This book examines representations of the Second World War in postwar Chinese and Japanese cinema. Drawing on a wide range of films and scholarly disciplines, it demonstrates the potential of war movies for understanding contemporary China and Japan. It shows how the war is remembered in both countries, including the demonisation of Japanese soldiers in postwar socialist-era Chinese films, and the pervasive sense of victimhood in Japanese memories of the war. However, it also shows how some Chinese directors have experimented with alternatives interpretations of the war, and how the production of Japanese films critical of the war has continued despite the "resurgence of nationalism".

1. The Second World War in Post-War Chinese and Japanese Film 2. A Genealogy of Anti-Japanese Protagonists in Chinese War Films, 1949-2011 3. Film, Ethnic Minorities, and the Anti-Japanese War: An Analysis of The Muslim Detachment and Jin Yuji 4. The Sino-Japanese War in Ip Man: From Miscommunication to Poetic Combat 5. War, Horror and Trauma: Japanese Atrocities on Chinese Screens 6. Documentaries as Historical Text: the Emergence of the East River Column on the Hong Kong Television Screen 7. The Theme of Salvation in Chinese and Japanese War Movies 8. Establishing the Genre of the Revisionist War Film: The Shin-Toho Body of Post-Occupation War Films in Japan 9. Wild, Wild War: Okamoto Kihachi and the Politics of the Desperado Films 10. Japan's Longest Days: Toho and the Politics of War Memory, 1967-1972 11. The Himeyuri Film Cycle: Cultural Change and Remakes of an Okinawan Tragedy 12. What is There to Laugh About? University of Laughs as an Anti-War Film Comedy 13. A Past to be Ashamed or Proud of? Echoes of the Fifteen-Year War in Japanese Film