Difficult-to-stomach documentary on the Japanese invasion of the then Chinese capital in 1937 and subsequent atrocities, recounted through archive footage, still photos, present-day interviews with survivors, and excerpts from letters and diaries read on camera by actors in costume (Woody Harrelson, John Getz, Mariel Hemingway, Stephen Dorff, Jurgen Prochnow, et al.). An heroic alliance of Westerners — American missionaries and Nazi businessmen, incongruously — to create and defend a Safety Zone for refugees slightly softens the awfulness. Very slightly. (The purpose of the film is not so much to show what the Japanese did as to show what War did, and does.) The actors do their best, but can’t hold a candle to the real people: e.g., an old man’s wrenching memory of his mortally wounded mother breast-feeding his baby brother as blood poured out of the gashes in her chest. Directed by Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman. (2007) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.