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if we don’t tell some stories, who will remember them?

—— fang li

with a douban score of 9.2, it became the highest-rated domestic film this year.

on september 6, "the sinking of the lisbon maru" was finally released, and han han also came to the roadshow at shanghai film city.

it records a shipwreck comparable to the titanic, which occurred on dongji island in zhoushan 82 years ago. nearly 1,000 of the 1,816 allied soldiers died at sea.

but what is even more touching is that an eastern version of the "dunkirk" evacuation took place here, and the people who came to the rescue were actually chinese fishermen.

han han said: "i am not surprised at all that director fang would do this."

the director fang he mentioned is the 70-year-old director fang li. with a background in science and engineering, he studies geophysics during the day and dedicates himself to scripts at night.

from "see you tomorrow" to "a hundred birds paying homage to the phoenix", he has produced more than 20 films in the past few years. "guan yin shan", for which he served as producer and screenwriter, also helped fan bingbing win the tokyo film actress award.

this movie was fang li's first time to shoot a film on his own, but it took him 10 years to complete it.

he traveled across three continents, interviewed more than 120 families of allied prisoners of war, and even sold his house in beijing to rent a place in order to raise funds.

almost everyone who walked into the theater was so moved by the plot of the film that they burst into tears on the spot.

a journey without return

reappearance after 82 years

"the sinking of the lisbon maru" takes two hours to tell a story that is both familiar and unfamiliar to chinese audiences.

it happened in zhoushan, zhejiang, but even after 82 years, it is still little known.

in 1942, the lisbon maru, carrying 1,816 allied prisoners of war, encountered a torpedo in the waters of zhoushan.

what happened at sea in the 25 hours after the shipwreck?

during this period, in order to prevent the prisoners from escaping, the japanese army actually nailed the hatch with wooden boards and canvas, leaving them to fend for themselves. the soldiers who finally managed to escape by cutting the cover with a chef's knife were faced with the japanese guns pointed at them.

at this moment, the zhoushan fishermen, who ignored the hail of bullets and drove countless small fishing boats to rescue the soldiers who fell into the water, became the most shining presence of humanity.

of the 1,816 prisoners of war on board, 384 were rescued by chinese fishermen. at the same time, they also salvaged the dead and buried them properly.

the next day, facing the japanese army's landing search, the villagers hid several soldiers and eventually escorted them across the war zone and successfully arrived at the british consulate in chongqing.

however, due to various reasons, this magnificent history is not known to many people. perhaps the only ones who care about it are those who experienced it and their families who miss them so much.

there was a scene in the movie that particularly moved me. an octogenarian british grandmother was trembling as she stroked a photo in her hand in front of the camera.

this is what they call a family photo, a newspaper photo taken in hong kong at the time. mom is leading her sister in the line, and at the end of the line, dad is holding a baby basket with her lying in it.

“this is the only family photo i have and i can’t even be seen in it.”

fang li said that there are too many people who never know the whereabouts of their fathers or ancestors in their entire lives, and only know that it is related to the lisbon maru.

on their tombstones in their hometown, one can only see a line of small, faint words: "presumed drowned".

in order to recreate this history that was sealed by the sea, fang li has visited several continents and countries in the past few years: china, the united kingdom, japan, canada, the united states...

countless fragments of the past were rediscovered by him and finally reappeared in the world, but what was finally presented in the film was probably less than 20%.

the film wants to record

not just anti-war

in japan, fang li hired a private detective and found the children of the captain of the lisbon maru. he asked them why they sealed the cabin and even shot the escaped prisoners of war?

the two old men seemed to answer helplessly that as a captain, the father could not disobey the army's orders: "japan is a society where it is difficult to say no."

such an understated interpretation seems to be the best annotation of arendt's "banality of evil".

in fang li's eyes, what "the sinking of the lisbon maru" wants to express is the never-ending continuation of emotions.

"when i was chatting with (the families of the prisoners of war), i suddenly realized that they might have been waiting their whole lives for their fathers to come home, but they themselves might not be alive for long."

he decided to bring them to china, to the wreck of the lisbon maru, to say goodbye to their father.

in october 2019, 14 elderly people flew from the uk to shanghai pudong, and then took a bus to zhoushan.

