The star-studded big-budget epics dominating Chinese cinemas this summer are about the country’s fight against the Japanese during World War II. In movie theaters, audiences have risen to sing the national anthem. Children have been moved to tears, vowing to become soldiers when they grow up.
One film, “Dead to Rights,” about Japan’s 1937 invasion of the Chinese city of Nanjing, follows a group of Chinese who smuggle out photographs and help document the killing of tens of thousands of civilians, an event known as the Nanjing Massacre. During an interactive showing in southwestern China, an actor dressed as a soldier shouts at moviegoers, “The Japanese want to destroy our country and exterminate us! Will you let them?”
The audience, shown in a social media video pumping their fists, shouts back, “We will not!”
The films are part of a broader effort to rally the nation as the ruling Communist Party grapples with a sluggish economy, increasingly disillusioned young people, and an escalating rivalry with the United States. The centerpiece is China’s commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the war’s end next month, with a military parade overseen by China’s leader, Xi Jinping, and attended by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader.
The parade in Beijing — rehearsals of which have involved more than 40,000 soldiers, civilians and staff — is set to feature the country’s latest fighter jets, missiles and other weapons, in an elaborate display of China’s military might and organizational power.
Government departments are also holding events for surviving veterans and victims, unveiling new memorials dedicated to the war and issuing commemorative coins and stamps. China’s state broadcaster has rolled out multipart specials on everything from military tactics and wartime songs to the role the Soviet Union played. Television channels are playing nearly 100 movies related to the war through the end of the year.
The campaign is about more than presenting China as a rising superpower on the right side of history. It is also about redirecting public dissatisfaction to a target other than the Chinese government.
“In general, there is a strong push at the moment toward creating a sense of patriotic identity, much of which is defined as the idea that China is in danger from the rest of the world,” said Rana Mitter, the ST Lee Chair in U.S.-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School. “The opponent can change over time. It could be the U.S. It could be Japan. It could be forces not so clearly defined.”
Based in part on true events from a war that killed as many as 20 million in China, the films focus on the bravery of everyday Chinese at the core of a nation that will not be bowed.
By far, the most popular has been “Dead to Rights,” known as “Nanjing Photo Studio” in Chinese, which has made about $380 million at the box office and had its theater run extended.
Also generating interest is “Dongji Rescue,” which follows Chinese fishermen who rescued more than 300 British prisoners of war left to drown by their Japanese captors. A third movie, the release of which has been delayed to next month, is called “731,” after Unit 731, a secret biological warfare program of the Japanese Imperial Army that conducted horrific experiments on Chinese.
The films are the latest in a long line of Chinese wartime movies that are part propaganda, part entertainment aimed at promoting the party’s agenda. An earlier generation of wartime movies focused on Beijing’s other main rivals — the United States and the Nationalist Party, or the Kuomintang, which governed China before it was defeated by the Communists and fled to Taiwan.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Japan became a new focus as Beijing’s ties with the United States improved and new tensions arose with Tokyo over what Beijing saw as Japanese efforts to gloss over its invasion of China.
Altogether, Chinese studios have produced more than 300 movies about what is known in the country as the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. Such dramas tend to earn the approval of Chinese censors. And they are well received by the public, especially those angered by Japanese politicians who deny that the imperial army committed wartime atrocities or who visit the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo — which honors Japan’s war dead, including war criminals.
“Dead to Rights,” which is sweeping and action-packed, has dominated social media discussion, with moviegoers posting videos of their theater experiences.
In Jingdezhen, an ancient center of porcelain making, a basketball coach this month rented out a screening room for students and their family to watch “Dead to Rights.” The group rose to sing the national anthem before the movie began.
Tong Liya, a Chinese actress, wrote on social media that she had taken her young son to see the movie. She wrote: “For the younger generation, this is far more than a movie. It’s a history lesson etched into their lives.”
There is a risk that nationalist fervor goes too far. In a notice to overseas Japanese this month, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told citizens to be “especially careful about a rise in anti-Japanese sentiment” amid film screenings and other patriotic activities ahead of the military parade.
In 2012, anti-Japanese protests broke out in more than 100 Chinese cities, with demonstrators vandalizing Japanese restaurants and smashing Japanese-made cars. Last year, the stabbing and killing of a 10-year-old Japanese boy in Shenzhen and a knife attack on a Japanese woman and her son in Suzhou shocked Chinese citizens and raised questions over whether anti-Japanese sentiment was fueling violence.
Today, some commentators question whether the movies are teaching the next generation to hate — and whether children should be watching such violent content. “Dead to Rights” features piles of corpses in streets and the killing of children, and depicts Japanese soldiers as gleefully taking bets on who can kill more Chinese people.
Social media users have posted videos of children destroying collections of trading cards of the Japanese superhero Ultraman. In one clip, a little girl says through tears, “I want to kill all Japanese.” In another a young boy asks, “How can a country be so ruthless and cold?” A voice, off-camera, can be heard saying, “They’re animals.”
State media, while encouraging parents to take their children to see the films, tried to urge moderation. The outlets have quoted remarks by Mr. Xi that remembering the war is “not to perpetuate hatred but to awaken a yearning” for peace.
“It’s a double-edged sword. You’re showing people the Japanese being so brutal,” said Yinan He, an associate professor at Lehigh University who studies national identity politics and China-Japan relations. Boycotts of Japanese products or violence against Japanese people or those connected to the country are all potential unintended consequences of fanning nationalist feelings against Japan, she said.
“As long as you encourage people to hate another nation, that’s the consequence you have to bear,” she said.
Still, some residents say remembering the war is just about staying vigilant against humanity’s worst instincts. Ge Xiaoru, a 29-year-old travel blogger who lives in Suzhou, said she recently visited a memorial in Nanjing dedicated to the victims of the massacre. She acknowledged that it was difficult to not feel hate but said that learning about the episode was important.
“We need to use the past events not to tell future generations to go and kill Japanese people, but to prevent such cruel wars from happening again,” she said. “Otherwise, what’s the difference between us and Nazi fascism or Japanese imperialism?”
Jiawei Wang contributed reporting from Seoul, Xinyun Wu from Taipei, Taiwan, and Kiuko Notoya from Tokyo.
Lily Kuo is a China correspondent for The Times, reporting from Taipei.
The post China Revisits Its War With Japan, Stirring Pride and Fears of Hatred appeared first on New York Times.
