Tricks on the Dead: The Story of the Chinese Labour Corps in WWI

In the years following the 1911 Xinhai revolution in China, the country was rapidly emerging into international affairs for the first time. Yet its emergence was on the backs of an unlikely group of Chinese peasants who were sent to an imperialist war they didn't understand.

Zhang Yan, a student from the same Shandong villages as the labourers of WWI, travels three continents to reconnect Chinese families to their missing ancestors who died overseas. Following the diary notes of a young Chinese interpreter in WWI he hopes to restore the collective memory of those in China who have largely forgotten the journey these men made nearly 100 years ago.