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

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

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

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

A documentary that is stirring and enlightening.

| Original Score: B | Jan 29, 2019

A modestly made but profoundly moving documentary.

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

The film isn't especially dynamic, but it brims with insightful, poignant memories from survivors.

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

Shanghai Ghetto may not be as dramatic as Roman Polanski's The Pianist, but its compassionate spirit soars every bit as high.

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

A salute to those who were blessed not only with savvy and courage, but something between an uncanny sense of foresight and an unforeseen stroke of good fortune.

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

Despite the film's shortcomings, the stories are quietly moving.

Full Review | Jan 29, 2019

A touching documentary about Jewish flight to China.

Full Review | Jan 29, 2019

Nothing is exceptional about Shanghai Ghetto, a documentary by Dana Janklowicz-Mann and Amir Mann, except the story itself.

| Original Score: B- | Jan 29, 2019

Serious and thoughtful.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 29, 2019

This is riveting stuff, especially in its account of how refugee culture and community spring up almost overnight.

Full Review | Jan 29, 2019

All of this story is engrossing, especially because it unfolds something more than political data.

Full Review | Jan 29, 2019

Provides a very moving and revelatory footnote to the Holocaust.

| Jan 29, 2019