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City of Life and Death (2010)

tomatometer

92

Average Rating: 8.9/10
Critic Reviews: 12
Fresh: 11 | Rotten: 1

No consensus yet.

audience

85

liked it
Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 2,883

My Rating

Movie Info

In December 1937, the Imperial Japanese Army laid siege to the Chinese capital of Nanjing, killing as many as 300,000 citizens, the details of which Japan and China dispute to this day. CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH is a bold re-creation of these events, told with startling humanism through the eyes of both victims and occupiers. Delving into the psychology of the Chinese struggle to survive and a Japanese soldier's struggle with his conscience, Lu's film is ultimately an indictment against the cruelty

R, 2 hr. 12 min.

Art House & International, Drama

Lu Chuan

Oct 25, 2011

$0.1M

Cinema Ventures

Cast

All Critics (46) | Top Critics (12) | Fresh (44) | Rotten (3) | DVD (2)

It is not an easy film, and perhaps a touch too relentless, but it is a great reminder of how bloody, mad and awful this world can be.

October 7, 2011 Full Review Source: Detroit News | Comment
Detroit News
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Lu Chuan makes this feature film soar by telling the story both through the eyes of the Japanese occupiers and the defenseless Chinese civilians in the ancient capital. It makes the savagery all the more senseless.

September 22, 2011 Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | Comment
San Francisco Chronicle
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Here, in bloodless miniature, is the true obscenity of war.

June 24, 2011 Full Review Source: Christian Science Monitor | Comment
Christian Science Monitor
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Lu tells the heartbreaking, nearly unbearable story with compassion, controlled fury and unflinching realism.

June 23, 2011 Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | Comment
Minneapolis Star Tribune
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It's a film strong enough to change your life, if you can bear to watch it at all.

June 17, 2011 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | Comment
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

This is hardly a film to recommend as entertainment. As an act of remembrance, though, it is singular and, in its way, soaring.

June 16, 2011 Full Review Source: Wall Street Journal | Comment
Wall Street Journal
Top Critic IconTop Critic

...among the greatest war films ever made. Rich in humanist themes and absolutely unflinching in its depiction of the moral chaos and physical violence of war.

January 19, 2012 Full Review Source: Cinema Writer | Comment
Cinema Writer

City of Life and Death puts a convincing image to the abstract history.

December 17, 2011 Full Review Source: Turner Classic Movies Online | Comment
Turner Classic Movies Online

City of Life and Death's surface is harrowingly beautiful, but it doesn't provide enough ground to glide along for over two hours.

October 25, 2011 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | Comment
Slant Magazine

Exquisitely shot in black and white, with a rare attention to detail and dramatic complexity, "City of Life and Death" is a timelessly great film that commands our collective attention.

July 8, 2011 Full Review Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch | Comment
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

In almost any form, the story of the Nanking atrocities can leave you profoundly shaken. But Lu Chuan's version may be the most compassionate and emotionally satisfying treatment to date.

July 7, 2011 Full Review Source: Seattle Times | Comment
Seattle Times

There is real beauty in its effort to comprehend the incomprehensible.

June 24, 2011 Full Review Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press | Comment
St. Paul Pioneer Press

Chinese filmmaker Chuan Lu has tackled a vast and ambitious subject in City of Life and Death. I knew very little about the siege on Nanjing (or Nanking, as Westerners have long referred to it) in 1937; I feel as if I understand it now, in all...

June 17, 2011 Full Review Source: Leonard Maltin's Picks | Comment
Leonard Maltin's Picks

Despite a puzzling, ridiculously benign view of Japanese sex slaves, this is a brutal depiction of the bestiality of the Japanese Rape of Nanjing that is long overdue.

June 17, 2011 Full Review Source: Tolucan Times | Comment

There is no way to soften the events presented, even though Lu spares us some documented atrocities that are as bad or worse than what we see. The result is both moving and exhausting.

June 16, 2011 Full Review Source: Brand X | Comment
Brand X

A work of grim art told with relentlessly restless curiosity about the human capacity for survival.

June 10, 2011 Full Review Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser | Comment

The most visceral war film since Saving Private Ryan - a portrait of the hopeless in the grasp of a sadistic oppressor.

June 2, 2011 Full Review Source: Boston Phoenix | Comment
Boston Phoenix

...it is this humanity, standing beside horrific crimes against same, which makes "City of Life and Death" one of the greatest war films.

May 31, 2011 Full Review Source: rec.arts.movies.reviews | Comment
rec.arts.movies.reviews
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for City of Life and Death

Wow.

July 30, 2009
flixsterman
Randy Tippy

Super Reviewer

Seeing through the eyes of a confused japanese soldier, and several chinese civilians, City of Life and Death knows how to balance all the visual information that provides to the audience. The exploration of the japanese side could have been better. Nothing groundbreaking here, but still quite engaging to watch.

September 24, 2009
DragonEyeMorrison
Tsubaki Sanjuro

Super Reviewer

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Foreign Titles

  • City of Life and Death (Nanjing! Nanjing!) (DE)
  • City of Life and Death (Nanjing Nanjing) (UK)
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