John Rabe (2009)

Read more

For nearly 30 years now, businessman John Rabe (Ulrich Tukur) has been living with his wife Dora in the capital city of China, Nanking, where he heads the Siemens industrial plant. It is difficult for him to hand over the reins of the operation to his successor and return to Berlin. He has learned to love the country, and he knows that while he is a man of influence here, at the Siemens headquarters in Berlin he is replaceable. During the farewell ball in his honour, Nanking is bombed by Japanese airplanes following the Japanese army's capture of Shanghai. As panic breaks out in the city, Rabe resolutely opens the company gates and offers refuge to the desperate families of his employees.

Learning that the city will be attacked by the Japanese, an international diplomat Dr. Rosen (Daniel Bruhl) presents an idea to the city officials about the creation of a safety zone for civilians that had saved lives in Shanghai. John Rabe is nominated as chairman of the new safety zone. The committee also elect Dr. Wilson (Steve Buscemi), an American senior physician of the local hospital, who detests Rabe because he believes he works in the interests of the Third Reich. These three men must now learn to work together to try and protect the people.

While the Imperial Japanese Army continue to unleash a wave of brutality, rape and murder on the civilian population, Rabe, Wilson and Rosen courageously negotiate with the Japanese and wrest a guarantee for a safety zone for the civilians. However hundreds of thousands of desperate people pour into the zone - much more than expected. The Japanese continue to harass and attack the population, and it becomes a life and death struggle as Rabe and his comrades try to protect them. The Japanese now plan to use a pretence to storm the zone and with the threat of a looming massacre - so a race against time begins for Rabe, Wilson and Rosen...