A Westerner finds refuge with a group of women in a church during Japan's rape of Nanking in 1937. Posing as a priest, he attempts to lead the women to safety.
Less about the thousands who died in the Nanking massacre than about how stunning it all looked, Zhang Yimou’s epic puts Bale in the midst of a lavish nightmare.
As you’d expect, it’s beautiful, emotional and exciting, if florid in style. Bale, beauties and English dialogue widen Yimou’s appeal.
While absorbing and never dull you can’t help feeling the horrific subject matter deserved rather more subtle handling. The characterization and plotting veer towards the hokey, while Millar’s transformation to Schindler-esque hero is all too swift.
Zhang gives his fondness for chaste melodrama and shimmering colours full rein: it’s a style that suits his courtly martial arts films such as Hero, but this material would have benefited from a more Spielbergian, or perhaps David Lean-ian, approach.
The title alludes to a precious beauty that grows during times of war, but this is just taking things way too far. The colour here is way off.
The resulting film looks and tastes like Hollywood-style hokum, although it is heartfelt and watchable.
The broad-brush contrasts (innocence and experience, self-indulgence and responsibility), yearning choral music and the long running-time make it a draggy experience, visual flourishes notwithstanding. And it looks very conventional next to Zhang Yimou's best work.
The Flowers of War is the Chinese equivalent of a Steven Spielberg film, horrific in its graphic depictions of death and devastation, but also a sentimental, awards-friendly love story and rousing boys' adventure movie.
The result is the sort of expensive, mindless kitsch Hollywood turned out as anti-Japanese propaganda during the second world war. It contributes nothing of value to an understanding of these events.
It would seem hard to fluff a drama set in Nanking after the infamous battle for the city, but director Yimou Zhang manages it.
The Flowers of War: the Chinese film that is sparking a revolution
Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee from Friday August 17, 2012, until Thursday August 23, 2012. More info: www.dca.org.uk
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