When the Japanese invaders trampled the city walls of Nanjing, the shutter clicks of the cameras in the hands of the aggressors were no less damaging to the people of Nanjing and the Chinese than the roar of guns and bombs. "If the false image of 'Sino-Japanese friendship' they meticulously crafted had succeeded, in that era of extremely limited information channels, the effect of obscuring the cruel truth would have been no less powerful than two atomic bombs."
Zhang Ke, the screenwriter of the film Dead To Rights, said in an interview with Wen Wei Po upon the film's release in Hong Kong: "The film, through the battle between truth and false information in a photo studio, is precisely the way we hope to see the big picture from the small. We want more audiences to understand that this systematic massacre against humanity was by no means an isolated incident or collateral damage of war."
Dead To Rights approaches one of the most tragic historical scenes of the War of Resistance against Japan from a rare visual perspective, revealing the dual nature of manipulated media: photography can both freeze historical moments and be used by perpetrators to fabricate lies. According to Zhang, those photos are closely related to the lives of modern people. "Choosing photos as the entry point not only bridges the gap with young audiences but also gives them a more intuitive understanding of the evil, anti-human war that happened 88 years ago."
Struggle for historical discourse
Currently, Dead To Rights has been showing for over a month. Besides its popularity on the mainland, it has also been released in overseas theaters. Facing the "challenge" of landing on Hong Kong screens, Zhang is full of confidence: Hong Kong audiences are highly internationalized, with more diverse historical and value perspectives. However, the message conveyed by the film and its relatively accessible narrative style are sufficient to allow even ordinary audiences without a deep background in Chinese history to understand the story, grasp the emotions, and be moved.
"A good historical film is perhaps like a seed that slowly takes root and sprouts in the audience's heart," Zhang said. "The many positive feedbacks the film has received now, including the shock expressed by overseas audiences after watching it, as well as their confusion and desire to explore this unknown history—all confirm the significance of the work." Looking back at the starting point of creation, Zhang noted that the first important proposition established by the team was "the pursuit of historical truth."
"On the 80th anniversary of the victory in the War of Resistance, we are still working to restore historical truth. The war crimes committed by the invaders back then have yet to be fully cleared." Precisely because of this, during the preparation stage of Dead To Rights, the creative team repeatedly asked themselves: Facing a heavy and special historical event like the Nanjing Massacre, how should the film construct its narrative to both respect history and touch people's hearts?
In the field of creating works on historical themes related to the nation, Zhang has already accumulated rich experience. Over the past six years, he has participated in the creation of seven films on national themes, from My People, My Country, The Sacrifice, and The Pioneer to The Volunteers trilogy and now Dead To Rights.
"This choice of creation stems not only from my personal knowledge structure but also relates to my firm personal stance," Zhang said without hesitation. The current actions of Japanese right-wing forces, constantly altering the historical narrative of World War II, make him more aware that filmmakers must not stand aside. "We must actively participate in the battle for historical discourse and reveal the truth that cannot be tampered with."
Soul of the film lies in the creator's stance and values
Using the "photo studio" as the narrative hub of the film, Zhang believes that this time, they have successfully explored a new paradigm for Chinese war films—the ensemble model. Specifically, the film builds a genre framework based on the thread of "survival—resistance—counterattack," showcasing the glimmer of humanity under the shadow of war. But in his view, merely completing the "shaping" of the narrative structure is far from enough. When a film has the mission of revealing the truth of the Nanjing Massacre, the creative team must face a core proposition: What is the soul of this film?
Now Zhang is more convinced that the soul of the film lies in the creator's stance and values. In Dead To Rights, the creative team unambiguously gives a clear definition of the atrocities in Nanjing 88 years ago: This was a systematic massacre against humanity, by no means an accidental conflict, let alone so-called "collateral damage of war." At the same time, the film also unflinchingly exposes the essence of the militarism believed by the Japanese invading forces—an anti-human evil ideology that disregards life and tramples on human rights.
