After the battle of shanghai, the chinese forces retreat toward the capital, nan jing. The japanese arrive close on their heels, and mostly surround the city. You get this sense of chaos and bedlam and clostrophobia and panic. It's a thoroughly modern situation that we have seen over and over again since.
Deep themes run through this show, with allegations of Japanese war crimes and atrocities in China at the start leading to eerily familiar, almost modern questions over how the world should respond. And then Dec 7, 1941 arrives...