EXCLUSIVE: Fortissimo Films has secured international sales to upcoming Chinese war drama 731 and will introduce the feature to buyers at Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) this week.
The Amsterdam and Beijing-based sales company will handle rights to the film for Europe, the Middle East and South America. It is scheduled for release in China on September 18.
Directed by Zhao Linshan, the story is inspired by one of the darkest and least-known chapters of the Second World War. It centres on the Imperial Japanese Army’s notorious Unit 731, which conducted biological and chemical experiments on human subjects in occupied China during the 1940s. The film, set entirely within the sterile confines of the military compound in China’s northeastern region, has a cast that includes Jiang Wu and Wang Zhiwen.
Speaking about his motivation for the project, director Zhao said: “My first encounter with the historical records of Unit 731 left me with a profound sense of shock and pain. As a filmmaker, I feel a deep responsibility to use cinema as a medium to bring this harrowing truth to contemporary audiences. With this film, I hope to give names, stories, and faces to those who perished in silence under such cruel experiments.”
This years marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the Sino-Japanese conflict.
Zhao’s previous feature was 2012’s The Assassins, a historical Chinese drama starring Chow Yun-fat.
731 adds to Fortissimo’s recent slate of titles, which also includes Yu Ao and Zhou Tienan’s The Girl Who Stole Time, which played Annecy and won best animated feature at Fantasia in July; and Li Yang’s sci-fi Escape From The 21st Century.
No comments yet