yesterday my mum dragged me to go watch 'City of Life and Death', the film on the Nanjing Massacre. i tried to pull her to 'Julie and Julia'; i didnt want to watch something so depressing on a sunday morning. but as always, my mum's puppy eyes won.
i loved history back in TKGS because we got to study world wars and ive always thought them fascinating. not the torture techniques, i understand they're, in a way, inevitable and part of the war; but the whole idea of wars. invading a country and taking it by force, and claiming it as yours from then on.
but since 'The Pianist' ive kinda stopped watching war movies. i cant remember a war movie ive watched after that; been putting off 'Schindler's List' for the longest time now. it was as if 'The Pianist' has satisfied my then seeming insatiable appetite for war stories. that plus me imagining Japanese pulling off my fingernails.
The Nanjing Massacre was a horrifying account as far as the Chinese were concerned. Perhaps much so for the Japanese; i wondered if their conscience pricked at them when they raped those women and mass murdered those chinese soldiers. just a tinge?
halfway through the movie i wished for the movie to end. i kept wishing that it would end in the next frame, that Chuan Lu would decide that it was enough.
when the movie ended no one left the theatre for a long time. then they started showing the names of the characters, with their life years. it was then everyone realised that the characters in the show were real people, not simply the imagination of the playwright based on research. these were the stories of real people.
but what was comforting was that one little boy, who cheated death twice, survived to tell the tale.
"Death is easier than life." said the japanese soldier.
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