Long-lost film documents resistance

Kukan, a previously lost, award-winning film about Chinese resistance to the Japanese invasion during World War II, has been restored and introduced to China.

The Chongqing Research Center for the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in the Unoccupied Area announced on Wednesday that it has signed a purchase agreement for Kukan with the descendants of Rey Scott, who filmed the documentary. The deal authorizes the center to use the material for research and to educate the public.

Kukan is the Chinese pronunciation for "hard working", a quality that the film's producer believed helped the Chinese people to win the war.

"It is so far the most complete record of the Japanese invasion of China by a Westerner," said Zhou Yong, the center's director. "Every viewer will be deeply touched and shocked by how common Chinese people struggled through the war."

The 85-minute film, subtitled The Battle Cry of China, was produced by Chinese American Li Ling-Ai between 1937 and 1940. In 1937, Li, a playwright from Hawaii, decided to make a movie to record war-torn China with her own money.

She hired Scott, a photojournalist from the US Midwest, to shoot the documentary. Its detailed recording of their journey in wartime China won them an Honorary Academy Award in 1941.

The final 20 minutes of Kukan shows the Japanese bombings of the wartime capital of Chongqing on Aug 19 and 20, 1940. Scott captured his footage of the bombed downtown from the roof of the US embassy across the Yangtze River.

Bosley Crowther, reviewing the film for The New York Times, called the sequence "one of the most awesome bits of motion picture yet seen in this day of frightful news events".

The film premiered in New York on June 23, 1941, but faded from view after the war.

Kukan was officially categorized as a "lost" film until 2009, when Chinese Chinese-American movie producer Robin Lung discovered a copy.

Lung is producing a documentary about finding the copy, titled Finding Kukan.

tanyingzi@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 04/09/2015 page5)