Japanese director Ryo Takeuchi's short documentary about Nanjing's battle against novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has made a splash in Japan and China.

The 10-minute documentary, titled "Emergent report: A city sees no more new confirmed cases," made the front page of Yahoo! Japan, the most visited web portal in the country on March 2, engaging the attention of Japanese and major Japanese media outlets.

Three days later, the video with Chinese subtitles topped the most popular video ranking on China's Sina Weibo, a leading blogging platform, and was viewed for 9 million times as of Friday.

Recording the measures the Chinese has taken to fight against coronavirus in people's daily lives in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province, Takeuchi said that he felt China's determination to defeat the epidemic and hoped the video can give Japan some reference.

Measures to fight against coronavirus

Nanjing had not reported any new confirmed COVID-19 cases for 11 days up to March 1 as the video states. How did the city make it? Many details shown in the video explain why.

After traveling from Japan to China, Takeuchi was asked to seclude himself at home for 14 consecutive days, as Nanjing requires all visitors coming from outside the city to do so to rule out incubatory carriers.

Since schools have been shut down, his son took online classes recorded by schoolteachers, including Chinese, music, physical education and others, and had homework to do.

After Takeuchi finished his seclusion, he found that his visitors were required to have their body temperatures taken and exhibit no COVID-19 symptoms before entering his residential community.

On Nanjing's streets, restaurants only offered takeaway food, and some even provided the cook's name and temperature to try to assure customers that their food is safe.

When he booked a car hailing service, Takeuchi found a big plastic film is put up in the middle of the car to divide the driver and passengers into two separate spaces, and both parties are required to wear a mask to prevent infection.

Back at his office, his employers prepared masks, gloves and alcohol disinfectants for workers to use as a precondition for the company to resume work.

In almost every aspect of life and work, the video shows protective measures are so strictly carried out that Takeuchi said he was "amazed."

Japanese netizen hopes Japan learns from China

In Japan, netizens circulated the video and talked a lot about it. One said that compared with China, Japan did not have much sense of crisis. Despite national policies, the writer said the general public should strengthen their awareness.

Another said, "Thanks for such a valuable video. I think it is not realistic for many parts of Japan to do the same as what Nanjing did, but it is still good to learn something from China."

Some netizens said the video is a must-see, and some hoped Japan can take the matter very seriously.

Chinese netizens also acclaimed the director for shooting a video about Nanjing that is real and calm. "Hope more videos that reflect real Chinese society can be made and spread across Japan to strengthen the trust of two peoples and clear up misunderstandings," said a Chinese netizen.

In February, the Takeuchi shared a vox pop video about how Japanese young people think about the COVID-19. It turns out more than 70 percent of the 22 interviewees not wearing a mask because they think the mask does not do much to help contain the epidemic spread, or just don't like wearing one.

Some interviewees believe that COVID-19 is just like flu, and young people are less likely to catch COVID-19 and become critically ill.

Many don't worry about the spread of the epidemic and think the spread will not have much effect on their lives.

On his Sina Weibo account, Takeuchi wrote that he just recorded the stories around him, and the video is for Japanese audiences.

"I did not expect the video about Nanjing's battle against COVID-19 to have such a great impact," said Takeuchi on his Sina Weibo account, "My goal is to let more Japanese know about the current situation in China and help them increase their awareness of protection."

"There have been no new confirmed cases in Nanjing for 15 consecutive days, but we still have to persist for some time," he said on Thursday, "Hope China will have a complete victory over the virus as soon as possible."