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Gai Shanxi and Her Sisters
80 minutes Documentary / Educational / Foreign
The story of one woman's brutal ordeal as a "comfort woman" for the Japanese Army during World War II.
Intended Audience: Mature
GAI SHANXI AND HER SISTERS tells the story of one woman’s brutal ordeal as a “comfort woman“ for the Japanese Army during World War II. Hou Dong-E, known as “Gai Shanxi,” the fairest woman in China’s Shanxi province, was one of the many women abducted from their villages to be sexually enslaved by Japanese soldiers stationed nearby. Fifty years later, she joined other women throughout Asia to seek justice and reparations, but she died before her demands were answered.
Chinese filmmaker Ban Zhongyi unearths Gai Shanxi’s tragic life through the stories of the surviving women in the region. Ban also collects revelatory testimonies from former Japanese soldiers stationed in Shanxi during the war, breaking a decades-long silence over a dark chapter of China’s history. Following one woman’s heroic journey, GAI SHANXI AND HER SISTERS tells a universal story of female solidarity and survival.
Gan Xiao’er is an independent filmmaker based in China. He graduated from the Beijing Film Academy in 1998 and has been teaching at the South China Normal University since his graduation. He set up The Seventh Seal Film Workshop in 2000 with a commitment to producing feature films that explore the spiritual life of the Chinese. The Seventh Seal Film Workshop has completed two films, The Only Sons and RAISED FROM DUST.
- Directed by: BAN Zhongyi
- Written by: BAN Zhongyi
- Produced by: BAN Zhongyi
- Run Time: 80 minutes
- Release Date: 2007
-
Country:
United States of America
- Intended Audience: mature
- Website Gai Shanxi and Her Sisters
Written by BAN Zhongyi
Produced by BAN Zhongyi
Cast
Perhaps a more sensational approach would have made the film more entertaining for some, but I agree that a movie about war and struggles will only lose touch with reality should it's story become sensational.
I watched Gan Shanxi and Her Sisters with three friends at Asia Society in NYC this year. The two guys that I went with did not quite enjoy the film because the subject was depressing. They commented that war atrocities like such that were depicted in the documentary were in fact very common, and thus nothing was achieved if the story wasn't made sensational. As a cinema studies major, I did not quite agree with them. First of all, documentaries that take real Chinese "comfort women" as subjects are rare. Besides a few big productions such as The City of Life and Death (2009) and Nanking (2007), which include short excerpts of interviews with these women, only one or two documentaries are known to have dealt with them. These woman are rapidly dying, and their stories are rapidly disappearing. I think that as time goes by, documentaries like Gai Shanxi and Her Sisters will become more and more valuable. Secondly, a sensational recount of what happened to the women might be the way to go for a feature film about the war, but for a documentary, a lucid and composed confrontation with the past ought to serve the audience better. I don't think this documentary is trying to burden us with the pains of the past. On the contrary, it relieves us of the burden so that we know that the past is past, but is not forgotten.