‘Dead to Rights’ turns photos into weapons against forgetting

Poster of “Dead to Rights”

If “Schindler’s List” left you shattered, prepare for a different, yet equally profound, kind of devastation with “Dead to Rights,” which opened in Macau and across the Chinese mainland on Friday.

Adapted from another chapter of unspeakable horror – the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, a WWII atrocity as searing as it is under-remembered in the West, “Dead to Rights” was released to mark the 80th anniversary of victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1931-45) and the World Anti-Fascist War.

Its impressive debut with an 8.5/10 high score on Chinese review platform Douban and a staggering over 155 million yuan ($21.67 million) opening day signals more than just a box-office phenomenon. It feels like an 88-year-delayed trial by film that allows the world to bear witness.

An infant killed under a bayonet, rivers running bloody red… The atrocities depicted transported me viscerally back to the harrowing photographs seared into my memory at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall in Nanjing, East China’s Jiangsu Province. 

The massacre, a historical trauma deeply etched in every Chinese heart, began on December 13, 1937 when Japanese invaders captured Nanjing, the then Chinese capital. Over six weeks of unimaginable brutality, approximately 300,000 Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers were slaughtered.

What struck me as particularly potent about “Dead to Rights” is its narrative and cautiously subtle camera shots.

Unlike war epics that lean on grand battle scenes or heroics, director Shen Ao drills down into the claustrophobic confines of the “Jixiang (Lucky) Photographic Studio” in occupied Nanjing. 

Here, seven ordinary people, including a postman hiding as an apprentice named “A Chang,” a morally compromised translator, a displaced actress, and others simply trying to survive, are forced to develop film for the Japanese military. 

Their sole aim is to live another day. But the images emerging in the darkroom’s crimson glow are undeniable evidence of war crimes – trophies of massacre and torture. 

Faced with the physical proof of their people’s suffering, and the casual brutality of their occupiers, their instinct shifts from self-preservation to preservation of evidence. 

Their transformation feels organic, human, and devoid of forced heroics. 

As deadly as a bullet

Unarmed against guns and swords, they turn the very negatives documenting Japanese atrocities into weapons.

Shen plays with the double meaning of “shoot,” the click of a camera mirroring the crack of a rifle. 

“In that war a photo was as deadly as a bullet,” he said.

This narrative backbone is rooted in terrifying fact. 

At the Beijing premiere last week, director Shen shared his inspiration for the film. In the real history, Luo Jin, an apprentice at Nanjing’s Huadong Photo Studio in 1938, risked his life to secretly copy horrific images from Japanese officers’ film negatives, compiling them into an album. Patriotic youth Wu Xuan later safeguarded this evidence, which became the pivotal evidence at the trial of war criminal Hisao Tani. 

The film brilliantly fictionalizes this act of immense courage into a taut, suspenseful “battle for evidence.”

The film’s power lies in what it doesn’t show. Scenes of violence against women are conveyed through shadows, reflections, and agonizing implication, a far more powerful and respectful approach than graphic depiction. 

The film exposes the grim reality behind supposed “safety.” Even within the Nanjing Safety Zone, figures like US missionary were assaulted, hospitals and women’s colleges were violated, “comfort women” were seized, foreign journalists were detained and their film destroyed. The pervasive, suffocating terror is palpable without needing excessive gore.

In addition, if humanity’s light is revealed through its darkness, then the film’s brilliance lies in its character design that exposes the hypocrisy and inhuman depravity of the Japanese invaders. 

In the film, translator Wang Guanghai’s snarl Smile! reveals the occupiers’ hypocrisy. Before the lens, a forced tableau of “friendship;” while behind it, bodies pile up beneath fixed bayonets.

The aggressors sought to weaponize these very photographs, attempting to whitewash their monstrous acts, recasting themselves as “valiant soldiers,” “noble heroes,” even “benefactors” uplifting China.

This duplicity crystallizes in the character of Ito, a Japanese military photographer, who is aristocratic, refined, and even feeds stray dogs. Yet when a crying infant disrupts his shot, he offers only a faint frown and a command for “quiet.” A soldier instantly dashes the baby against the floor, leading to the baby’s death.

As a mother, witnessing this shattered me.

A definitive testament to the Nanjing Massacre

The Japanese invaders cloaked themselves in high-minded ideals, invoking Confucius’ virtues like “benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and fidelity,” into their inhuman cruel slaughter. 

This reminds me of the scene from “Schindler’s List” in which Nazi officers debated Bach or Mozart while orchestrating genocide. What is the monster who appreciates philosophy and art but despises life?

Similarly with Schindler’ List, “Dead to Rights” rightfully claims its place as the definitive cinematic testament to the Nanjing Massacre. Its palette, though not monochrome, is steeped in oppressive grays, mirroring the moral abyss of that time.

Against this darkness, the film’s most profoundly moving moment shines with defiant humanity. 

Trapped, facing almost certain death, the group in the photo studio decides to take a portrait photo. Not before a blank backdrop, but before painted scenes of their homeland. 

With solemn reverence, they cycle through canvases: the Forbidden City in Beijing, Tianjin’s bustling Quanye Market, Hangzhou’s West Lake… Their fingers trace the painted landscapes, their eyes gazing far beyond the studio walls. “Not one inch of our beautiful land shall be surrendered,” they vow. 

Physically imprisoned, their spirits claim the entirety of China. A Chang’s assigned number, 1213, chillingly echoes the date of the massacre’s commencement, December 13, which is a silent, powerful mark of awakening.

As the credits rolled, applause broke out, a collective tribute to history. Around me, countless eyes were red-rimmed. 

The true epilogue isn’t a post-credit scene. It’s stepping out of the cinema, looking up, and seeing the peaceful reflection of the Bird’s Nest stadium shimmering on a calm lake, embodying a vibrant, peaceful cityscape that endures. This is the legacy those in the darkroom fought for. 

This history – the Nanjing Massacre – must be remembered. It cannot be forgotten. “Dead to Rights” which is set to be released in the US, Australia, New Zealand and more in August ensures it won’t be. Chen Xi, Global Times, Courtesy Global Times