Black Sun The Nanking massacre is the follow up to director Tun Fei Mou infamous Men Behind the sun, a film about a Japanese military experimentation unit responsible for horrible atrocities in the name of "Science"". Black Sun The Nanking Massacre once again deals with Japanese war crimes in China, this time the "Rape of Nangking". Though valiantly defended by the Chinese during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) Nangking fell on December the 13th 1937. Japanese troops took the city and leaflets were dropped claiming civilians who complied with the occupiers would not be harmed. How ever there were those amongst the Japanese military who felt the Chinese citizens of Nangking had to be used as an example to clearly illustrate the consequences of resisting Japans Imperial might. The occupiers noting that the emperor had left out direct orders to follow the international treaties that govern warfare in his latest edict. Something which had always been present in his statements during the war with Russia the military commanders in Nangking devised a plan which would show the Chinese the folly of standing against them once and for all. The plan was quite simply to commit wholesale slaughter, rape and arson in the city which lasted roughly six weeks and would leave roughly 300,000 citizens dead.
The modern history of Asia both in wartime and piece is not covered heavily in western curriculums. While I did now about this period to some extent it was because of my father’s interest in world affairs and history and not any formal teaching. Also because of the sheer horrific scale of the Nazi's mass extermination program which resulted in the deaths of over six million Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals, other atrocities from the period tend to be overlooked. The film does it's best to bring the horrific slaughter during the occupation of Nanking to the screen and in my opinion does a pretty good job.
The film is really a series of events large and small scale which happen during the occupation of the city. They are loosely held together by a couple of personal tales revolving around a family stuck in the city and the desperate plight of the two youngest children to survive. The director blends in archive film footage and photo’s that back up the horrible events depicted onscreen by the actors often ending a segment with a photo and sometimes the name of the people who really where involved. I have heard it argued that this is exploitative and normally I would agree, but for me this is different to say the use of footage of executions in Cannibal Holocaust. Here the director is not using shocking archive footage to support a fantasy, this stuff no matter how much it play’s out like a horror movie really did occur. Maybe not exactly the way a director decades later envisions it, more than likely the reality is far more horrible than most could stomach.
It is a shame in some respects that the idea that this is a “grindhouse” or “exploitation” movie permeates, because of its no doubt shocking and at times gory nature. Yes you can watch this in a voyeuristic way and see only the decapitations, rapes, burning and the unborn baby torn from its mother on a bayonet. How ever it would be a shame if the only audience for this is those lonely teenage losers dressed in black. Who spend their time flicking through images of dead bodies on some of the internets well known shock sites. War and by association killing has become so sanitized in our modern media driven world. We talk about "The Theatre of war" and "Collateral damage". Civilian casualties are reeled off but how many of us really stop to think what that means. The theatre of war is really a city or town with a name and a population. Collateral damage is often somebody’s home and the civilian casualties are people with names and loved ones and aspirations and feeling who have been blown to bits. We watch in wonder as missiles sore through windows to hit targets and marvel at the accuracy of computerized warfare, all the time forgetting once that warhead strikes some child's dad is never coming home again. Are films like Black Sun shocking, offensive and hard to view, sure they are, people are getting killed, but they also are a good realty check. You might watch this and think it couldn’t happen today and yet right now in the Sudan a huge and largely ignored massacre is taking place. It’s often said if we don’t learn from history we are destined to repeat it and personally I think there is a great deal of truth in that.
Black Sun is a film that tries to give a human face to the numerical figures given on the massacre. It’s not a perfect film, it’s rough around the edges and their will always be people that will see this kind of thing as voyeuristic. Yeah it lacks the specially composed orchestral scores and dramatic performance of say of Hollywood take on the Jewish Holocaust, but in some ways I was glad of that, something as dirty and ugly as these atrocities can benefit from a lack of gloss. The film is released on Tartan Video’s “Grindhouse” imprint here in the UK and if you’re looking for a grindhouse style exploitation movie it will perform in that capacity. How ever I hope it will also inspire people to give a thought to the ravages of war both past and present as well and maybe even inspire the odd person to visit the wikipedia, get a book, watch a documentary and maybe find out a little more.
