Nanking Documentary Film Review: A Critical Analysis
This paper offers a critical review of the documentary film Nanking, examining its strengths and limitations as a vehicle for historical understanding. The author praises the film's use of archival footage while raising concerns about its one-sided presentation of the Nanjing Massacre. Drawing on broader readings about war and atrocity propaganda, the reviewer questions the filmmakers' intent in presenting survivor testimonies and argues that a fuller understanding of the event requires engagement with multiple perspectives, including Japanese nationalist counternarratives. The paper concludes with a recommendation to pair the film with contrasting sources in an academic setting.
- Introduction and Initial Reservations: Author's skepticism toward one-sided historical films
- Strengths: Archival Footage and Authentic Detail: Praise for authentic footage, concern over survivor testimonies
- The Problem of One-Sided Perspective: Critique of the film's single narrative viewpoint
- Historical Understanding Gained and Its Limits: New knowledge gained, but depth remains insufficient
- Recommendations for Academic Use: Suggests pairing film with contrasting perspectives
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- The author demonstrates intellectual self-awareness by explicitly acknowledging personal biases and viewing habits before engaging with the film, lending credibility to the critique.
- The review balances genuine appreciation for specific elements (archival footage, new historical figures encountered) with principled criticism, avoiding a purely negative or dismissive tone.
- Citations of Wilcox (1940) and History.com ground the personal response in broader scholarly and factual context, elevating the piece beyond simple opinion.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates the technique of contextualizing a media artifact within a broader historiographical debate. Rather than accepting the film's framing uncritically, the author situates it within the ongoing scholarly and political dispute over the Nanjing Massacre, referencing revisionist and nationalist counternarratives. This models critical media literacy — evaluating not just what a source says, but why and for whom it was constructed.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a personal framing statement about the author's general skepticism toward historical films, then moves into specific praise for the documentary's archival elements. The central section develops the core criticism — the film's single-perspective approach — before acknowledging what historical knowledge was genuinely gained. The paper closes with a practical course-level recommendation that directly addresses the limitations identified earlier, giving the argument a constructive resolution.
Introduction and Initial Reservations
I am always somewhat on guard whenever I see a film about a historical event, because I know how large a part propaganda — and especially war propaganda and atrocity propaganda — has played in our own nation's history in modern times (Wilcox, 1940). For that reason, I approach a film like Nanking always wondering what the other side would have to say about the story. There is always another side that needs to be told, or at least heard. Otherwise, our sense of history is colored by a single perspective.
What I found most challenging about Nanking, therefore, was the fact that it offers only a single perspective on this historical event. Yet there may be others worth considering. As History.com points out: "Anger over the events at Nanjing continues to color Sino-Japanese relations to this day. The true nature of the massacre has been disputed and exploited for propaganda purposes by historical revisionists, apologists, and Japanese nationalists. Some claim the numbers of deaths have been inflated, while others have denied that any massacre occurred" (History, 2023). Noting this is simply my way of expressing my own discomfort with historical films that seek to produce a certain effect in the audience by emphasizing a single perspective. Having read John Hersey's Hiroshima and having seen the documentary Hellstorm, I can say that there are indeed many stories to tell about war. Nanking is one to add to the list. There are things I liked about it, but also things I did not like. The main challenge for me was simply watching it to the end.
References
History. (2023). Nanjing massacre. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/topics/asian-history/nanjing-massacre
Wilcox, F. O. (1940). The use of atrocity stories in war. American Political Science Review, 34(6), 1167–1178.
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.