The director starts by learning from the abilities of renowned directors.

Chapter 96 Nanjing Photo Studio Screening

"Slow down, stop running! Be careful not to bump into someone!"

A boy and a girl were playing roughly in the cinema lobby, which was filled with a noisy commotion. A woman was watching the children while talking to her elderly father beside her.

"Dad, there aren't usually this many people. It just so happens to be the premiere of Director Shen Qing's movie. In recent years, whenever one of his self-directed and self-acted movies is released, it's usually like this."

The woman's father looked to be around sixty years old, with a thin build. Looking at the dense crowd, he said, "Your grandmother fled from Nanjing to Chongqing back then. Your grandmother's father died in Nanjing. When I was little, I listened to your grandmother tell that story, but I only vaguely understood it. I just knew that your grandmother was always very sad."

1

"Be careful!"

The woman stopped the son from bumping into someone, then turned to her father and asked, "Dad, what did you just say?"

"It's nothing, let's watch a movie."

"Um."

We bought the tickets yesterday, and the whole family arrived just in time today. The cinema started checking tickets a few minutes later.

The woman led her two children into the venue, following behind her elderly father.

Her father rarely came to the city to visit her, and he said he would take his grandchildren to the movies. Naturally, the woman couldn't object, but the subject matter of the movie made her a little anxious.

Her daughter is in the first year of junior high school and her son is in the fourth grade of elementary school. She doesn't know if watching a movie about the Nanjing Massacre will scare the children, but her father specifically asked to watch it, so she can't stop him.

The group entered the screening room and found seats in the middle row, near the center, as indicated on their tickets. The woman sat next to her father, with the two children sitting inside her. If any particularly gory scenes appeared in the movie, she could easily cover the children's eyes with one arm.

She is only in her thirties this year. In her memory, war is very far away from her, and the War of Resistance Against Japan is even more distant. She doesn't really have a deep feeling about the disaster that happened more than seventy years ago.

The movie officially started shortly after the family was seated.

The story begins by setting the stage for November 1937, after the Battle of Shanghai ended. The Japanese army then attacked Nanjing, attempting to occupy the city and force the Chinese government to surrender.

On December 13, the Japanese army captured Nanjing and carried out a six-week-long, horrific massacre of unarmed Chinese compatriots.

The broadcast reports an increasingly dire situation, with panicked civilians fleeing with their families. A bicycle travels in the opposite direction from the fleeing civilians. The camera pans up, revealing the cyclist to be played by director Shen Qing himself.

That's definitely the main character.

Shen Qing plays a postman. The city is in chaos, but he still insists on fulfilling his duty and delivering every letter to the address.

Japanese planes roared overhead. The young postman and the others looked up, and at that moment, the title of the film, "Nanjing Photo Studio," finally appeared on the screen.

The scene shifts to the post office manager preparing to flee with his colleagues; a small postal steamer awaits them at the Xiaguan Wharf. The manager urges the young postman, played by Shen Qing, to quickly change his clothes and get on the steamer.

His mailman uniform looked too much like a soldier's.

It was only then that the audience realized that the postman played by Shen Qing was actually named Su Liuchang.

Just as Su Liuchang was about to get into the car, an elderly couple pulled him back from behind, asking about the letter from their daughter.

On the bus was the director shouting, "Get on the bus quickly, there's no time to lose!" Behind him were an elderly couple anxiously looking for a letter from their daughter.

Su Liuchang was caught in a dilemma, but in the end he gritted his teeth, turned around, and took the elderly couple back to the post office to look for the letter.

After helping the elderly couple find the letter, Su Liuchang rushed out, only to find that the police car had already driven away. He quickly rode his bicycle to chase after it, just as Japanese planes flew overhead, dropping bombs that hit the car squarely, followed by strafing fire from Japanese machine guns ahead.

The director and Su Liuchang's colleagues were all killed, but Su Liuchang, who failed to get on the bus, was spared.

The film is told from Su Liuchang's perspective. Even when the situation was so dangerous, Su Liuchang still stood firm at his post until the very end, delivering letters against the direction people were fleeing. Even when he might miss his only chance to escape, he still returned to the post office to find a letter for the elderly couple.

