The 400 Million

Joris Ivens’s wartime documentary of China’s resistance to the Japanese invasion, cross-cutting civilian exodus and bombing with the Nationalist state’s mobilization—schools, industry, dispersed war production, foreign relief—and guerrilla fighting. Framing an ancient nation of “400 million,” it contrasts tradition with modernization and closes on the unresolved question of victory.

• 
  Joris Ivens
• 
  John Fernhout

• 
  Fredric March
  Narration (voice)
• 
  Morris Carnovsky
  Additional Voice (voice)
• 
  Sidney Lumet
  Additional Voice (voice)
• 
  Robert Q. Lewis
  Additional Voice (voice)
• 
  Alfred Ryder
  Additional Voice (voice)
• 
  Adelaide Bean
  Additional Voice (voice)
• 
  Lai Sek
  Himself (archive footage)
• 
  Madame Chiang
  Herself (archive footage)