The Rape of Nanking --- Cleaned-up Version

Rating: 10/10 (14 July 2012)

The Flowers of War is a gritty and well-made film with a story set in a "protected area" of Nanking during the worst atrocity to occur anywhere in the Pacific war.
With sensitivity to a squeamish audience used to the fake horror of B movies, you'll see the slaughter of many unarmed civilians and the very brutal rape of the schoolgirls hiding in the Safety Zone but broken into anyway by Japanese soldiers. You'll see gang rapes followed by the immediate and pointless murder of the victims. You will see a supposedly "nice" Japanese officer who loves music et cetera but will later enslave all 13 schoolgirls for gang rape at a Japanese celebration.
What you will NOT see is the true depiction of the horrors inflicted on the civilians of Nanking by the Japanese. No depiction of pregnant girls being raped then cut open and having the fetus stabbed, no rapes of little children, cut open if that was necessary to effect the rape. No, it's all cleaned up, or nobody would watch it. (Will this account even survive the IMDb review?)
Witnesses to the Rape of Nanking are/were numerous and diverse. Lots of foreign nationals witnessed the crimes. There is even actual movies taken of the crimes -- at the time they were happening.
Personally, I'm not anti-Japanese. World War II was a long time ago and the leadership of Douglas NacArthur following the war changed the Japanese forever. I've visited Japan as a tourist and purchased five Japanese cars. But history is history. The Flowers of War is well worth your time; but keep in mind this is the cleaned-up version of true and prolonged horror.