Lu's 'City' draws raves, death threats

April 29, 2009 Chinese director Lu Chuan is drawing strong mixed reactions -- some threatening -- for his sympathetic portrayal of a Japanese soldier in his black and white drama "City of Life and Death," about the Nanjing Massacre in 1937. In a country where films have long portrayed the invading Japanese as one-dimensionally evil, Lu cast actor Hideo Nakaizumi as a man haunted by his inability to stop the slaughter ordered by his superior officers. On a 15-city promotional tour, Lu has fielded sharp questions from Chinese moviegoers, journalists and critics about why he gave the Japanese enemy a human face.

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