The Ruptured Tear Behind the Mask

When the Japanese soldier Ishi Gunjiro is confronted with the atrocities committed by officer Suma of the Japanese army in Nanjing in 1937, he decides to keep documents and photographs as proof of the officer’s crimes. Amidst the murders and struggles, Gunjiro stumbles across a young boy who hides in the bushes along the shores of the Yangzi. He prevents the boy, Wen Ting, is discovered by the Japanese. After the war, it seems Suma has disappeared.

More than 60 years later, in 2004, Suma resurfaces, aiming to play a dominant political role in Japan by creating a new cult. Gunjiro and Wen Ting are the only people who can identify him. An ice-cold and complex power play unravels again in Nanjing, but this time, Wen Ting and Gunjiro fight the battle on the same side together. The Japanese army captured 1937 Nanjing. They created a massacre known as ‘’The Rape of Nanjing’’, compiling between 200.000 and 300.000 victims. This thriller describes the tension and the relief of conflict in relations between hostile parties. Which parties were involved in the 1937 massacre at both individual and collective levels, which mechanisms of obedience.