Beijing launch for massacre film

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/entertainment/6270274.stm

Version 0 of 1.

A US-made documentary about a massacre committed by Japanese soldiers in the Chinese city of Nanjing in 1937 has had its premiere in Beijing.

In it, actors like Woody Harrelson and Stephen Dorff read diary entries by Westerners in the city at the time.

The film is called Nanking, the name of the city in English at the time, and opens in China on Saturday.

It is doubtful, though, it will ever be shown in Japan, where historians claim the massacre has been exaggerated.

Directed by Bull Guttentag and Dan Sturman, the film focuses on how US missionaries worked with German businessmen to set up a safe zone for Chinese refugees.

It combines the readings with archive footage and testimony from survivors.

China has long contended that 300,000 people died in the attack, but a group of MPs from Japan's governing party recently said no more than 20,000 were killed.

Some experts argue a more accurate estimate is between 150,000 and 200,000.