The Flowers of War

I had not heard much buzz about this film, and where other films about the Rape of Nanjing take a political view, I don't think this film is making any outright statement about that. Christian Bale stars as John Miller, an American mortician in Nanjing sent to a western cathedral to prepare the body of a dead priest for burial. The streets are in disarray as soliders from both sides shoot at each other, oblivious of civilians. While running to escape/get to the church, John sees lots of running girls and running women all fending for themselves. By chance he comes across two girls who belong to the church/school he needs to get to.

When he arrives though, there is no longer a body to service, and all the adults are gone. John is now stuck there as the girls plead for him to help them--as a Westerner he (supposedly) is safe from the Japanese. He puts on the priest's vestments and is mistaken for the priest by the Japanese so he continues the deception.

A bunch of prostitutes from a brothel fight their way in too and commandeer the cellar for themselves, to the indignity of the girls. But John wants a little sex and the ladies, through their de facto leader Yu Mo (Ni Ni), say if he helps them escape Nanjing they will show their "gratitude" to him.


At first John is shown to be an opportunistic type, a rogue, etc. but he can't help but stay with the girls and ladies and help them--how can a guy fight against a gaggle of women like them? Both sets of women have headstrong and meek individuals. A Japanese commander (Atsuro Watabe) comes to tell them he has them under his protection. John is wary of him and never trusts him fully and is always trying reason instead of violence, you can see he knows the full picture but is trying to not show his fear to the girls. The commander requests that the girls come sing at a party, but John is fearful they will be raped or killed. The prostitues hatch a plan to save the girls but many people have to pay a price to do so.

Even with the violence I think this film is pretty romanticized. Christian Bale actually had some humor in this role, I liked his performance in this, John was a pretty likable character. Yu Mo pretty much represented the typical fallen women--"hooker with a heart of gold"--but of course she was shown to have a tragic past that led her to this life.

There are many graphic violent scenes, but even with the violence I think this film is somewhat romanticized; it is more a Saving Private Ryan kind of movie than Full Metal Jacket. Being made by a Chinese director, Zhang Yimou, it is biased to show the Chinese soldiers heroic and Japanese soldiers with no sense of humanity at all. (Not saying that that was not the case, but it is not interested in showing any compassion on the Japanese side). There is one impressive Chinese soldier (Tong Dawei) who does a lot of smart and self-sacrificing things to help them but he never shows himself to them, so he is in essence a martyr, perhaps a personification of all Chinese soldiers.

The visual composition is a strong character in the film. Colors are used to effect such as a stained glass window, colored paper in a shop, and the ladies accoutrements.  The acting was pretty solid throughout.