''Kukan'' (originally subtitled ''The Secret of Unconquerable China'') is a 1941 American

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

co-produced by

Li Ling-Ai Li Ling-Ai (李靈愛, also Gladys) (May 19, 1908 – October 2003) was a noted Chinese-American film producer, born in Hawaii, the sixth of nine children. Both her parents were first-generation Chinese immigrants who became doctors in Hawaii. F ...

Finding Kukan and a piece of Chinese-American history
/ref> and Rey Scott, and directed by Scott about the

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

resistance to

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

aggression during the early part of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

(see

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...

). Though Ling-Ai served as co-producer and sponsor, she was credited as a "technical advisor" in its credits. The film was distributed in 16mm by Adventure Epics and given an Honorary Academy Award at the

14th Academy Awards The 14th Academy Awards honored film achievements in 1941 and were held at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, California. The ceremony is now considered notable as the year in which ''Citizen Kane'' failed to win Best Picture, losing to John F ...

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the stud ...

acquired the film for broader distribution in April 1942 and renamed it ''KUKAN: The Battle Cry of China'' before releasing it in 35mm in August of the same year. Considered

lost Lost may refer to getting lost, or to: Geography *Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland * Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US History *Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...

for many years, a print was located and partially restored at the

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motio ...

. In 2016, Robin Lung produced a documentary about Ling-Ai, '' Finding Kukan''. ''Kukan'' is available as an extra on ''Finding Kukans home release.

Production background

Scott, a

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

native and foreign correspondent for London's '' Daily Telegraph'', took a handheld 16mm camera and color film to war-torn China, where he traveled from

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

to the wartime capital Chongqing, and then along the

Burma Road The Burma Road () was a road linking Burma (now known as Myanmar) with southwest China. Its terminals were Kunming, Yunnan, and Lashio, Burma. It was built while Burma was a British colony to convey supplies to China during the Second Sino ...

to Lanzhou. From there, he ventured to

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...

, then back to Chongqing. Throughout the film, Scott narrated his journey and detailed various ethnic groups that make up the Chinese population, including the Miao people from the mountains of

Guizhou Guizhou (; formerly Kweichow) is a landlocked province in the southwest region of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Guiyang, in the center of the province. Guizhou borders the autonomous region of Guangxi to the ...

, the Muslim population of Lanzhou, the

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

population in Tibet, the nomads from the Gobi Desert and the

Han Han may refer to: Ethnic groups * Han Chinese, or Han People (): the name for the largest ethnic group in China, which also constitutes the world's largest ethnic group. ** Han Taiwanese (): the name for the ethnic group of the Taiwanese p ...

and Manchu populations.Time Magazine review
/ref> The final 20 minutes of ''Kukan'' consists of an aerial attack by Japanese bombers against the defenseless city of Chongqing from August 19–20, 1940. The bombing took up the film's final 20 minutes and showed some of the 200 tons of bombs dropped on the city. Scott captured his footage from a vantage point on the roof of the U.S. Embassy, which was near the center of the attack.

Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his ...

, reviewing the film for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', called the sequence "one of the most awesome bits of motion picture yet seen in this day of frightful news events...somehow this wanton violence appears even more horrible than the scenes we have witnessed of London's destruction." The film was theatrically released in 1942. ''Kukan'' received the attention of U.S. President

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

, who saw the film at a public

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

screening.''Kukan'' on The Oscar Site
/ref> Scott received an Honorary Academy Award for ''Kukan''. The award was presented as a certificate rather than as a statuette, and it cited Scott “for his extraordinary achievement in producing ''Kukan'', the film record of China's struggle, including its photography with a 16mm camera under the most difficult and dangerous conditions.” ''Kukan'' was one of two non-fiction features about World War II cited by the Academy for its 1941 Oscars, the other being ''

Target for Tonight ''Target for Tonight'' (or ''Target for To-Night'') is a 1941 British World War II documentary film billed as filmed and acted by the Royal Air Force, all during wartime operations. It was directed by Harry Watt for the Crown Film Unit. The fi ...

'', produced by the British Ministry of Information.“The Birth of the Documentary Oscars”by Ed Carter, AMPAS
/ref> Though

was a co-producer and sponsor of the film, she was credited as a "technical advisor" in its credits.

References

External links

*{{IMDb title , id=0121453 , title=Kukan * Facebook page for FINDING KUKA

1941 films 1941 documentary films Chinese-American films Documentary films about World War II Second Sino-Japanese War films Documentary films about aviation 1940s rediscovered films American documentary films Rediscovered American films 1940s American films

Production background

See also

References

External links