A scene from  Great Cold. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Casting veteran actress Lu Yuan and emerging talent Xu Wei, the movie combines a documentary-style narrative with a wartime drama set in a village in eastern Shanxi province. It centers on two young sisters who are sexually enslaved by invading Japanese forces.

As well as exposing the atrocities committed by Japanese troops, the movie also examines the human complexities of life in war-torn China.

One scene features one of the sisters who, after becoming pregnant following her rape at the hands of Japanese soldiers, decides to commit suicide rather than face discrimination from her fellow villagers.

"I wrote this last line for her:' Only after I jump off the cliff, your heads (her family) can lift up.' She wants to use her death to wash off the so-called shame," explains the scriptwriter as she describes how she tried to infuse more depth into the film while avoiding cliches.