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Last updated: 21 Jun 2026 at 01:13 UTC

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Review of by Edgar C — 31 Dec 2012

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Chaun Lu is a genius and let me state briefly the reasons in a single paragraph.

This celluloid contribution is clearly influenced from the way to present a brutal historical background, to the way of dramatizing it and the technical tools to create a bigger scope of atrocities and catastrophe. Yet, he embraces these influences without hesitating and the final message becomes clear and honest. That's what counts in modern cinema. What we have in hands now is the best movie of 2009, a piece that implicates very directly that the enemy to destroy is war itself as a means of empowerment, a triumphant juggernaut for Chinese cinema (which always has defied sociopolitical standards and faced national censorship, by the way, and for that, I raise my glass).

97/100.

This review of City of Life and Death (2009) was written by on 31 Dec 2012.

City of Life and Death has generally received very positive reviews.

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