His simplicity and kindness quickly touched the audience, who knew what was about to happen to Nanjing and couldn't help but feel anxious.

Su Liuchang was hunted down because his postman uniform and leg wraps looked too much like a soldier's. However, he was temporarily spared because the photo album that fell out of his mailbag led Japanese army photographer Ito to mistake him for a photo studio employee.

Japanese officers wanted to send photos of the capture of Nanjing back to Japan to be published in the Asahi Shimbun, and to regard it as a "great achievement" for themselves and the army they led.

Unfortunately, they ran out of developing supplies and couldn't get the film developed in time. To get it published before the entry ceremony, the officer wanted to send the negatives to Shanghai for developing, but photographer Ito said the military mail system was in disarray, and the negatives were extremely valuable; if lost, they couldn't be replaced. The Japanese commander ordered the issue to be resolved locally in Nanjing as soon as possible.

This created the conditions for the Nanjing photo studio to become a temporary safe haven.

Ito, accompanied by the traitorous translator Wang Guanghai and Su Liuchang, arrived at a photo studio in Nanjing. Su Liuchang discovered the hidden photo studio owner, Lao Jin, but remained silent. Ito ordered Su Liuchang to develop the photos within two days, leaving him a note to protect his life, and adding the note's note stating it was valid for two days.

This photo studio, which was still of temporary use to the Japanese army, became a temporary shelter for the main characters.

The Jin family of four, Su Liuchang, actress Lin Yuxiu, and policeman Song Cunyi who helped Lin Yuxiu—these characters all hide here one after another.

Survivors from all walks of life, while dealing with Japanese photographer Ito, searched for ways to escape Nanjing. The negatives Ito sent were initially normal, but soon they showed images of their neighbors being brutally massacred.

The inhumane atrocities committed by the invading Japanese army were thus exposed one by one to the protagonists.

Neighbors were massacred, national historical sites were trampled on, and the Japanese army carried out horrific massacres while staging the lie of "Sino-Japanese friendship."

The ordinary Chinese people in the photo studio finally made up their minds to take the photos documenting the crimes of the Japanese army out of Nanjing and let the whole world know the truth.

"The city gate, the city gate, how tall is it? Thirty-six feet tall. Riding a dappled horse, carrying a big sword, he walks past your door and asks you whether you want an orange or a banana."

Before parting, the main characters took a group photo, and while waiting for the camera to start rolling, they all sang a folk song together.

On the screen, people facing life and death are laughing, but in the cinema, audiences living in a prosperous era are crying.

In the screening room.

The woman was already in tears. She glanced at her father on her left, who was crying even harder than she was, probably remembering the stories her grandmother had told her. Then she looked at her children on her right, the two little ones, who were also in tears.

The film doesn't overly depict gore; the scenes of women being assaulted are mostly brief, ending with a shot of the girls being dragged away.

The scene most likely to frighten children is when the Japanese soldiers, annoyed by the baby's incessant crying while taking photos, lift the baby up and throw it to its death, but ultimately, it's still through the swaddling clothes.

The river was stained red when citizens were massacred along its banks, and the filming process was designed to avoid using images that might be extremely disturbing.

Gradually, my worries about my child possibly feeling unwell subsided, and I began to fully immerse myself in the movie's plot.

At this moment, the woman's tears flowed like a flood.

She had never felt so close to the war that took place more than seventy years ago.

"Mom, I've been to Hangzhou, but my brother hasn't been anywhere."

"After we drive the Japanese away, wherever you and your brother want to go, your parents will take you, okay?" Old Jin's wife said, crying.

In the movie, Old Jin comforts his wife and daughter, saying, "Alright, Dad can't do anything else, but today I'll make you travel a thousand miles a day."

Old Jin got up and pulled down a new background painting from the background wall.

It is the Forbidden City in Beiping.

Old Jin drew another picture.

It is Tianjin Quanyechang.

