Exclusive with Director Fang Li: That's the moment I decided to bring back history

CGTN Europe

At the height of World War II, an American torpedo struck a Japanese cargo vessel with 1,816 British POWs on board in the East China Sea.   Local Chinese fishermen bravely rescued over 300 British POWs as Japanese soldiers tried to kill them.   The documentary "The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru" brings to light this piece of history that might have been forgotten. In a special interview, director Fang Li told CGTN anchor Xu Qindu why he made this documentary and discussed the ultimate meaning of this tragic episode.   #TheSinkingoftheLisbonMaru #documentary #history #ChinaUK

Transcript

00:00There was a moment when we finished the survey, it's almost like around 5 o'clock in the afternoon,

00:09I was standing on the deck of our survey boat.

00:13All of a sudden you realize that below 30 meters at the seafloor,

00:19there were 828 Allied soldiers there.

00:24That's a big number.

00:27Young people.

00:28Yeah, all young generation, like my son's age, 20 plus years, typically.

00:34Then, you know, where did they come from?

00:36Why are they here?

00:38What happened here?

00:39So that's a very strong curiosity and also a deep, sad feeling about it.

00:47They are so far away from Europe, right in front of our gate.

00:53So there's a touching point you remember.

00:58Those lost lives and the forgotten men.

01:02So when I returned to the shore,

01:06then I heard the only surviving POW, Dennis Morley, who is 98 years old already,

01:17the only alive fisherman who rescued the POW, Mr. Lin.

01:24He is 94 years old.

01:27Then you know the time is critical.

01:30Very short.

01:32I believe that's the last window.

01:35If we don't do anything, we're going to lose all the oral history.

01:41So at that time, I proposed to my friends,

01:44why don't we go rescue the history and go interview to UK and fishing village.

01:54So that's the beginning motivation is to rescue the oral history.

02:01I mean, now, of course, like we live in, you said, we live in peaceful time.

02:07But of course, there is uncertainty for the future and with ongoing,

02:13like at least two conflicts, one being Ukraine, one being in the Middle East.

02:18What was the thing we learned from the lesson of thinking of Lisbon, Morocco or the war?

02:25I think the lesson everybody wants to learn is for any war, there's no winner.

02:33And for people, for normal people, there's no winner.

02:37You know, any war happens, civilians, families, it's the victims always.

02:46Not for the politician, but for the normal people.

02:51Suffer a lot.

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