With the screening of a film titled “The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru” on Sep. 6, a history hidden for 82 years has finally found its voice. It shares with us a bitter history rarely known to many.
In October 1942, the Japanese army requisitioned the passenger and cargo ship Lisbon Maru to transport more than 1,800 British prisoners of war back to Japan from Hong Kong. When passing through the waters near China’s Zhoushan, the ship was hit by the US army. As a result, 843 British prisoners lost their lives, and 384 were rescued by local fishermen. The British officers, soldiers, and government extended their heartfelt gratitude to the local people for their benevolence.
In 2014, when Fang Li and Han Han were filming “The Continent” on Dongji Island, they heard the story of the Lisbon Maru. Driven by curiosity, Fang Li led a team to conduct a survey in 2016. They accurately located the wreck and confirmed by technical means that it was indeed the Lisbon Maru’s wreckage.
Fang Li quickly learned that the two living witnesses of the Lisbon Maru accident, Lin Agen from Dongji Island and British veteran Dennis Morley, were both in their 90s. Fang Li believed that both “human testimony and physical evidence” needed to be preserved, so he embarked on a journey of searching for witnesses in 2018.
Descendants of British prisoners of war communicate with Lin Agen (the third person on the right), a fisherman from Dongji Island who participated in the rescue
In the first week in the UK, Fang Li and his team encountered countless heartbreaking stories. These stories brought a profound emotional impact on Fang Li. Since the Lisbon Maru accident affected a total of 1,816 families of British prisoners of war and 255 Chinese fisherman families, Fang Li spent over RMB 2 million on full-page advertisements in the UK’s influential newspapers including The Sunday Times, The Guardian, and The Daily Telegraph, seeking British prisoners of war and their descendants involved in the Lisbon Maru accident.
The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) invited Fang Li for a live-stream interview, which evoked significant public repercussion. Following the interview, more than 380 descendants of the witnesses got in touch with Fang Li.
For two consecutive years, in 2018 and 2019, Fang Li focused on “rescue-oriented interviews”. Fang Li refused to act as an indifferent spectator. “When they see a Chinese who is highly empathetic with them, they are gradually willing to share anything with me.”
“The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru” is eventually presented as a documentary feature film.
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