On Tuesday film producers from China, the United States and
Britain started to shoot a new movie on the Nanjing Massacre in the
historic city. Nanjing, a Chinese city, witnessed one of the worst
Japanese war crimes during its occupation 70 years ago.
Purple Mountain, a film adapted from Iris Chang's
international bestseller, The Rape of Nanking, depicts the
atrocities of 1937 and 1938 through the eyes of a middle-class
Chinese mother and her daughter.
Gerald Green, the film's American producer, said he hoped it
would have an impact on audiences similar to Schindler's List,
Steven Spielberg's Holocaust film.
The producers have not yet revealed who will star in the film.
This question has intrigued the public since plans for the new
movie were announced last summer.
The Jiangsu Cultural Industry Group, based in Nanjing, and the
Hollywood entertainment firm Viridian will produce the film. It
will cost about 400 million yuan (US$52.8 million) to make, the
Chinese producers said.
In December 1937 the Nanjing Massacre took place. Japanese
troops occupied the then capital of China, killing an estimated
300,000 Chinese. The occupiers burned one third of the city's
houses and raped more than 20,000 women.
The movie will be based on The Rape of Nanking: The
Forgotten Holocaust of World World II, written by the late
Chinese-American Iris Chang. The book was the first, full-length
English-language narrative depicting the atrocity that reached a
wide audience. In 1997 it became a New York Times Notable
Book, and was cited by Bookman Review Syndicate as one of
the best books of 1997.
US screenwriter William Macdonald wrote the screenplay. Chinese
director Luo Guanquan, who shot China's first film on the Nanjing
Massacre in 1987, is serving as the artistic director for the
movie.
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(Xinhua News Agency July 31, 2007)