revisionist nanking film now playing

I meant to write about this a while ago, but it's been a crazy couple of weeks, and it kind of got buried during all the commotion over the election. The Truth of Nanking is another film about the Rape of Nanking, the brutal campaign of war atrocities committed by the Japanese military during the occupation of Nanjing in 1937.

But what sets this film apart from all the other Nanking films that have popped up in recent years is that it's a completely different interpretation of those events by revisionist Japanese filmmakers, basically questioning history's account that the massacre actually happened. I'm not kidding.

We first heard about a revisionist Nanking movie in the works early last year. We even got some details when they put out a casting call. This is that movie. I was always sort of in disbelief that someone was actually making this film, but it happened.

The film, directed by Satoru Mizushima, revolves the ultranationalist view that the massacre at Nanking never happened—at least not as history has told it—and is basically the result of an international conspiracy and the perpetuation of anti-Japanese propaganda. Never mind the rape, torture and murder of hundreds of thousands of people.

The Truth of Nanking is actually finishing up a week-long theatrical run today at the Laemmle Grande 4-Plex in Los Angeles. I highly doubt that Laemmle would ever screen a movie denying that the Holocaust ever happened, so why did they let this piece of lying trash in the theater?

I really don't want to give it any more publicity than it deserves, but I think it's important that people are aware this film is out there. Thanks to a well-placed source, I recently acquired a draft copy of The Truth of Nanking's script, and it's pretty awful. I have no problem with getting it out there for all to see. If you'd like a copy, email me, and I'll see what I can do. It's actually kind of laughable until you realize that these people are serious.