Next up are Willow Waves and Orioles Singing in the West Lake, the City God Temple in Shanghai, and the Yellow Crane Tower in Wuhan —

The last picture is of the Great Wall.

This time, no one rushed to answer.

At a time of national crisis and national ruin, the Great Wall holds extraordinary significance for the Chinese people.

Hou Yong, who plays Lao Jin, asks his daughter, "What is this that your father taught you?"

Zhang Zifeng's eyes seemed to light up as he replied, "What a magnificent landscape!"

Looking at the Great Wall, Shen Qing said, "Not an inch will be yielded!"

The screening room was unusually quiet at this moment. Everyone was in deep sorrow, but amidst the sorrow, there was also a strong fighting spirit, because everyone knew that Su Liuchang's words "not an inch of land will be given up" were not just empty slogans.

It was thanks to countless patriots of China who put this into practice with their blood and flesh more than seventy years ago that the War of Resistance against Japan was won and China was spared from national subjugation.

More than seventy years ago, the Chinese people achieved unprecedented unity in the great War of Resistance Against Japan, established a united front, mobilized and armed the people, and dealt a heavy blow to the invaders.

Today, China is on the right path to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and its GDP is expected to surpass that of Japan within two or three years.

In the film, Lao Jin's wife takes her daughter and two passes that Su Liuchang and Lin Yuxiu gave up to save their lives and tries to leave the city, but they are stopped by Japanese soldiers.

Qin Hailu's character, the wife, is stabbed with a bayonet by a Japanese soldier, while Zhang Zifeng's character, the daughter, is dragged into the house. Qin Hailu's character can only desperately cry out that her daughter is just a child.

The camera didn't show the process of Old Jin's daughter being abused, but every viewer knew exactly what happened in that room.

"To protect that person's life is benevolence."

A Japanese officer wrote the character "仁" (ren, meaning benevolence) on a piece of paper.

"It's righteous to hang a safety sign in a photo studio."

Another character, "义" (righteousness), was written on the paper.

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"Providing them with food and medicine is a courtesy."

Another character for "etiquette" was added to the paper.

"To use someone else to do one's dirty work is a sign of wisdom."

"Keeping your promise to grant them the pass is a sign of faith."

The audience had assumed from beginning to end that getting the pass would save their lives, but at this moment the cruel truth was finally revealed: it turned out that Ito never intended for Su Liuchang to live.

Actually, this was foreshadowed long ago.

Previously, Ito had asked Su Liuchang to develop the photos within two days, and the life-saving note he gave Su Liuchang specifically stated that it was valid for two days, clearly indicating that he would be killed after the notes were used up.

What is clearly a brutal, shameless, rude, treacherous, and untrustworthy act is now being portrayed as embodying all virtues of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness.

How can a person be so shameless?

Or are the Japanese just beasts?!

At the end of the film, only Lin Yuxiu walked out.

Old Jin said that an extra copy of the negative was developed and placed in everyone's clothes. In the end, only the copy in Yuxiu's clothes was taken out, which later became one of the ironclad pieces of evidence exposing the crimes of the Japanese army.

The atrocities committed by the Japanese army as documented in the photographs are less than one ten-thousandth of the actual atrocities committed by the Japanese army. The photographs that were taken away are only a small part of all the atrocities photographed, but even this small part is already so shocking.

At the end of the film, Japanese war criminals are executed, and Lin Yuxiu is also present with Lao Jin's son.

"Mom, is it possible to take that photo you mentioned?"

"able."

The execution gun was raised, and Lin Yuxiu also raised her camera.

Su Liuchang, Lao Jin, Lao Jin's wife, and Lao Jin's daughter—these people who died back then—seemed to be present at this moment, as they were about to witness the execution of the war criminals.

Gunshots and camera shutters rang out simultaneously, freezing the image of the war criminal being hit.

The movie has ended.

The screening room remained quiet. Some people silently got up and left, while others chose to stay in their seats a little longer, even though the credits had already started rolling on the big screen.

"Dad, let's go."

"Okay, sure."

The old man came to his senses, got up, and silently walked out.