Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 29, 2019

It's too bad that the picture lacks a clear narrative thread and, ultimately, much of a point besides telling a weird little story in an overly familiar sort of way.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 29, 2019

Shanghai Ghetto should be applauded for finding a new angle on a tireless story, but you might want to think twice before booking passage.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 29, 2019

The problem is the needlessly poor quality of its archival prints and film footage. The images lack contrast, are murky and are frequently too dark to be decipherable.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 29, 2019

This would be thoroughly engrossing if the film itself weren't an example of the most tedious brand of documentary.

| Original Score: C | Jan 29, 2019

Shanghai Ghetto would make a good primer for high school students ignorant of pre- World War II history, but in the entirety of Holocaust cinema it is a blip on the radar.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 29, 2019

The documentary is much too conventional -- lots of boring talking heads, etc. -- to do the subject matter justice.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 29, 2019

Throughout the film, the storytelling is eloquent and genuine, but the Manns' unadventurous approach ... rarely hits emotional pay dirt.

Full Review | Jan 29, 2019

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 29, 2019

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 29, 2019

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 29, 2019

A worthy educational reminder of how many strange stories grew out of the Holocaust experience.

| Original Score: B | Jan 29, 2019

A sad but inspirational story that needs to be told and should be seen.

| Jan 29, 2019

Even if it offers nothing cinematic, the story alone is important, and interesting, enough to warrant seeing.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 29, 2019

It's incredible the number of stories the Holocaust has generated. Just when you think that every possible angle has been exhausted by documentarians, another new film emerges with yet another remarkable yet shockingly little-known perspective.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 29, 2019

An absorbing documentary.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 29, 2019

The mix of such fascinating events with the memories of those who endured them is undeniably compelling, even if much of what's described here has been described for decades.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jan 29, 2019

Fairly artless even by the standards of talking-heads documentaries, Shanghai Ghetto still proves fascinating.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 29, 2019

Shanghai Ghetto, much stranger than any fiction, brings this unknown slice of history affectingly to life.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 29, 2019

The film is delicately narrated by Martin Landau and directed with sensitivity and skill by Dana Janklowicz-Mann.

| Original Score: B+ | Jan 29, 2019