This well-meaning, somewhat clunky documentary recounts the six horrendous weeks in December 1936 when the Imperial Japanese Army invaded the city of Nanking, then China’s capital. The sheer numbers in play are staggering: an estimated 200,000 civilians killed, 20,000 raped during the occupation. “The Rape of Nanking” is how it’s often referred to, and there’s no doubting its place high on the list of modern humanity’s horrors.

Obviously, tackling such a bleak topic risks pummeling an audience with despair. And despair is definitely on offer. There’s the man who watched a “Japanese devil” stab his nursing mother repeatedly. An account of a truck filled with young women screaming “save me!” Footage of a man in the hospital after he had been shot through the jaw, doused with gasoline, and lit on fire. On and on the horrors go, each recounting effectively burning itself into your memory. Perhaps to temper some of this overwhelming bleakness, directors Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman have turned to actors to perform journal entries and correspondence of real-life Westerners who tried to carve out a safety zone amidst the chaos. But while names such as Woody Harrelson, Mariel Hemingway, and Stephen Dorff may help nab attention, their presence proves to be Nanking’s weakest element. So sobering are the tales from survivors, so miserable is the footage of the invasion, that cutting back to familiar faces is distracting. Still, this is but a minor complaint—on the whole, Nanking is effective, infuriating viewing.

NANKING DIR. BILL GUTTENTAG AND DAN STURMAN | RATED R | AT SELECT THEATERS

Tags: documentary, Film, nanking