They Chose China

A documentary about POWs who refused to be repatriated to their homelands after the Korean War but chose instead to remain in Communist China. Shui-Bo Wang, the Chinese-born Canadian director, who received an Oscar nomination for Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square, delves into the lives of 21 American POWs and unearths a rare archive of Chinese film from the 50s. In this intimate portrait Wang moves beyond Cold War paranoia to find out what really happened in the POW camps, why the soldiers decided to stay with the enemy, what were their lives like in China and why did almost all of them eventually return home.