A testament to the movie's potential effectiveness can be seen by noticing who it has already inspired. I don't know if somebody approached him, or if he was just inspired on his own, but Lou Reed has written two new songs, "Gravity" and "Safety Zone", in response to the movie. For some reason, and I'm as much at fault when it comes to this as the next person, very few people seem to remember that Lou Reed is about more than walking on the wild side and has long been a keen observer and commentator of social and political events. Most of the time, his subtlety is such that people seem to miss the points he makes, but on occasion, he doesn't mince his words and lets you know exactly where he stands.
Perhaps it's because of that these two songs so vividly reminded me of his New York album from the eighties where songs like "Common Ground" called the Pope, Jesse Jackson, and Kurt Waldheim on their behaviour, and "Halloween Parade (AIDS)" brought the ravages of the disease home in a way no other song has matched. "Safety Zone" falls into the category of not mincing words as he methodically spells out what happened if you didn't make it to the safety zone.
"Gravity" is a short, driving song that is more open to interpretation. Given the context of the film it feels to me like Mr. Reed is saying that gravity keeps us here, but we can choose how we act or what we do in any given situation. Since we're here, we might as well make the best of it and follow the example of those who founded the safety zone.
The invasion of and subsequent sacking of Nanking sound like events from a more barbaric age, not the twentieth century. Then again, we don't have to look far into our own recent past for examples of behaviour that makes Nanking look like the norm in our world instead of the aberration it should be. Think of the recent excesses in the prisons of Iraq, and a government that says it doesn't object to the use of torture. Is the message being sent to soldiers in the field about the humanity of the people they meet much different from what the one the Japanese government gave their soldiers? We may not say "take no prisoners," but the reduction of an enemy to sub-human status is a given.
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