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Dec 9, 2023 12:20 PM
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| Apparently it's about the making of the documentary Kukan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39jXHJQobLc Movie Name: Phoenix In Fire Chinese Name: 火凤重天(Huo Feng Chong Tian) Release Date: 2023.10.11 October Based on movie 'Kukan: The Battle Cry of China' (1941) A 1941 American documentary film co-produced by Li Ling-Ai and Rey Scott, and given an Honorary Academy Award at the 14th Academy Awards. Kukan: The Battle Cry of China (1941) Kukan (originally subtitled The Secret of Unconquerable China) is a 1941 American documentary film co-produced by Li Ling-Ai and Rey Scott, and directed by Scott about the Chinese resistance to Japanese aggression during the early part of World War II (see Second Sino-Japanese War). Though Li served as co-producer and sponsor, she was credited as a "technical advisor" in its credits. The film was distributed in 16mm by Adventure Epics and given an Honorary Academy Award at the 14th Academy Awards. United Artists acquired the film for broader distribution in April 1942 and renamed it KUKAN: The Battle Cry of China before releasing it in 35mm in August of the same year. Considered lost for many years, a print was located and partially restored at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2016, Robin Lung produced a documentary about Li, Finding Kukan. Kukan is available as an extra on Finding Kukan's home release. "Finding Kukan and a piece of Chinese-American history | China" SYNOPSIS Scott, a St. Louis native and foreign correspondent for London's Daily Telegraph, took a handheld 16mm camera and color film to war-torn China, where he traveled from Hong Kong to the wartime capital Chongqing. The final 20 minutes of Kukan consists of an aerial attack by Japanese bombers against the defenseless city of Chongqing from August 19–20, 1940. The bombing took up the film's final 20 minutes and showed some of the 200 tons of bombs dropped on the city. Scott captured his footage from a vantage point on the roof of the U.S. Embassy, which was near the center of the attack. Bosley Crowther, reviewing the film for The New York Times, called the sequence "one of the most awesome bits of motion picture yet seen in this day of frightful news events...somehow this wanton violence appears even more horrible than the scenes we have witnessed of London's destruction." The film was theatrically released in 1942. Kukan received the attention of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who saw the film at a public White House screening. Scott received an Honorary Academy Award for Kukan. The award was presented as a certificate rather than as a statuette, and it cited Scott “for his extraordinary achievement in producing Kukan, the film record of China's struggle, including its photography with a 16mm camera under the most difficult and dangerous conditions.” Kukan was one of two non-fiction features about World War II cited by the Academy for its 1941 Oscars, the other being Target for Tonight, produced by the British Ministry of Information. Though Li Ling-Ai was a co-producer and sponsor of the film, she was credited as a "technical advisor" in its credits. |