Kukan is a documentary film co-produced by Li Ling-Ai and Rey Scott and directed by Rey Scott about the Chinese resistance to Japanese aggression during the early part of World War II. Though Ling-Ai was a co-producer and sponsor of the film, she was credited as a "technical advisor" in its credits. The film, originally subtitled The Secret of Unconquerable China, was distributed in 16mm by Adventure Films and given an Honorary Academy Award at the 14th Academy Awards. United Artists acquired the film for broader distribution in April 1942 and renamed it KUKAN: The Battle Cry of China before releasing it in 35mm in August of the same year. Considered lost for many years, a print was located and partially restored at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Robin Lung produced a documentary about Li Ling-Ai, named Finding Kukan. The entire film is currently available as an extra on the DVD for Finding Kukan.
Production background
Scott, a St. Louis native and foreign correspondent for London's Daily Telegraph, took a handheld 16mm camera and color film to war-torn China, where he traveled from Hong Kong to the wartime capital Chongqing, and then along the Burma Road to Lanzhou. From there, he ventured to Tibet, then back to Chongqing. Throughout the film, Scott narrated his journey and detailed various ethnic groups that make up the Chinese population, including the Miao people from the mountains of Guizhou, the Muslim population of Lanzhou, the Buddhist population in Tibet, the nomads from the Gobi Desert and the Han and Manchu populations. The final 20 minutes of Kukan consists of an aerial attack by Japanese bombers against the defenseless city of Chongqing from August 19–20, 1940. The bombing took up the film's final 20 minutes and showed some of the 200 tons of bombs dropped on the city. Scott captured his footage from a vantage point on the roof of the U.S. Embassy, which was near the center of the attack. Bosley Crowther, reviewing the film for The New York Times, called the sequence "one of the most awesome bits of motion picture yet seen in this day of frightful news events...somehow this wanton violence appears even more horrible than the scenes we have witnessed of London's destruction." The film was theatrically released in 1942. Kukan received the attention of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who saw the film at a public White House screening. Scott received an Honorary Academy Award for Kukan. The award was presented as a certificate rather than as a statuette, and it cited Scott “for his extraordinary achievement in producing Kukan, the film record of China's struggle, including its photography with a 16mm camera under the most difficult and dangerous conditions.” Kukan was one of two non-fiction features about World War II cited by the Academy for its 1941 Oscars, the other being Target for Tonight, produced by the British Ministry of Information. Though Li Ling-Ai was a co-producer and sponsor of the film, she was credited as a "technical advisor" in its credits.
