WWII doc ‘The Sinking of The Lisbon Maru’ and the dialogue-free dance epic ‘A Tapestry of A Legendary Land’ may appear to have nothing in common, but both examine unknown chapters in Chinese history.
WWII doc ‘The Sinking of The Lisbon Maru’ and the dialogue-free dance epic ‘A Tapestry of A Legendary Land’ may appear to have nothing in common, but both examine unknown chapters in Chinese history.
Fang Li couldn’t quite believe his ears when a fisherman shared the story behind what would become the Chinese filmmaker’s latest documentary, The Sinking of The Lisbon Maru.
The year was 2014 and Fang was on set in his role as a producer shooting the feature film The Continent — a Han Han-directed road-trip comedy-drama — and it was while heading out from the coast of eastern Zhejiang province towards Dongji Island that the fisherman told a tale that had, for seven decades, remained remarkably untold.
Fang heard of how on October 1, 1942 a Japanese military cargo ship laden with 1,816 British prisoners of war hidden in its hull was on its way from Hong Kong to Japan when it was torpedoed by the USS Grouper.
In the aftermath of the strike — and as the ship slowly sank — Japanese troops locked the POWs inside the cargo holds. But the POWs fought for their lives, breaking free and taking to the waters, only to be shot at by the Japanese before local Chinese fishermen arrived and started plucking them from the water. In the end, 384 men survived and 828 perished, either in the hold or in the water.
“I was quite surprised that someone who knew so much about history like me had never heard of this at all,” says Fang. “I asked locals about it, and I also went to check it out. It really happened.”
The filmmaker in Fang knew that he had a movie just waiting to be made. It then took six years to put The Sinking of The Lisbon Maru together. First Fang had to find the sunken ship — which had laid untouched on the ocean floor since 1942 — then he had to find witnesses to the event, and maybe even survivors.
“At the time it happened, Western countries were fixing their eyes on the war situation in the West, and paid less attention to the situation in the Far East,” says Fang, whose documentary opened this year’s Shanghai International Film Festival back in June, where it was one of the hits of the event
“Besides, in such a huge war situation, this was not a big event,” he adds. “So it hadn’t really been talked about much. After I interviewed the families of the first batch of witnesses, an overwhelming feeling of sadness struck me. So many joys and sorrows were in these storylines that couldn’t be made up.”
The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru is one of two films being featured at the China Film Pavilion during this year’s American Film Market in Las Vegas, as co-organizers the China Film Co-production Corporation (CFCC) look to showcase what they are labeling a growing diversity in content coming out of the Chinese film industry.
The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru
Courtesy of The Sinking of The Lisbon Maru
That diversity is on full display in the dance-led drama A Tapestry of A Legendary Land, the other film the pavilion is showcasing which, at first glance, appears to share nothing in common with Lisbon Maru. A closer look, however, reveals how both films tap into unknown chapters in Chinese history, at least cinematically.
Co-directed by Zhou Liya and Han Zhen and adapted from their successful stage show, Tapestry follows a fictionalized modern-day relics researcher, who travels back in time to meet the Xi Meng, the artist behind the famed Chinese painting A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains, which he created during the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127). The film uses no dialogue, just dance, to imagine how a painting that is to this day cloaked in mystery was created — it’s rarely seen in public due to its fragility and not much is known about Xi, who was said to be around 18 years old when he finished the project before he inexplicably disappeared from mention in any literature of the time.
But Lisbon Maru and Tapestry aren’t the only titles the China Film Pavilion will be touting in Las Vegas. The pavilion is also spotlighting the work of more than 50 Chinese film companies and more than 200 movies. They cut across genres that tap into history and culture — including Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants and Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms, which are drawn from famous novels — as well as more contemporary tales such as the colorfully titled Gold or Shit, Herstory, and Moments We Shared, as well as animation titles like White Snake: Afloat, the latest in the immensely popular Boonie Bears franchise, Boonie Bears: Time Twist and I Am What I Am.
“The goal is not only to promote international trade of domestic films but also to encourage resource-sharing and collaboration across global markets,” the CFCC said of its AFM slate in a statement. “In the future, China Film Pavilion plans to continue expanding opportunities for Chinese filmmakers to engage with the international community and to continue bringing more Chinese films to audiences worldwide.”
The China Film Pavilion is also designed to update visitors on the state of play on the ground in the country. Among the domestic successes has been the Korean war drama The Volunteers: To the War II, which premiered on China’s National Day (October 1) and grossed $161 million by the end of the month. There has also been the rollout of the re-release of the Harry Potter franchise, week by week from October 11, with the first two installments combining for around $14 million by month’s end.
After it received overwhelming praise from critics and fans in Shanghai, The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru was submitted as China’s Oscar hopeful in the best international film category — but it was deemed this past week that the film had failed to meet the Academy’s requirement that a film must have “a predominantly (more than 50 percent) non-English dialogue track.”
In the meantime, Li has been negotiating for international distribution and reflecting again on the story he has explored for the past decade in a film that he now hopes will bring some closure to the families of those involved.
“We found that, in the United Kingdom, families didn’t know where and how these men had died, for decades,” says Fang. “For decades, and even generations, they could only rely on a photo, a letter or a token to remember them by. As for the fishermen [who rescued the POWs], both the old or the young still didn’t think that their ancestors had done anything worthy of praise. They only knew that they would always rescue those who were in trouble at sea. So, I hope this film shares that simple goodness.”