The year I was 8 I saw the first anti-war movie The Tunnel Warfare which is a black and white film released in 1965. As a part of educational trip, all my primary school students watched this movie together. The first impression of Japanese or Japanese soldier was negative. We though Japanese were stupid, cruel and insidious after the movie and also though the Japanese Soldier should be a small eye, fat, bald man with moustache wearing a round-frame glass. We were so inspired that we decided beat the Japanese monsters when we grew up.
Japanese soldier in The Tunnel Warfare
Even though the intension between China and Japan is melting, the images of Japanese soldier seem hardly to have a change on the screen. They are all cruel and inhumane. They killed and raped Chinese who had no weapon during the Second World War. I was taught that Japanese invaded Nanjing City, and shot and buried over 300,000 people there and was encouraged to remember this lesson. And the young children think as the same as we were. My11- year- old nephew are interested in weapon and he wish to fight against his imaginative enemy who are Japanese and American. I have a doubt in the images of Japanese soldier in the movie and TV soup, were they such awful in history?
The Japanese Soldier in a TV soup.
What is the purpose? Maybe this image is a reminder that we must not forget that distress or as if we were weaker, the monsters would come back, so we should be stronger.
In 2009, the movie City of Life and Death revised the image of Japanese soldier used to be. The character the Japanese soldier Kadokawa shows his compassion to the Nanjing People and saves two Chinese in this film. Many people commented that maybe not all the Japanese were terrible in the war, and maybe some had hearts. However, the movie faced the criticism that it reveals sympathy to a Japanese soldier who killed Chinese.
the Japanese soldier Kadokawa in City of Life and Death
No matter how much impact the movie put on the Chinese, once there is conflict with Japan, the negative image of Japanese would first come into mind as we have seen enormous evidence through the other movies and TV soup and it is impossible to change this image in the solid mind only by a single movie.
It doesn’t blame the producer who designs such image. Rather. Here just shows a image can have massive influence in the impression of a race or a culture. And the images they are in fact associated with the society and the culture. Take the Chinese character in American movie for example, they are all fit for the American consideration of typical Chinese female. But to the Chinese, it is hard to agree with that assumption.
lucy liu, chinese American Actress
Mulan Animation
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