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The plight of Jews who fled from the Nazis to Shanghai is an interesting topic for a documentary. However, this is not the only movie on this topic (the 1999 documentary The Port of Last Resort also addresses it), and the filmmaking in Shanghai Ghetto is more methodical than inspired. Overall, this is a fairly conventional documentary, featuring voice-over narration, talking heads, montages of photographs, and archival footage. Unfortunately, sometimes the editing seems a bit clumsy and the images seem too murky and lacking in contrast. Also, some viewers may feel that the documentary devotes too much time to background information on the Holocaust, particularly Kristallnacht, instead of providing more details on what happened in Shanghai (this movie isn't the ideal starting point for people without prior knowledge of the Holocaust, and those with prior knowledge presumably know about Kristallnacht already). Nonetheless, the filmmakers succeed at their primary goal of getting across information about Jewish refugees in Shanghai, and the interviewees are both articulate and compelling enough to give this film some emotional weight.