The first documentary film on Chinese victims of Japanese wartime sex slavery has become unexpectedly popular in Chinese theaters –with the director pledging to donate all proceeds to victims.
"Twenty Two," directed by Guo Ke, records the daily life of the last 22 surviving sex slavery victims in China and their memories of what happened in World War II. The director hopes that more people can learn about the dark history behind Japan's "comfort women," a euphemism for girls and women forced into sex slavery by the Japanese during WWII.
The film, with a 3 million yuan (US$448,620) budget, actually encountered a series of difficulties during production over the past five years, including the withdrawal of investors.
Chinese actress Zhang Xinyi personally provided 1 million yuan (US$149,540) to help finish the project. The film has no big movie star and the distributors lack funding for promotion. When it debuted on Aug. 14, it had only 1.5 percent of movie slots in theaters, currently dominated by Chinese blockbusters such as "Wolf Warrior 2" which has so far grossed 4.78 billion yuan (US$0.71 billion).
But the situation soon changed. Theater managers realized that there are more people sitting in the screening halls for "Twenty Two" than those in other film showings, so they decided to increase screen time for it. At the same time, China's prominent director Feng Xiaogang published a letter from actress Zhang Xinyi on his personal microblog Weibo account, asking for more attention to the film.
