Documentary tells the story of brave Chinese fishermen who saved British lives

Xu Wei
"The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru" gets a nationwide release on September 6 following a sold-out premiere at the recent Shanghai Film Festival which moved many viewers to tears.
Xu Wei

A trailer for the documentary "The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru."

Documentary tells the story of brave Chinese fishermen who saved British lives

"The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru" is due for national release on September 6.

Documentary film "The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru," which premiered in June at the 26th Shanghai International Film Festival, will be released nationwide on September 6.

Tickets for the film festival showing sold out in under 10 minutes, with the screening moving many viewers to tears.

Chinese marine physicist Fang Li spent about eight years making the documentary to unveil this previously little-known historical event.

When the Lisbon Maru, a Japanese cargo ship, was sunk by a torpedo from an American submarine off Zhoushan in Zhejiang Province in 1942, the British prisoners of war onboard jumped into the sea but the Japanese army started shooting at them.

Documentary tells the story of brave Chinese fishermen who saved British lives

The documentary's director and producer Fang Li (right) visited Lin Ahgen (center), one of the Chinese fishermen who saved the lives of British people from the ship 82 years ago.

Documentary tells the story of brave Chinese fishermen who saved British lives

Fang Li (right) talks to descendants of the ship's survivors.

Risking their own lives, over 250 Chinese fishermen from Zhoushan arrived in sampans and saved 384 people from the water, offering them food, clothing, and shelter.

"From the moment I learned about this event, out of curiosity, I led a team to explore, hoping to find the sunken ship," said Fang, producer and director of the film. "After finding the ship, I wanted to find people related to it and learn about their stories, and what they went through 82 years ago. That's how we dug up this story. Now, it's time to tell this touching story to more people."

Fang and the crew visited the UK, the US, Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, and Zhoushan to gather historical material for the film and had face-to-face talks with historians, Chinese fishermen, the ship's survivors and their descendants.

Fang used animation technology to authentically restore the whole sinking process of the Lisbon Maru and the prisoners' hellish experience inside the vessel.

Documentary tells the story of brave Chinese fishermen who saved British lives

Centenarian Dennis Morley (left) was the last British survivor from the ship. He died in 2021.

Documentary tells the story of brave Chinese fishermen who saved British lives

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