Rediscovering a massacre: The filmic legacy of Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking

Abstract

In December 1937, the then-Chinese capital of Nanjing fell to the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). China, under the control of the Nationalist government (the KMT), had been engaged in full-scale conflict with Japan since July of that year in what is known as the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). During 1937, Japanese forces captured several major Chinese cities, including Shanghai, whose taking enabled the invading army to advance on the capital. By the time the IJA entered an already-bombarded Nanjing on December 13, the KMT had withdrawn its army, leaving the city officially defenceless. The events that ensued over six weeks – including mass rape and killing of both civilians and disarmed military personnel – are known collectively as the Nanjing Massacre. Its death toll remains hotly disputed particularly among Japanese historians, though the official Chinese estimate is 300,000. This figure, set in stone as if to quantify the city's trauma, has confronted visitors to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum since its opening in 1985.