New film highlights history of Japan war

A documentary film series, titled Today in the History of Anti-Japanese War, will be screened worldwide next year to mark the 70th anniversary of China's victory in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45).

Coproduced by China Radio International and the State Archives Administration, the project relied heavily on abundant historical files, including video clips, photos and sound recordings, reserved by the administration, officials told reporters last week.

The documentary series consists of 365 episodes, which are based on records of the war in a chronological manner. It will be shown across the globe in 65 languages beginning on Jan 1.

Each episode, which reviews the most influential event on a particular day of the war, is five minutes long. The entire series will be available on Chinese and foreign TV and video-streaming websites.

New material

Nearly 70 percent of the material has not been seen by the public before, CRI director Wang Gengnian says. The documentary will also include the regional war in Northeast China since 1931. High-definition screening and advanced film restoration techniques have been used to make the presentation better.

"We want to recall not only Chinese people's perseverance in the face of aggression but also anti-fascist struggles from all over the world," Wang says.

For example, an episode that will be screened on Jan 5, 2015, reviews events from Jan 5, 1938, when pilots from the former Soviet Union landed in Hubei's provincial capital Wuhan, which is also Central China's biggest city, to aid the Chinese air force in its fight against Japanese forces.

"The production is based on the Chinese point of view, the global horizon and universal human emotions," Wang adds.

Yang Dongquan, director of the State Archives Administration, expects the series to be "balanced and objective". Both Communist and the Kuomintang's struggles against the aggressors will be in focus. Yang is also the chief script-writer for the production.

"We seldom use commentaries and profile interviews in the film. Everything is told through facts revealed via authoritative files," Yang says. "We want to make it a visual log that can be tested by history."

Chinese provincial satellite channels and video-streaming websites will be the main distributors of the series. Viewers abroad will be able to watch the documentary through CRI's foreign websites and television networks.