In recent years, Japanese right-wing forces have never stopped denying the history of aggression. "They alter history textbooks, question the death toll of the Nanjing Massacre, and sophistically justify the cruel massacre as 'collateral damage of war.' These arguments have been eroding the public's correct understanding of history."
Zhang believes that the audience for Dead To Rights must not be limited to the mainland but should reach the world. He noticed that currently, many overseas audiences siad in interviews or when sharing their feelings on social platforms that they previously knew nothing about the Nanjing Massacre and were completely unaware of the profound suffering endured by the Chinese battlefield during World War II. This makes him more convinced that telling this history to the world is the responsibility of Chinese filmmakers.
Telling true, multi-dimensional, and warm Chinese stories
Zhang's historical sentiment has deep roots in his family environment. His father is a history professor who studies modern Chinese history. From a young age, he was exposed to a large amount of first-hand historical materials on modern history, gradually forming his own unique historical perspective.
"As early as the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894, there was already a clear generational gap between the Qing army and the Japanese army," Zhang recalled. When discussing historical details with his father, he glimpsed the "duality" of war. "War has never been only about real guns and bullets on the battlefield; there is also an unseen cognitive war."
What shocked him was that during the First Sino-Japanese War, China's weak national strength and lagging social reforms left the people ignorant of the war. In contrast, the Japanese army had already established a comprehensive embedded propaganda system, not only dispatching reporters and photographers to record "military achievements" but even inviting painters to create battlefield ukiyo-e, widely disseminated in Japan to incite public enthusiasm for war.
"Even now, I am still shocked by the details from more than a century ago—back then, the Japanese army already knew how to invite Western journalists to 'observe the war,' carefully shaping their image as 'friendly' and 'just' victors in the international court of public opinion." Zhang pointed out that historical materials clearly show that by 1894, the Japanese army had formed a preliminary cognitive strategy. By the time of the full-scale invasion of China, they had systematically established so-called "Pen Butai," promoting the false theory of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" and packaging naked aggression as a "just narrative" of resistance against Western colonization. This discourse, combined with deliberately selected battlefield images, ultimately incited nationwide war fever in Japan.
The greatest malice
In the hour-long interview, Zhang repeatedly used the word "systematic" to define the atrocities of the Japanese army.
Why consistently emphasize the "systematic" nature of the Japanese army's atrocities? Zhang noted that while reviewing historical materials, he discovered that the Japanese invading forces were not only equipped with weapons but also organized "Pen Butai" for propaganda brainwashing, and even established an extremely evil comfort women system.
"Through deception, forced conscription, and other means, they imprisoned a large number of innocent women in comfort stations, subjecting them to inhuman sexual crimes." Zhang cited data, pointing out that in China and South Korea alone, nearly 200,000 women were forced into being comfort women. Moreover, these comfort women were deployed across regions like strategic supplies.
Zhang stated that during their research, they discovered that the Japanese army had transported comfort women forcibly taken from Guangdong and Hong Kong to battlefields in Southeast Asia, such as Singapore and Malaysia. This cross-regional scheduling exposed their criminal essence of treating women as "war consumables"—they whitewashed this anti-human sexual violence as a "lubricant for maintaining army operations" or even as a "reward for military merits" to motivate soldiers, completely disregarding the dignity of life of women.
"This systematic, organized anti-human and anti-human rights atrocities committed by the Japanese army must be known by more people in the world," Zhang revealed that to get closer to the historical truth, he searched for the sites of former comfort stations on the streets of Hong Kong. But now, those places carrying the blood and tears of countless women are mostly lost among the towering skyscrapers, with few people knowing what kind of suffering memories lie behind them. However, he believes that the truth will eventually resonate in the long river of history, reminding future generations to remember this pain that must not be forgotten.
(Source: Wen Wei Po; Journalist: Hu Ruozhang; English Editor: Darius)
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