Film calls Nanjing massacre 'hoax'

A Japanese filmmaker has announced plans to make a documentary saying that the "rape of Nanjing" in 1937, in which China says 300,000 civilians were killed by Japanese soldiers, never happened.

Satoru Mizushima said his film to "correct the errors of history" will be based on documents showing that Chinese accounts of the killings were a hoax.

Mizushima said his film, The Truth about Nanking, will counter Nanking, a documentary shown this week at the Sundance Film Festival in the US which draws on letters and diaries to portray atrocities suffered by the Chinese at the hands of the Japanese army in the city formerly known as Nanking.

"This will be our first effort to correct the errors of history through a film," Mizushima said in Tokyo.