The actual events that inspired to make The Resistance movie

The Resistance (Chinese film 2011) Wiki

The actual events that inspired to make The Resistance movie

The Resistance Chinese movie, a story about one girl and her fight against an army

Cast

Characters

Location: Tao Hua Dao Island

Posters and DVD cover The Resistance movie was inspired by actual event that happened during the 2nd sino-Japanese war in 1937 known as the Nanking massacre, however that inspiration is only the top of the iceberg of the story, the real inspiration is a book written in 1997 by Iris Chang the book is named "Rape of Nanking". The 2nd inspiration was from two real heroes at that time, Shi Jianqiao the female assassin and John Rabe the kindheart Nazi.

The book "Rape of Nanking" reveals a lot of information what the Japanese did with the civilians during their invasion in Nankin, but also another revealing was that the Chinese army had abandoned the south east part of China which was "The Shichen Province" due to a false report that the Japanese would attack from the north, possible a report from a traitor. After the south east was wide open and an easy target for the Japanese imperial army to occupy. With that knowledge the screen writer decided to make the story happen in the City of Shichen due to it would make an interesting story about those who fought for their country without an army or any help, just peasants against the soldiers.

Shi Jianqiao was the first female assassin in China, born and raised by a warlord family she learn to sneak and attack Dress head to toe in black, in 1935 she assassinated the warlord Sun ChuanFang and later she was involved with sneak attack the Japanese army during World War II and helped the communist party in China. This inspired the director to create a female heroine Xiaoyun aka the black dress killer. The attack mode is exactly the same, dressed head to toe in black with two blades as weapons to attack or defend. However the star thrower was not inspired from Shi Jianqiao, it was inspired from the Japanese assassin knows as the Ninja.

John Rabe was a Nazi diplomat stationed in Nanking and witnessed the massacre made by the imperial army. However since Japan and Germany has joined forces John decided to take action in his own hands, by helping rescue 600 000 civilians from Nanking, a high risk he took and made him a hero. He was the inspiration to create the character Schultz the Nazi commander. But there were slightly different that had to be changed. The director felt the western audience would not feel comfortable to see a Nazi as a good guy, so the screen writer had to come up with a 2nd foreign character to be the good guy witness to the genocide and therefore he created Steven the American journalist and Schultz became the evil commandant who hate Chinese opera and love war and martial art.