Nanjing Heroes

[bhchao]

Zhang Yimou has cast Christian Bale for the lead role in his upcoming film Nanjing Heroes. The film is reported to be the most expensive Chinese film to date. http://therainhouse.wordpress.com/2010/12/23/zhang-yimou-talks-about-christian-bale/

Apparently Zhang passed over Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, and Brad Pitt to select Bale, mainly because he was impressed with the research Bale did into the Nanjing Massacre.

I would have completely lost interest if he picked Tom Cruise.

[gato]

Sure a lot of Nanjing movies. Wonder why the Nationalist government never made one.

[skylee]

Do people still remember the teenage Bale in Spielberg's Empire of the Sun?

PS - Perhaps I remembered it wrong, Christian Bale was not even a teenager in "Empire of the Sun". He was a child.

[bhchao]

Do people still remember the teenage Bale in Spielberg's Empire of the Sun?

PS - Perhaps I remember it wrong, Christian Bale was not even a teenager in "Empire of the Sun". He was a child.

Yes I remember him in that film. I think he played the role quite well. That was when people first noticed him.

Sure a lot of Nanjing movies. Wonder why the Nationalist government never made one.

Hehe. 歷史是由勝利者所寫

[gato]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Minutes_Hate

[bhchao]

Another possible explanation: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/02/ap/asia/main5357505.shtml

It takes a lot more courage to look back at a setback than a victory," said Tsai Kuo-chiang, a columnist who writes about cultural issues.

Books and films, produced under censorship, glorified the Nationalist troops and vilified the communists. First Chiang's obsession with invading the mainland and later Taiwan's rise to the world's 13th largest economy and transition to democracy kept people focused on the future....

Because of the total military defeat, Taiwan was able to develop a different set of values in the following 60 years, a soft value that chases personal happiness instead of nationalism and militarism," she said.

Defeat creates reflection and humility. The Nationalists were the ones who actually endured, psychologically and physically, the Japanese onslaught. This combined with the loss of the mainland resulted in a different set of values espoused by the government and its refugees.

[sujisol]

There was another massacre later on in Nanjing. The Nationalists killed a huge number of captured Red troops and sympathisers. It seemed that the Malthusian credo, that if you can't stand them, or you can't feed them, you can always kill and bury them. I always have this image of Japanese starving on the diverse battlefields of their Asia wide occupation, and the millions, who starved in China during the cultural revolution, along with the countless millions worldwide, who died of starvation and illness on the canvass of this period in history.

....There is another way of perceiving the Nanjing Massacre. Since it was the responsibility of the nationalist government to keep the capital city defended, they abandoned the population because it was more expedient than trying to care and feed them. No mass evacuation was organized, only the soldiers and their family members escaped the Japanese onslaught. The only damper on the ruthless slaughter of those left starving was the handful of westerners(Christian Bale's part) who tried to mollify the Japanese excesses.

....It's ironic that nowadays, unlike the hard times of the 30's and 40's, with a proper worldwide system of food distribution, the problems of obesity and malnutrition, are more significant to our mortality than outright starvation.

[bhchao]

There was another massacre later on in Nanjing. The Nationalists killed a huge number of captured Red troops and sympathisers. It seemed that the Malthusian credo, that if you can't stand them, or you can't feed them, you can always kill and bury them. I always have this image of Japanese starving on the diverse battlefields of their Asia wide occupation, and the millions, who starved in China during the cultural revolution, along with the countless millions worldwide, who died of starvation and illness on the canvass of this period in history.

....There is another way of perceiving the Nanjing Massacre. Since it was the responsibility of the nationalist government to keep the capital city defended, they abandoned the population because it was more expedient than trying to care and feed them. No mass evacuation was organized, only the soldiers and their family members escaped the Japanese onslaught. The only damper on the ruthless slaughter of those left starving was the handful of westerners(Christian Bale's part) who tried to mollify the Japanese excesses.

....It's ironic that nowadays, unlike the hard times of the 30's and 40's, with a proper worldwide system of food distribution, the problems of obesity and malnutrition, are more significant to our mortality than outright starvation.

Most of the elite Nationalist divisions were wiped out defending Shanghai, where they held off the Japanese for three months. The Japanese frustration with the stalemate at Shanghai was a mental factor behind the Nanjing Massacre. When they finally broke out of Shanghai, they released their frustrations on the civilian population.

Nanjing was not an easy city to defend strategically. Its proximity to the ocean made it vulnerable to carrier-based air attacks. Warships can also sail down the Yangtze into Nanjing and bombard the city at will. It was too close to Japanese supply lines, both sea and land. The fall of Shanghai pretty much guaranteed Nanjing's fall.

The Nationalists started beating the Japanese after they moved the capital to Chongqing. A string of Nationalist victories occurred in Hunan, Hubei, and Guangxi in the late 30's and early 40's, mostly due to good strategy, strong leadership, and favorable terrain. It came at the expense of high manpower though. Both sides had high casualties, the Japanese sometimes more than the Nationalists.

Taierzhuang in Shandong, just after the fall of Nanjing, was an exception.