Vancouver actor Olivia Cheng wins the role of Iris Chang

After a national casting search, Vancouver actor, broadcast journalist, published writer, and Entertainment Tonight Canada correspondent Olivia Cheng has won the lead role in the upcoming docudrama Iris Chang, about the Chinese American writer who unveiled the dark truth about the Japanese invasion of Nanjing, China in the winter of 1937-38.

Chang published what she found in the book The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II in 1997, and it became a New York Times bestseller. It detailed the eight weeks that the Japanese Imperial Army killed about 300,000 people, and raped thousands of women in an attempt to seize the ancient Chinese capital of Nanjing.

Chang later committed suicide in 2004.

Filming of Iris Chang began in Nanjing in December 2006, and will continue in China, Japan, the U.S., and Canada. It is set for a worldwide release in late 2007 to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the atrocity, and the 10th anniversary of the publication of Iris Chang's book.

It is a fully funded Canadian film produced by Reel Iris Productions, a partnership of Real to Reel Productions and Canada ALPHA (Association for Learning and Preserving the History of WWII in Asia).