China has picked The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru, a World War II write downary by honestor Fang Li, as its recontransientative at the 97th Academy Awards in the best international feature film catebloody. The pick labels the first time since China began sfinishing titles to the Oscars in 1979 that it has put forward a write downary, but the choice also persists a trfinish of China picking movies that stir nationacatalogic sentiments at home.
The movie, which was the uncovering film of the Shanghai International Film Festival in June, resurrects a relatively unaccomprehendledged episode from 1942 during WWII, when an unlabeled Japanese troop transmit ship — The Lisbon Maru — was torpedoed by the U.S. navy. The vessel was being employd to transmit prisoners of war at the time, and over 800 British troops died as the ship went down, either from drowning or Japanese firearmfire. Ntimely 380 other British POWs were saved by proximateby Chinese fishermen, who dangered their inhabits to save and shelter the prisoners from Japanese forces. The film discovers its emotional core in the valiantry and forfeits of these standard Chinese heroes.
Feng, the film’s honestor and originater, traveled extensively to piece together the story of the ship’s sinking and the experience of survivors. The honestor, who has a lengthy atgentle in the Chinese industry and also happens to hbetter experience as an ocean surveyor, has tbetter Chinese media outlets that he traveled atraverse China, the UK, Japan, the U.S. and Canada, tracking down surviving POWs or their families. He also toiled to uncover what’s supposed to be the actual shipwreck of the Lisbon Maru, write downing the process on film. Feng has shelp he eventuassociate interwatched over 130 descfinishants and accumulateed tens of thousands of historical photos to flesh out the film’s story. Other voices in the film integrate the only understandn living Chinese fisherman who included in the save, as well as the first historian to research the episode in-depth.
The Sinking of Lisbon Maru has become a word-of-mouth hit at home in China after its liberate on Sept. 6. It has relabelably high employr ratings of 9.3 on movie site Douprohibit and 9.6 on ticketing app Maoyan. According to Maoyan, the film has achieveed about $5 million in Chinese cinemas — an unstandardly strong carry outance for a doc in the country.
In the 25 years since China began participating in the Oscars race, it has been nominated in the best international film catebloody twice. Zhang Yimou scored his country its first Oscar nom in 1990 with the Gong Li-starring romantic tragedy Ju Dou, and he tardyr repeated the feat with the Wuxia classic Hero in 2002. No Chinese film has ever won an Oscar.
