Lu Chuan, one of the leading "sixth generation" of Chinese directors, is to start shooting an epic war movie featuring the Nanjing Massacre next month after receiving official approval for the project.

The film, to be titled "Nanjing! Nanjing!", has been approved by the State Administration of Radio Film and Television, and filming is expected to start in April and be completed by the end of the year.

Lu's film "Kekexili: Mountain Patrol" about attempts to save the Tibetan antelope from poachers won the best feature film award at the 41st Taiwan Golden Horse Awards.

Lu said he hoped to shoot "a true Chinese war and disaster film".

The movie would feature a scene in which 40,000 people were killed, Lu said told a Chinese newspaper at the end of last year.

The cost of production was expected to surpass 200 million yuan (25.64 million U.S. dollars), and would include a reconstruction of 1930s Nanjing in Jilin province at a cost of 16 million yuan (2.05 million U.S. dollars).

It is one of four movies on the Nanjing Massacre this year, the 70th anniversary of the atrocity, but it is the only one yet approved by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.

Lu studied in a military school for four years in Nanjing. "When I was in the school, I heard so many stories about Nanjing Massacre, and I have wanted since then to shoot a film about the event."

"We've spent two years collecting historical documents about the massacre. I will try to make history clear and explain it in the movie, rather than expose the sorrow between nations."

The Nanjing Massacre occurred in December 1937 when Japanese troops occupied Nanjing, then capital of China. More than 300,000 Chinese are believed to have been murdered in the slaughter.

The "sixth generation" refers to a group of Chinese directors who graduated from the Beijing Film Academy and Central Drama Institute in the late 1980s and 1990s. They focus on contemporary society and their striking personal styles distinguish them from the "fifth generation", led by Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige.

Source: Xinhua