John Rabe (German foreign film)

So I watched John Rabe last night. It's kind of shocking, when you think about it, that a German willingly made a film in which a Nazi Party member is the protagonist in a setting that's blatantly Black-and-White Morality.

It's a film about the Rape of Nanking, and how a German businessman at the time used his Nazi affiliation to set up a safety zone that saved 200,000 chinese citizens from mass rape and slaughter. Watching that film, I realized something: the Japanese were far more monstrous than the Nazis could ever hope to be. In Germany during World War 2, it was the Government and not the Army that was staffed with monsters. In Japan, there was an overabundance of horrible human beings in both the Government and the Military.

Anyways, it's a great film. Seriously, if you watch it, try not to damage your monitor/TV after (or while) you watch the movie, and for the love of God, don't hunt down a japanese person when it's over.

I really don't think I've ever hated someone or a group of individuals so much.

"Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person that doesn't get it."

Didn't watch the movie (but am interested, now), but I honestly do hope that was not the message that the movie was trying to convey.

If everything you try works, you aren't trying hard enough

It wasn't the message of the film, no, but it's the conclusion you come to if you watch the film and/or read about the Rape of Nanking.

"Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person that doesn't get it."

Now I really want to watch it. A movie never made me hate a group of individuals. I mean, yes, they did, but it didn't pass over to "reality", as in I hated the Japanese in that movie, so now I hate Japanese IRL. Never happened. I don't want it to happen, but I find it interesting that a movie can have such an impact. Or are you a person who already has opinions on special nationalities being generally a bit "worse" (morally, etc) than others, like you didn't like Japanese before watching the movie, so it wasn't really the inpact of the movie alone?

If everything you try works, you aren't trying hard enough

By "Japanese", I meant "Imperial Japan".

There's a similar movie, City Of Life And Death, which despite it's horrific depiction of the Japanese, was considered "too kind" to the Japanese by the Chinese Government and was nearly banned. According to the TV Tropes page, if the movie was accurate, no sane person would watch it.

edited 6th Jun '11 4:02:36 PM by Pyroninja42

"Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person that doesn't get it."

Interestingly, there were Nazi officials who disproved of the Raping, just as Imperial Japan apparently criticized the Holocaust. I do know of a case were a Japanese official used his diplomatic status to help some Jewish families escaping.

Yeah, I was pretty perplexed the goverment sponsored that movie. But it was good and didn't make light of the topic and of course it depicted Nazis realistically, e.g. assholes and the Nazi who's in it for the money and while an opportunist probably not conciously involved in genocide.(Mostly because he's been in China for years.)

Saw the movie recently and I think the OP is Completely Missing The Point. It's a good movie and I'd be disgusted to think it was made by Germans with the intention to say to the viewers "Hey, our Nazis weren't so bad, they killed six million jews in camps and caused, directly or indirectly, the death of a dozen million in the Soviet Union but, look here, the Japanese were much worse!" Speaking more seriously, ever thought that every army, especially in such large scale wars, has its psychopats and rotten apples? It's just that we hear less from the winning side. Just as an example, there's people in southern Italy who remember the American liberation in the second half of WWII with as much displeasure as the German occupation - for one, sexually transmitted diseases increased a lot between children during those years...

The Nanking massacre is made even more horribile by the fact that after more than 70 years the Japanese government still doesn't want to take responsibility (unfortunately, it's a partial consequence of the relatively lenient treatment by the Americans after the war), not to talk about how they let Okinawa be sort of a sacrificial lamb (if I remember correctly from a book, at least one third of the population was killed fighting the Americans). Still, I do not hate the Japanese ethnicity for this. If so, I should hate Germans for the Holocaust, Spanish people for their cruel civil war in the 1930s, Russians for Stalinism, Argentinians for the Desaparecidos, Americans for... Well, I think I got my point.

Reading about City Of Life And Death... Death threats to the director for humanising the Japanese a little? The Chinese people who did this are no less fanatical than the Japanese who'd they like to see as a population of Complete Monsters only. I notice some irony about this in the wiki article itself.

remember, to get any good job in nazi germany, you had to join the party.

I strongly doubt that was the intention (and I'm rather certain if it was I would have noticed the shitstorm that would have followed through german news. I mean...sponsored by the government? The opposition would have had a FIELD DAY). Seriously, any kind of such thing would be verbally nuked to the ground (and rightfully!). And probably get you the attention of the Verfassungsschutz (for what thats worth...)

Its point is the same as Schindler's List. Not all Germans during that time were Nazis. Not even all Members of the Nazi Party were Nazis.

edited 17th Dec '11 2:51:31 PM by 3of4

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