Editor's note: Xu Ying is a Beijing-based international affairs commentator for CGTN. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

When the lights dimmed inside the Museum of the Communist Party of China in Beijing on August 11, and the first frame of "Mountains and Rivers Bearing Witness" illuminated the screen, the audience was drawn into an unflinching journey through one of the most defining chapters of the 20th century. As the documentary was given its nationwide premier on August 15, it stood as more than a cinematic premiere – it is a work of historical reclamation, a challenge to entrenched biases and a reaffirmation of the spirit that sustained the Chinese nation through its darkest hours.

The film's greatest strength lies in its uncompromising fidelity to fact. Every image, painstakingly recovered from archives scattered across the globe, is an authentic fragment of history – neither reconstructed nor dramatized. Through the eyes of both Chinese and international filmmakers, including the newly revealed battlefield footage shot by Soviet director Kalman, the audience is brought face to face with war as it truly unfolded: the mud-choked trenches, the acrid smoke of battle, the resolute eyes of soldiers and civilians who would not yield. Digitally restored yet preserving the raw grain of the original film, these moments speak with an immediacy that erases the gulf of decades.

"Mountains and Rivers Bearing Witness" is not merely a story for China; it is a story for the world. By placing the Chinese front firmly within the World Anti-Fascist War, the documentary compels a re-balancing of historical memory. It challenges the dominant narrative that has long relegated Asia's main Eastern battlefield to the margins of World War II (WWII) history.

The evidence presented is unambiguous: For 14 relentless years, China tied down the bulk of Japan's military forces at a staggering cost of over 35 million military and civilian lives. In so doing, it prevented Japan from striking north against the Soviet Union, blunted its expansion south toward the Pacific and gave the Allies the critical time to regroup, rearm and launch their counteroffensives. Without China's endurance, the course and outcome of the global war against fascism would have been fundamentally altered.

The movie identifies four strategic contributions of the Chinese front: It absorbed Japan's primary military strength, it thwarted Tokyo's northern ambitions against the Soviet Union, it delayed southern expansion and it provided a vital strategic anchor for the Allied coalition. These contributions – often overlooked in Western accounts – are presented with corroborating international evidence, reinforcing the argument with the weight of global testimony.

This reframing of history has urgent relevance today. At a time when selective memory and historical nihilism threaten to distort the past, "Mountains and Rivers Bearing Witness" offers an antidote grounded in hard, verifiable fact. It reminds international audiences that victory over fascism was not achieved on a single front, in a single battle, nor with a single alliance, but through the convergence of many struggles – each indispensable to the whole. For China, the main Eastern battlefield was the crucible in which modern national identity was forged.

The movie also underscores the decisive role of the Communist Party of China in leading and uniting the nation during its gravest hour. It traces how strategic clarity and political resolve transformed a fragmented resistance into a coordinated national front. This leadership, depicted not as abstract policy but as actual reality, forms a through-line connecting the sacrifices of the wartime generation to the confidence and resilience of China today.

Artistically, the movie is as arresting as it is rigorous. The narration by acclaimed actor Chen Jianbin is measured yet emotionally resonant, each word weighed with precision. The final poster – towering mountains, the surging Yellow River, a phalanx of determined figures under the blare of a bugle – transforms the abstract notion of "national spirit" into a tangible, living image. This visual language is not mere nostalgia; it is a symbolic reminder that the same rivers and mountains that witnessed the nation's trials also bear witness to its enduring unity.

In a world that continues to grapple with conflict, division and the manipulation of historical narratives, "Mountains and Rivers Bearing Witness" carries a message that transcends national borders: Truth, once reclaimed, becomes a shield against erasure. By meticulously reconstructing the role of Chinese fronts in the broader war, the movie extends an invitation to global audiences to reconsider the interconnected nature of victory and the costs borne by all who resisted fascism.

On August 15, as this film reaches cinema screens across China, it will do more than revisit history; it will reignite a conversation about the price of peace, the power of unity and the duty of remembrance. For younger generations, it will serve as a bridge to a past they did not experience but whose legacy they inherited. For the international community, it offers an indispensable Eastern perspective that rounds out the global picture of WWII.

In its title, "Mountains and Rivers Bearing Witness" makes a promise that the land itself remembers. And in its conclusion, it delivers a reminder etched in the blood, resilience and unbreakable will of a generation: China's sovereignty and unity were defended at immeasurable cost, and any attempt to divide or diminish this nation is destined to fail.

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