The Flowers of War (Jin ling shi san chai)

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Movie Details

• Genre: Drama
• Release Date: 2012-01-20 Limited
• Running Time: 141 min.
• Director: Yimou Zhang
• Cast: Christian Bale, Paul Schneider, Shigeo Kobayashi
• Distributor: ARRAY(0x3bc9398)
• Official Site: The Flowers of War (Jin ling shi san chai) Official Site

Zhang Yimou was an ideal choice to be chief director of the 2008 Beijing Olympics's opening and closing ceremonies. With recent movies like House of Flying Daggers and Hero, the Chinese filmmaker has proven of late to be a man more enamored of spectacle than characters. Zhang extends that track record with his latest film, the period war epic The Flowers of War, set during the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, which saw the invading Japanese army overrun the then-Chinese capital, killing an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 Chinese and raping approximately 20,000 women. Zhang's film uses the atrocity as a backdrop for a dully inspirational story about John Miller (Christian Bale), a self-centered American mortician who becomes the unlikely protector of some Chinese children. The Flowers of War is the second Chinese film that grapples with Nanjing to be released stateside this year. The other, Lu Chuan's superb City of Life and Death, made its horrors resonate thanks to its restrained, humanistic approach. Far less successfully, The Flowers of War takes the opposite tack, as Zhang indulges in showy camerawork and melodramatic slow motion that punctuates every opulent burst of blood spurting from a bullet wound. Bale gives a fully invested performance as an opportunist who grows a conscience, but ultimately, his road to redemption feels like the faint echo of a similar arc in Schindler's List — though at least his character is allowed some depth, unlike Evil Japanese Colonel or Alluring Hooker/Love Interest.