82 years ago, 828 soldiers died and rested in the seabed of the east china sea. now, their descendants have completed a "farewell ceremony with their father" here.

fang li feels that this film that records all of this is "the most important thing he has ever done in his life."

there is friendship in this: after the ship sank, the chinese fishermen who came to rescue were all in small boats and could not carry many people. many soldiers who fell into the water directly chose to give up the opportunity to board the ship to their comrades, but they eventually died in the sea.

of course, there may also be love, and this story is not even shown in the movie: when these prisoners of war left the island, some soldiers left a strange souvenir for the islanders - two bricks.

fang li said he was particularly curious: "think about it, they have been floating on the water for so long, but he has been carrying two such heavy things. why is that?"

he followed the french words on the bricks and finally found the manufacturer: a brick factory in the northwest corner of paris. but unfortunately, it had closed down in 1994.

“then i shot a segment on the beach in dunkirk, holding a picture of a brick to the camera.”

how did these two bricks survive the dunkirk evacuation, cross the english channel, and then travel across the ocean to hong kong? after encountering a shipwreck, they were left to the fishermen in zhoushan and became a souvenir.

“i felt at first glance that this must be a love story.”

after the screening, i rode in a car with director fang, and he told me that this movie has some historical value, but more importantly, it is a record of an emotion.

"i visit so many people's homes in the uk, and sometimes i suddenly feel that the person might be your aunt who lives next door to you."

"you can't help but want to tell this story to the world."

from geoscientist to director

use 10 years to catch the tail of history

fang li was the producer of han han's first film, "no regrets", and was filming on dongji island. during this time, the two heard that there was a large ship that had sunk for decades on the seabed not far from the island.

so, han han wrote a sad line of lyrics: "when a ship sinks to the bottom of the sea, when a person becomes a mystery."

this is the first line of the movie's theme song, which tells the story of the lisbon maru, which was still hard to find at the time.

as a science student, fang li spent 10 years to solve the mystery.

he has two large spaces in his studio in beijing. he studies geophysics in one space during the day and works on filming scripts in the other space at night.

"i'm very familiar with marine exploration, so i've always said that this (finding a ship) is inevitable, and it's my turn to do it!"

in 2016, he and his team used aerial robots to fly magnetic probes at ultra-low altitudes, coupled with ultra-precise sonar, to complete a 400-square-kilometer sea sweep.

"30°13'44.42"n 122°45'31.14"e" is the location of the lisbon maru shipwreck that was finally found, which is 36 kilometers away from the record of that year.

the shipwreck is only physical evidence. in order to restore this story, fang li also needs to find living people living all over the world.

when he went to the uk for a group interview for the first time in 2018, he found that the list he knew was not enough and the number was far from enough. "i thought of the most traditional, but perhaps the most effective way - advertising."

"everyone says, who reads newspapers nowadays? i say that's not true, only old people read newspapers. i am an old person, and i love reading newspapers."

what the team is looking for are precisely those witnesses who have entered their twilight years.

so fang li chose several major newspapers, including the sunday times, the daily telegraph, and the guardian, and placed advertisements in them. there was only one line of text printed: where are you?

after hearing fang’s story, the daily telegraph gave him a discount, but after running advertising for a month, he still spent millions.

fortunately, this effort really played a huge role. many descendants saw the advertisement and contacted them. even the bbc was touched and invited him to do a global live broadcast to tell this unknown story.

the film was very expensive, and fang li even sold his house to complete it. "i have no home anymore!" he said with a smile.

but in his eyes, it was all worth it: "because i saved a piece of history."

two veterans on the ship, william bannifield and dennis morley, who were important narrators connecting the film, left in 2020 and 2021 respectively.

lin agen, the last fisherman who lived in zhoushan and participated in the rescue of the "lisbon maru", also died in 2020 at the age of 96.

this story has been forgotten for nearly a century. fang li sighed: "i feel like i caught the tail of history."

in a few months, he will also celebrate his 71st birthday. but fang li never feels that he is old. he said he still wants to do more magnificent things.

"we only live for 30,000 days in total. how can you grow old in time?"