From "Tokyo Trial" to "Asia-Pacific War Trial", Shanghai traces the "War Trial" because history cannot be forgotten

Tomorrow, the 90th anniversary of the outbreak of the "918" incident. 90 years ago, the "918" that shocked China and foreign countries was the starting point of the Chinese people's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and also opened the prelude to the world anti-fascist war.

Show the past, and let the future generations. The eight-episode documentary series "Asia-Pacific War Trials", produced by the Documentary Center and Rong Media Center of Shanghai Radio and Television Station, will be rebroadcast on CCTV-7 CCTV National Defense military channel and SMG Documentary Humanities Channel recently. At the same time, the new book "The Complete Documentary of the Asia-Pacific War Trials" and the audio-visual publication of the documentary "The Trial of the Asia-Pacific War" jointly published by Shanghai Radio and Television Station, the Tokyo Trial Research Center of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, were also recently released.

Premiered a year ago, the documentary "Asia-Pacific War Trials" is the world's first large-scale documentary that focuses on the trial of Japanese BC (B C) war criminals by allied powers after World War II, filling the gap in the field of images. It is worth noting that since 2015, the Documentary and Academic Team in Shanghai has launched the first and second seasons of "Tokyo Trial" and "Asia-Pacific War Trial" and its various publications, and plans to promote the filming and research of "China Trial".

From the filming of "Tokyo Trial" to "Asia-Pacific War Trial", to the publication of multi-genre publications on the same topic and the continuous advancement of follow-up projects, this Shanghai team has continuously dug deep into historical materials. They track down the "trials of war," record the truth, speak with historical facts, and convince people with reason, just because history cannot be forgotten.

Documentaries have "only" historical value, and the new book further complements the historical materials behind them

"So far, documentaries reflecting the atrocities of the Japanese army are everywhere, and the historical materials and images surrounding the 'Tokyo Trial' of Japanese Class A (A) war criminals have also been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. However, due to the lack of relevant research results worldwide, this film is the only documentary that provides a panoramic view of the trials in the Asia-Pacific region outside the Tokyo trials. Cheng Zhaoqi, director of the Tokyo Trial Research Center of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, highly recognized the documentary "Asia-Pacific War Trials".

Some data can support the preciousness and non-reproducibility of documentaries. During the filming process, the team spanned 11 countries and regions on four continents, traveled nearly 90,000 kilometers, and excavated a large number of precious historical images, audio files and materials from 29 world-class archives, most of which were first seen with the world. The film crew also interviewed nearly 50 international experts and scholars, more than 40 witnesses of historical events and their descendants, including rescue interviews with many centenarians. Due to the special theme, the overseas shooting of "Asia-Pacific War Trial" was within the monitoring range of the relevant local departments, and some overseas interview subjects were also the first time to face the chinese media.

Whether it is the "unprecedented" pioneering excavation or the "absolute" rescue character interview, it has laid an extremely important and even "unique" historical value for the documentary. The book "The Complete Documentary of the Trial of the Asia-Pacific War" is based on the solid creation of eight episodes of the documentary. The book not only includes a large number of exclusive or rare historical images, documents and evidence excavated during the filming of the documentary, showing the unknown Chinese stories of World War II, especially the touching past of Chinese private rescue and protection of Allied soldiers; it also adds a wealth of "historical materials" through the director's notes of the main creative team. At the same time, the QR code of the relevant video is embedded in the book, and the reader can scan the code to watch the corresponding fragments of the documentary, improving the reading interactivity.

For example, in the second episode of the documentary, "Coming Home Alive", the best person to appear in the contemporary "Lisbon Maru" shipwreck was Dennis Morley, the only survivor of the incident, the centenarian. In January this year, the old man passed away. In the book, the episode's director, Jingwen Wang, reviews the team's tortuous process of contacting Morley in early 2019. Readers and viewers can know the urgency of a race against time behind a historical documentary.

Take the fourth episode of the documentary, "Soul Break", which focuses on the Australian trial, as an example. According to the preset framework, the content of the collection is a series of Australian archives documents and interviews with local experts and descendants of the parties. However, when reading the relevant literature, Yu Jie, the director of the episode, noticed that there were 57 "eight hundred heroes" among the Chinese soldiers and civilians who were serving hard labor in Rabaul at that time. This discovery stimulated her curiosity to find out. So she took the team to Papua New Guinea. The director's notes in the new book record in the first person the hardships of weather, transportation, and personal safety experienced during filming. "Today, in the 21st century, we are still facing so many difficulties that it is hard to imagine how the prisoners of war survived those three years more than 70 years ago." After reading such texts and looking at the pictures in the documentary, the real wartime relics such as the wreckage of the planes lying under the water and the winding tunnels built by the prisoners of war will make the audience more aware of the harm of the Japanese invasion of China: no matter how far away the remote countryside cannot become a safe haven from disasters.

Highly affirmed by the international community, the urban soil of The Haipai documentary has attracted people's attention

As early as a year ago, the documentary "Asia-Pacific War Trial" premiered on Oriental Satellite TV, Documentary Humanities Channel, Shanghai Foreign Language Channel, etc., which received widespread attention. Among them, Mei Xiaokan, the daughter of The Chinese judge of the Tokyo Trial, Mei Ruxuan, expressed her impressions with the word "shock" for the first time. As an expert who has long been concerned about the study of the Tokyo trial, Mei Xiaokan's first feeling is of indicator significance. Since then, as the film has successively landed on platforms such as Russian SPB TV and Sinovision in the United States, the film's international vision and convincing exposition have quickly gained high recognition from the international community.

In May this year, the documentary "Asia-Pacific War Trial" won the Terley Award for the history of the TV series, known as the "Oscar of the American television industry". In Cheng Zhaoqi's view, the launch and award of "Asia-Pacific War Trial" proves the unanimous condemnation of the international community for Japan's war of aggression and the atrocities committed by the Japanese army, and also affirms the important role played by China as the main battlefield in the East in World War II. These are extremely powerful refutations of the Japanese right-wing forces' strenuous denial of the crimes of that year and their beautification of the war of aggression against China in recent years. He believes that the international vision and objective and rational exposition are the valuable creative spirit of this documentary produced in Shanghai.

It is worth mentioning that from "Tokyo Trial" to "Asia-Pacific War Trial", documentaries in related fields are all from the same group of creators - the post-80s team from the Documentary Center of Shanghai Radio and Television Station led by director Chen Yinan. Compared with the thick history, how did this young team make a well-known documentary in the international community against the background of the lack of academic achievements? Chen Yinan introduced the research work they did while visiting Professor Cheng Zhaoqi: browsing the relevant courtroom video materials scattered around the world, equivalent to 900 movie lengths; viewing 20 million words of trial records in various languages; identifying 15,000 photos of war criminals, trial personnel and participants; flipping through 160 related academic works in different languages, covering English, French, Russian, Dutch, Japanese, Malay, many of which are still orphan books on Amazon's website...

It is not difficult to see in this statement that it is no accident that "The Tokyo Trial" and "Asia-Pacific War Trial" came from Shanghai. The Tokyo Trial Research Center is located at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and the China "Comfort Women" Research Center is located at Shanghai Normal University. Chen Yinan's team was originally from the foreign language channel of Shanghai Radio and Television Station. In this international metropolis, Shanghai has academic advantages, foreign language advantages, and international exchange advantages. Rooted in the deep urban soil, the documentary team in Shanghai has been able to restore a period of unforgettable history, and continue to enhance the dissemination and influence of the series of documentaries internationally.

Author: Wang Yan

Editor: Xu Luming