In October 1943, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Imperial Japanese Army approaches Changde from Shashi and Yueyang by crossing the Yangtze and Xiang rivers, and surrounds the Chinese city.

By then, the defenders are already running low on ammunition and supplies but they continue to put up fierce resistance, to the point of secretly salvaging unexpended rounds from the bodies of dead soldiers at night.

Changde eventually falls when the Japanese commander Isamu Yokoyama, acting under pressure from his superiors, reluctantly approves the use of chemical and biological weapons against the Chinese forces.

Matthew Lee of Twitch Film wrote: It's certainly melodramatic, simplistic and overtly nationalist, but it's also a pleasing ninety minutes or so of fairly undemanding, handsomely produced period action with a couple of particularly explosive setpieces, and it doesn't whitewash history anywhere near as much as you might expect.

The cast give solid, if unexceptional performances across the board, all of which lends the whole thing a simple humanity most main melody films don't even bother with.