The sound of machine gun fire rattled around collapsed buildings as schoolchildren eagerly explored the ravaged streets of 1930s Nanjing, delighted to be visiting the set of a Chinese blockbuster about a historic massacre.

Slickly produced and star-studded, “Dead to Rights” is set in Nanjing, then China’s capital, during six weeks of mass murder, rape and looting by the Japanese army in 1937 that killed tens if not hundreds of thousands.

In keeping with other films about the slaughter, “Dead to Rights” does not shy away from portraying the atrocities, but that hasn’t deterred viewers. It has topped the Chinese box office since late July.

Its set at a suburban Shanghai film park is now open to the public, and was thronged with enthusiastic fans — many of them young children — when AFP vi

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