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GAI SHANXI AND HER SISTERS

(Gai Shan Xi He Ta De Jie Mei Men)

Director: 

Ban Zhongyi

Documentary

2007

|

China

Minutes: 

80

Mandarin, Japanese, Shanxi dialect w/ English subtitles

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GAI SHANXI AND HER SISTERS

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GAI SHANXI AND HER SISTERS

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GAI SHANXI AND HER SISTERS

GAI SHANXI AND HER SISTERS tells the story of one woman's brutal ordeal as a "comfort woman" for the Japanese Army during World War II. Hou Dong-E, known as "Gai Shanxi," the fairest woman in China's Shanxi province, was one of the many women abducted from their villages to be sexually enslaved by Japanese soldiers stationed nearby. Fifty years later, she joined other women throughout Asia to seek justice and reparations, but she died before her demands were answered.

Chinese filmmaker Ban Zhongyi unearths Gai Shanxi's tragic life through the stories of the surviving women in the region. Ban also collects revelatory testimonies from former Japanese soldiers stationed in Shanxi during the war, breaking a decades-long silence over a dark chapter of China's history. Following one woman's heroic journey, GAI SHANXI AND HER SISTERS tells a universal story of female solidarity and survival.

  • Amnesty International Film Festival

  • Yunnan Multi Culture Visual Festival (YUNFEST)

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