It would be easy to write off City of Life and Death, Lu Chuan’s epic drama on the capture and subsequent pillaging of Nanking by Japanese soldiers in 1937, as an attempt to give the Chinese their own Schindler’s List.  The parallels are hard to ignore: exquisite black-and-white cinematography, heart-stopping brutality, crowds of terrified civilians in a tightly enclosed space, and slaughter being held at bay by the flimsiest of stratagems…

City of Life and Death is playing now in limited release. You can read the full review at Film Journal International.