John Rabe (film)

John Rabe (film)

John Rabe (released in the United Kingdom as City of War: The Story of John Rabe) is a 2009 German-Chinese-French biopictorial film directed by Florian Gallenberger and starring Ulrich Tukur, Daniel Brühl and Steve Buscemi.

It focuses upon the experiences of John Rabe, a German businessman who used his Nazi Party membership to create a protective International Safety Zone in Nanking, China, helping to save over 200,000 Chinese from the Nanking Massacre in late 1937 and early 1938. The massacre and its associated atrocities were committed subsequent to the Battle of Nanking by the invading Imperial Japanese Army after they defeated the Chinese Nationalist forces defending the city during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Based upon John Rabe's published wartime diaries, shooting for the film commenced in 2007, and it premiered at the 59th Berlin Film Festival on 7 February 2009. Upon the film's release it did not receive theatrical distribution in Japan and was the subject of vociferous refutations by Japanese ultranationalists who denied the events ever took place.