I did see Nanking, which was nothing special, biut was more looking forward to seeing this Canadian film Iris Chang: The Rape of Nanking, which is supposedly about both the woman and her life (she committed suicide in 2004, as we all know) and the historical events of 1937. I would love to hear some comments or even get a review from someone, anyone, who has seen the film. After a cursory search, we found a review from Straight.com where Janet Smith said that the movie was ok, but thought that some of the reenactments of Chang’s life were a bit too extraneous and cheesy. Russell Edwards, writing in Variety Asia Online said about the same thing, albeit a bit more harshly:
Docu opens with thesp Olivia Cheng stranded in the first of several hokey re-enactments from Chang’s life, underscored by saccharine music, before informing that the author committed suicide in 2004. Talking heads — including Chang’s family, friends and colleagues — are less than probing, but the film gains disturbing momentum when dedicating substantial screen time to the overwhelming testimonies of Nanking survivors. However, the final reels, which consider the severe impact of Chang’s research on her own mental state, lack rigorous detachment and slide into sentimentality. Helming is pedestrian, but interviews and archival footage carry the narrative over rough patches. Tech credits are OK.
He calls the reenactment bits “hagiography” and says they are overly sentimental. I haven’t seen the film, but I can certainly imagine people making films that way — these subjects just lend themselves to that hokeyness, which is not to say it’s inevitable, but just that there are some people who, when making films, don’t know when too much hokeyness is too much.
The “Ideas Revolutionary” blog has an interview with the actress that plays Chang, Toronto (or B.C. based?) actress Olivia Cheng. It’s an mp3 that you can download. That blog also links to an Edmonton Sun article about Cheng as well. The National Post featured Cheng as a diarist, where she recounted the first week of the Iris Chang film shoot.
So it seems the movie was already released in Canada, and has been seen at several film fests. I’d love to hear from other people who have seen it and would like to a either leave a comment or else write a review for China Film Journal on this movie.