"Nanking": Rating the reviews

Now that I posted my diatribe about the rape of Nanjing, I will now comment about some of the reviews I've read of the movie "Nanking".

Here is how various reviewers describe the Nanjing Massacre, and here is how I rate their accuracy in portraying this gruesome event.

Christian Science Monitor: "The 1937-38 massacre of more than 200,000 Chinese in Nanking during the Japanese occupation has been extensively recorded in Iris Chang's best-selling 'The Rape of Nanking'. . ."

"To this day, as 'Nanking' documents, there are Japanese nationalists who deny the extent and savagery of the massacre."

This reviewer does not specify who committed the massacre, though Japanese occupation implies the military. It would've been better to say outright that it was the military that committed this massacre. As for who denies the Nanjing massacre, I give him credit for specifying that 1)it is a subsection of the Japanese population (as suggested by the wording "there are. . ."), and 2)they are Japanese nationalists, rather than most ordinary Japanese. B+

Entertainment Insiders: "In 1937, just as the people of a cultural beacon in Europe went berserk under the Nazi flag, supremely civilized Imperial Japan embarked on a needless and incomprehensible mass murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the city that was then the capital of China."

"Two months ago, a film was released in Japan, called 'The Truth About Nanjing,' with the claim that there were no atrocities by Japanese soldiers in the city. According to film director Satoru Mizushima, 'There is one indisputable fact: there was no massacre at Nanjing. We don't want our children to grow up thinking Japan is a barbarian country.'"

Normally, I like his reviews (especially his opera reviews), but I had a problem with the above wording. First, "Imperial Japan" usually implies the government of Japan or Japan as a country, headed by the emperor. Although Iris Chang in her infamous book makes it sound like the Nanjing massacre was a top-down thing sanctioned by the emperor, it was in fact, carried out by an army group that went wildly out of control, probably unbeknownst to the emperor, though this point is hotly debated.

As for the release of the film "The Truth about Nanjing", he doesn't outright state that all of Japan shares the same amnesia, unlike some of the other reviews I read. He leaves it to the readers to interpret what they want from that last statement, which I cannot fault him for; however, I wanted more context. For example, will readers know that this director is an ultranationalist? Will they know that this is a fringe film project, largely criticized by many scholars, journalists, business leaders, etc? C+

New York Times: "'Nanking' is a swift, incisive documentary about one of the lesser-known horrors of the 20th century: the 1937 Japanese invasion of the Chinese city now called Nanjing, where more than 200,000 civilians and prisoners of war were slaughtered in a matter of weeks."

Lesser-known? Compared to what? The Jewish Holocaust? The experiments that unit 731 conducted on live human subjects? The role that the U.S. had in why it's allegedly "lesser-known"? It may have been "lesser-known" once upon a time, but certainly in this country, the media has given enough coverage of Japan's denials, Iris Chang's book, and now this movie that recently came out that you'd have to be living in a bubble or completely disinterested to not have heard of the Nanjing massacres and what the Japanese soldiers did to Chinese civilians.

The NYT doesn't specify "military" when it mentions the "Japanese invation", but I think that is implied in the given context. (It's expected that it's the military that invades.)

Other than this notion of the massacre being lesser-known, the NYT doesn't distort facts or mislead per se. However, the wording is sloppy. Also, what's with the passive voice for something so horrific? B-

Salon: "The Japanese military's infamous 'rape of Nanking' in 1937 -- which included the massacre of 200,000 civilians and the rape of at least 20,000 women"

"But 'Nanking' both calls attention to a horrifying set of war crimes that remains little known in the West. . ."

Like the NYT, Salon also says that the Nanjing Massacre is not so well-known. However, this publication specifies "the Japanese military" as the agent. Not quite as good as the Monitor, but better than the average. I give it a B.

Time Magazine: "Over the course of the next few months the Japanese army essentially became an ungovernable, and before some semblance of order was restored, an estimated 200,000 Chinese were killed and 20,000 women were brutally raped."

"The years have passed — 70 of them — other horrors have piled up and the Japanese, who have never fully come to grips with their war crimes, have taken to referring to Nanking as an 'incident.'"

Again, I give Time Magazine points for specifying the Japanese army as the agent. But as I mentioned in my earlier posting, the Japanese are not a monolithic bunch of people--all of whom are in denial of these various atrocities. This author is confounding the ultranationalist fringe with the general Japanese population. This is irresponsible journalism or lousy editing. C