Nanjing Photo Studio (AKA Dead to Rights) is the box office champ in China for the summer of 2025. The Nanjing set (built at Shanghai Film and Television Park) is gritty, with many buildings bombed out, blackened or burnt down in a way that looks true to history. A parallel scene takes place in the Nanjing film, except the personage on the portrait being taken down is Chiang Kai-shek. Like the technology of war, photography is a technology that can be used to attack or defend, for ill or for good, and sometimes even change the course of history. It’s as if the film undergoes a genre shift midway from an epic war film to narrow horror film that descends into slasher film territory.