignore events such as this but it is definitely a challenge to relive them, even if it's on a television screen. I can't imagine what it would have been like to be a woman at that time. I was especially inspired when, near the end of the film, the woman volunteered themselves to be "comfort woman". It honestly makes me sick to think that woman were treated like that, that any human being would be treated like that. From learning about the Japanese Imperial Army and the Shinto religion in class, the superiority complex was to be expected however it is still as frightening every time I have to believe it. There is absolutely no chance I will be watching this movie again, although I do appreciate the exposure and the impact every film you show us has on me.
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ReplyDeleteThis movie was definatly hard to watch, and even harder to swallow considering its accuracy. It amazed me, upon completion of this film, that the Rape of Nanking hasn't gotten as much exposure as the Jewish Holocaust. It is certainly just as horrendous, if not more so.
There were multiple times I found myself utterly perturbed during the course of this movie. One of the many was when Mr. Tang's little girl was thrown out the window. I could hardly beleive it, and could hardly stomach it. Who could do something like that? How could the thought even that cross your mind, to throw a child out a window? This scene helped to really cement just how superior these people felt, in my mind. Without a seconds hesitation the Japanese soldier was willing to take a life.
With that being said, I liked that not every Japanese person was depicted as having the superior attitude so commonplace during this time. There were a few people who wanted to do the right the thing, but just didn't know how. In doing this, the film writers made it clear that not everyone was bad, evil, or felt better than the people of Nanking during the Asian Holocaust. Some people were noble, and upstanding. This realization prevents the generalization that leads to the kind of thinking that leads to something like the Asian Holocaust in the first place.
Overall, the movie was very well done and extremely moving. Hard to watch, yes. Hard to handle, yes. Uncomfortable? For sure. But I don't think it would have gotten the point across if it hadn't been.
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ReplyDeleteThis movie was definitely uncomfortable to watch. The way it was filmed and acted was so raw and truth-full. It clearly showed the pain each woman went through and that some were even brave enough to volunteer themselves to save millions of others. What they went through is unimaginable and makes me sick to even think people could do this to other human beings. Before I entered social 20-1 I had no idea about The Rape of Nanking, but now I realize why it is called, 'The forgotten Holocaust'. It frightens me to even think about being in anyone's shoes at this time.The look on Mr.Tang's face when his youngest daughter was thrown out the window will never leave my mind. He fought hard to keep his family safe, but in the end it didn't matter because the Japanese had the power to do whatever they pleased. Overall this film was educational and demonstrated our curiculum very well.
ReplyDeleteRylee Haggerty
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this movie was very uncomfortable for me to whatch, even with all the warnings we had on how violant it was and what we had learned in class. But like i said with downfall it was interesting to see the other prospective on the war. this film taught us what it would have been like to be chinese during that time and i thank god that i was lucky enough to be born here in this century were these atrocities are hard to come by.
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