City of Life and Death
Kino International | Release Date: May 11, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
85
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 13 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranNov 16, 2011
Harrowing and unflinching, a savage nightmare so consuming and claustrophobic you will want to leave but fear to go, City of Life and Death is a cinematic experience unlike any you've had before. It's a film strong enough to change your life, if you can bear to watch it at all. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleDavid LewisSep 22, 2011
City of Life and Death, a stunning re-creation of the Japanese army's annihilation of Nanking in 1937, will make you flinch, even as you admire its brilliant black-and-white cinematography, breathtaking art design and unerring direction. Read full review
100
The New York TimesManohla DargisMay 12, 2011
City of Life and Death isn't cathartic: it offers no uplifting moments, just the immodest balm of art. The horrors it represents can be almost too difficult to watch, yet you keep watching because Mr. Lu makes the case that you must. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJun 16, 2011
This is hardly a film to recommend as entertainment. As an act of remembrance, though, it is singular and, in its way, soaring. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsJul 8, 2011
Both arduous and artful, City of Life and Death is the best imaginable movie about the genocidal siege that's now called the Rape of Nanking. Anything more explicit would be unwatchable; anything more contemplative would be a betrayal of the sustained suffering. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaJun 5, 2011
Chuan's unsettlingly beautiful black-and-white, wide-screen account of those nightmare six weeks, re-creates that horror in ways that are at once allusive and lucid, mixing cinematic impressionism with documentary-like detail. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisJun 5, 2011
Here the Japanese senses of honor and of shame are particularly entangled. Later in the film, Lu mounts an Imperial Army parade through the Nanking ruins. It's something to see. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJun 18, 2011
Despite its blunt characterizations and simplifications, City of Life and Death, through the inexorable pileup of gruesome detail, achieves an epic vision of horror. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasMay 12, 2011
The film never feels entirely staid: Lu wriggles out of convention where he can, especially in the first half, and engages with history as an artist, not a hagiographer. Read full review
80
EmpirePhil de SemlyenMay 9, 2011
Passionate and expertly crafted, this black-and-white opus is well worth seeking out. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJun 16, 2011
It's a muscular, physical movie, pieced together from arresting imagery and revelatory gestures, large and small. Read full review
70
Village VoiceJ. HobermanMay 10, 2011
City of Life and Death is far more convincing as a spectacle of mass atrocity than a drama of individual conscience. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfMay 10, 2011
The movie skips along episodically; it's not quite as sharp as a war narrative needs to be, even if its nightmarish psychology feels spot-on. Read full review
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