by Fred Teng
Remembering is not optional. It is a duty we owe to history and to humanity. Yet remembrance alone is not enough. We must also demand truth in the face of denial. The new Chinese film "Dead to Rights" embodies this responsibility with haunting restraint. It is not just a work of cinema. It is a call to conscience.
The story unfolds in a small Nanjing photo studio and its surrounding neighborhood in December 1937, as the city falls under the brutality of the invading Japanese army. Instead of focusing on generals or soldiers, the film turns its lens on ordinary citizens. A trembling hand clutching a family portrait, a mother whispering comfort to her child, the silence after a sudden knock at the door -- these are images that reveal war's true cost.
The director deliberately avoided sensationalism. Violence is never concealed, but it is portrayed with restraint through silence, absence and dread. Each horrifying incident in the film hints at the reality of hundreds of thousands of such moments multiplied across those dark days. While the on-screen bloodshed was kept to a minimum, the truth is that in 1937, blood ran through the streets of Nanjing and many other cities in China. In one unforgettable sequence, the darkroom of the photo studio fills with family photographs, even as the lives outside are shattered. Memory itself becomes an act of defiance.
As a Chinese American, I experienced this film not as a distant observer but as someone carrying generational memory. Years ago, I visited the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders. The silence of that place, the walls engraved with names and the testimony of survivors left me overwhelmed. Watching "Dead to Rights" ripped open fresh wounds. But it also brought anger, frustration and helplessness. I despised the weakness and corruption of the Kuomintang government, which abandoned its people in their darkest hour. I felt helpless for those who endured that terror. And I wished, impossibly, that I could step back into history, to fight beside them, even at the cost of my own life.
What deepens the wound is that, even today, the Japanese government refuses to fully acknowledge the atrocities committed by its military. Denial and revisionism persist. Senior officials continue to visit the Yasukuni Shrine, where convicted Class-A war criminals are enshrined. Each visit is a fresh insult to the victims, their descendants and to historical truth itself. It is not only an evasion of responsibility but a re-victimization of history.
The film's power also lies in its performances and cinematography. The acting is understated but deeply moving, giving dignity to characters who represent countless real lives. The muted and shadowed cinematography captures a city suffocating under cruelty, yet it also holds onto fragile sparks of humanity.
Without detailed explanatory narration, some Western viewers of the film may feel a little disorienting. But this challenge reflects a broader imbalance in global remembrance. In the West, the Holocaust is rightly taught, commemorated and represented in books, museums and films. This ensures that their horrors remain present in collective memory. By contrast, the Nanjing Massacre -- where more than 300,000 human beings were slaughtered and millions were tormented for the rest of their lives -- remains scarcely mentioned in Western classrooms or media. This imbalance perpetuates ignorance, leaving one of the 20th century's greatest atrocities invisible outside China.
Such neglect is not neutral. What societies remember and what they forget shapes what is accepted as truth. To ignore or diminish the Nanjing Massacre is to dishonor the victims, to torment survivors and their descendants, and to weaken the lessons history offers us today. Silence, in this context, is itself a form of injustice.
"Dead to Rights" -- named Nanjing Photo Studio in Chinese -- is therefore more than a film about 1937. It is a meditation on humanity's fragile dignity when confronted with cruelty. It is a call to remember what others might prefer to forget. In today's world, where civilians continue to bear the heaviest cost of wars they never chose, the lessons of Nanjing are painfully relevant.
I left the theater with tears and a heavy heart filled with sorrow, anger and helplessness. Yet that weight is also the film's gift. It refuses to offer comfort. It insists that memory remains alive, that denial never prevails, and that we demand honesty and responsibility from all nations.
Cinema cannot undo the past, but it can confront us with its truth. "Dead to Rights" reminds us that remembering is our duty, and demanding truth is our responsibility. Only through remembrance and truth can the world hope to build peace.
That peace also requires honesty. Japan must face its history with courage, not denial. Visits to the Yasukuni Shrine by its leaders dishonor the dead and wound the living. Continued revisionism insults the victims and obstructs reconciliation. For peace to be real, truth must come first.
The world has not forgotten the Holocaust because it is rightly taught and acknowledged. The same moral clarity is required for the Nanjing Massacre. To deny is to repeat the crime in another form. To acknowledge is to open the path toward genuine healing and peace.
Editor's note: Fred Teng is president of the America China Public Affairs Institute (AmericaChina). He is a Fellow of the Foreign Policy Association, an advisor to the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations, and a Centennial Society member of the Economic Club of New York. He also serves as senior advisor to the China-United States Exchange Foundation, executive council member of the Center for China and Globalization, and is a visiting professor at the School of International Studies, Sichuan University.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Xinhua News Agency.
