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In 1937, before the United States was bombed at Pearl Harbor and drawn into World War 2, the Japanese invaded and overtook the Imperial city of Nanking, China. One of the darkest moments in human history followed

It begins innocently enough; a handful of Hollywood actors gathering around for a kind of round table format, dressed in costume for the parts they are about to play. Each has a collection of letters and journal entries corresponding to their part; foreigners who are at the middle of a war between two great Asian nations – Japan and China.

They begin to read, and along with their stories is sprinkled testimony from the surviving Chinese refugees of Nanking. The tale is viciously difficult to watch. It begins like a slow march; rumors of oncoming armies, novelties of bomb shelters and tales of Japanese brutalities that are told much like a campfire ghost story. What is apparent is that no one is ready for what is about to happen, and naturally so. No human with a soul could be ready, or even imagine the horrors that await the citizens of Nanking, the poor who cannot flee.

“This is a hell I had never before envisaged,” says one. The occupation of the Imperial city can only be compared to other atrocities of World War 2 – Berlin’s fall to the Russians (as documented in A Woman in Berlin), the holocaust. And like other savagely violent acts of that war, the story of Nanking is a disputed one. That said, only a person without a drop of humanity could watch this film and not be moved to despair over the plight of the Chinese, because this documentary erases any doubt from the mind that what has been said is true. One even wonders if there is more – and how could there possibly be. What is shown is enough.

From the rape of ten-year-old girls to the brutality and murder acted out on hundreds of thousands Chinese, this documentary is filled with an immeasurable agony.  One man describes the murder of his mother. He weeps as he tells how she desperately tried to save her youngest child, breastfeeding while she bled to death from several bayonet wounds.

However, it is not just the tale of the Chinese refugees that makes Nanking so violently emotional, and exceptional. A handful of foreigners, played by Woody Harrelson (Bob Wilson), Mariel Hemingway (Minnie Vautrin), Stephen Dorff (Lewis Smythe) and Jurgen Prochnow (John Rabe), tell their stories. Each were put in a strange position of being caretaker to the refugees, protectors, and unwitting (not to mention unwanted) viewers to the atrocities of war.

Woody Harrelson’s delivery of his lines comes with his usual slow speech, almost a drawl. In this, he is different from the rest of the cast. Mariel Hemingway delivers some of the most moving moments in an unflinching fashion. Jurgen Prochnow, who is something of an oddity to see in this film (though a good one; he is by far the best of the lot), plays the part of a Nazi businessman. Opposite to the general opinion of Nazis, he turns out to be quite the humanitarian (though he is nearly destroyed by his own for it). Another of the bright points in the actor’s group is a young man by the name of Graham Sibley – he is only in the film briefly, but his part is no less important, no less moving.

Though the New York Post called Nanking ‘the most depressing show ever’ (and it is very depressing – I was relieved that there were no bonus features, as I just wanted this film done with), this is a glib summarization of it. How else would a story about this kind of repulsive act on humanity be told? The film grips hold of your gut, holds your spirit hostage, and leaves you empty.

At the end of the war a tribunal held by the Allies declared there had been 20,000 rapes in the first month of the siege – in six weeks, there had been over 200,000 murders. Fourteen of the twenty-five Japanese leaders who had been found guilty of being Class A war criminals are memorialized at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which acts as a rallying point for Japanese Nationalists that glorify the military. It is not the only sad ending to this tale – each of the main players suffered greatly by the end of the siege, one even driven to suicide. The film does not shrink back from an iota of the sadistic villainy that humankind can enact on its own.

This is not a film to be watched over and over again, though its point is well made and delivered with ferocity. I cannot resist the quality of the film, though I derive a special relief out of the thought that I will never have to watch it again.

One interesting final note, the film is dedicated to the victims of Nanking, but also gives a special mention to Iris Chang, the author of Rape of Nanking and a spokesperson for the education about the crimes committed in Nanking during the war. She slid into a deep depression after the release of her third book, and committed suicide. Her loss was felt greatly by the Chinese, especially the survivors of Nanking, and a great deal of the film was based on her work.

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