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First Trailer for Zhang Yimou's 'The Flowers of War' with Christian Bale

by Alex Billington
October 20, 2011
Source: WildGrounds

"Stop! This is the house of the Lord!" An official trailer has just debuted for Zhang Yimou's The Flowers of War, the Chinese war drama starring Christian Bale about the events that occurred in the city of Nanking during the Japanese invasion in 1937. The trailer, found via WildGrounds, is mostly in English anyway, but includes subtitles for Mandarin and English. This also seems to have a rather epic Spielberg-esque war tinge to it, with all the gritty and massive WWII action scenes, which take up the last half of the trailer. I wasn't expecting it to look this big, but some are even calling it "Yimou's Saving [Private] Ryan?" You must watch!

Watch the first Chinese trailer for Zhang Yimou's The Flowers of War, originally via WildGrounds:

The story in The Flowers of War, based on Yan Geling's novel The 13 Women of Nanjing, will see Bale as an American priest who shelters a group of prostitutes and female students in his church during the 1937 wartime atrocity known as "The Rape of Nanking". The movie was directed by Oscar nominated Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou, of films like Raise the Red Lantern, Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Curse of the Golden Flower and A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop previously, as well as the 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony. Wrekin Hill is distributing in the US, but it will first open in Chinese theaters later this year. Footage was first screened during TIFF, as the film contains about 40% English dialogue, 60% in Mandarin.

Related categories: Foreign Films, Indies, To Watch, Trailers

http://twitter.com/pizzeriapanucci J.Alberto B.H

The Thorn Birds seem!
tir na nog

Looks excellant,Golden flower was an under-rated film.
http://profiles.google.com/snears Nick Sears

This looks great!
ChristinaLovesJake

Zero interest. Not another film where the white male is the hero to the Asian female and the Asian male is powerless or the villain. Yaaawn.

Xerxexx

Not familiar with The Rape of Nanking? John Magee was in China at this time. So its based of a true story...eventhough does not mean a whole lot...its not a piece of fiction just for the sake of a story.

Anonymous

save your breath - christinas opinion doesn't seem to come from an informed perspective.

Xerxexx

Seems so. I did an extensive report of T.R.O.N in my highschool days and I cannot shake the information away...truly one of the darkest if not the darkest period in human history.

Brandon

Darkest period in human history? The dark periods never stop. There are crimes against humanity going on right now. Many that are completely ignored.
Xerxexx

@e55b38742bd29e6089bc3211d0f33617:disqus one of the darkest.

HonestObserver

I agree that in this particular event of history, white foreigners such as Magee and John Rabe were the heroes. That said, Hollywood really does have a problem of almost never portraying heroic Asian males except as virtually-asexual martial artists.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQoJo81lujk Crapola

Asexual martial artists, that's classic. Very true however. My favourite 'Hollywood does Asia' films were things like Bloodsport and the Kickboxer, even American Ninja. Where a white dude would learn in about 10 minutes what it takes a Martial Arts master a lifetime to learn.

Ryanjenq

Grow up. The heroes of Nanjing were all Westerners.

VVS

looks a bit cheesy. And Bale is rehashing the same territory as Bruce Wayne? He's acting like Bruce Wayne in a priest's clothes.

nate

How do you get that from seeing this? I see a Priest all the way.

VVS

because he's acting just like he does in the Batman franchise.

Xerxexx

In.
Qqwrqwrqrq

makes no sense to me

LW

You're right, the rape, murder and war in this movie should make sense.

Furious911

Wow, looks pretty intense and awesome.
http://twitter.com/Nielsen700 M.K. Nielsen

Great trailer, after that incredibly akward poster I didn't know what to think.
Anonymous

WOW!........i'm in.
lossy

Bale returns to star in another WW2 Sino-period film since acting in his first ever picture Empire of the Sun.. nice!
http://twitter.com/QuanahTweets Quanah

I felt a little lost in that trailer. Imagery is stunning, but I couldn't get a grasp on the story line.
Anonymous

I admit that I can't possibly judge a movie starring Christian Bale objectively, but the events this was based on were absolutely horrific; just reading about it made me sick to my stomach. Christian Bale looks fantastic in this and will no doubt give another intense performance. I'll make sure to bring a box of Kleenex. For tears and other bodily fluids. Ahem.
Brandon

No thanks.
dominic

Wow that was quite epic - would have preferred it if they didn't make it out to be so michael bay-esque and stuck with more character stuff - those titles were awful! But with Bale in this, I'm there - his performance looks great. Not sure what the Spielberg link is other than the close quarter fighting?
Mr. Tibbs

Could be a good movie, but that was an incredibly sloppy trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQoJo81lujk Crapola

Kindo bored of war. It's everywhere I look these days.
http://tinyurl.com/Commision-command Polly Jenkins

awesome , just awesome , can't wait to see this too
Boiler Bro Joe

If Hollywood had made this then I'd agree somewhat about the tired cliche of focusing on the white foreigner in the "craziness" that is Asia at war. But everyone seems to be forgetting that this is a Zhang Yimou film. This is not a Hollywood film (one look at the CG tanks should tell you that). Also, more than half of the movie, as noted above, is performed in Mandarin. Believe, me there aren't going to be any Chinese stereotypes here. The Japanese are less likely to fare as well, but it looks like even some of those characters are getting a bit of depth. Admittedly, yes, this story was likely picked with an eye on international success. But that attempt at international appeal is probably because the filmmakers want to bring the story of Nanking to the masses, especially since the Japanese government and conservative-elite have done a phenomenal job of removing it from the international conversation. I've been waiting a while for a film about Nanking that wasn't just a one-dimensional nationalist piece, and this looks to be it. If it needs to have a white guy in it to get attention, then let's all just be grateful that the white guy is Christian Bale.

Canadian Chinese

amen brother

http://tinyurl.com/chris-farell Bobby Kruger

The horror that those people went through. Should be a promising movie.