The forgotten

A new documentary reveals the story of Chinese on board the Titanic, where six survived, Xu Fan reports.

Over a century after RMS Titanic, the then-largest ship in the world, sank into the Atlantic Ocean in 1912, a new documentary, with James Cameron as the executive producer, is revealing a little-known story of Chinese on board.

Eight Chinese passengers were on the British liner on a single ticket in the third class, a common practice for the cheapest cabin back then. Six of them survived the tragic sinking.

One of the deadliest disasters in maritime history, the Titanic collided with an iceberg during its maiden voyage from Southampton in England to New York, killing about 1,500 of more than 2,220 passengers and crew on board.

Fang Lang, a Chinese man, one of the last survivors rescued by a lifeboat of the ship, inspired Cameron to create the iconic scene of his blockbuster movie, Titanic, in which Leonardo DiCaprio, who stars as Jack, leaves the chances of survival to Kate Winslet's Rose by pushing his beloved onto a floating door.

This is told in the documentary The Six: The Untold Story of RMS Titanic's Chinese Passengers, which debuted in China on Friday.

Arthur Jones, the documentary's director, says he heard the Chinese survivors' story from his friend Steven Schwankert for the first time in 2015. Jones, a Shanghai-based British filmmaker, says he was shocked to find that few of his Chinese friends knew about it.