The Flowers of War | Review

Master filmmaker Zhang Yimou returns with yet another period piece, the 1937 set The Flowers of War, based on a novel by Geling Yan. With a Western protagonist cementing a more globalized appeal, Japan’s rape of Nanking (an increasingly popular cinematic minefield, this following hot on the heels of the 2009 Chuan Lu film, City of Life and Death) serves as the backdrop for this tale concerning a group of prostitutes and school girls seeking refuge with an American mortician in a Catholic church. While both a brutal and beautiful motion picture (though it doesn’t quite manage to justify a running time of nearly two and a half hours), an aggravating thread of saccharine romanticism dilutes the impact of what is in fact, a horrific and unforgettable atrocity.

The film’s opening title sequences inform us of Japan’s brutal attempt to take control of Nanking, beginning at the moment that nearly all Chinese soldiers have been wiped out. Evading gunfire and smoke drenched streets, an American mortician, John Miller (Christian Bale), manages to flee with some young convent girls to a Catholic church. A young boy named George, tasked with looking after the girls, pleads with the mortician, who is somewhat of a boozehound, to fix a truck on the property so that they may flee. Miller refuses to help unless he can get paid, haphazardly ransacking the church for the collection box and wine. Soon, a group of prostitutes show up and barge their way in for shelter, renovating the church basement for themselves. Miller attempts to seduce the mysterious and evocative Mo (Ni Ni), who will only comply to service the Westerner if he helps them escape. Luckily, both groups of women are proficient in English.

As the young girls balk at sharing bathroom facilities with the prostitutes, Japanese forces invade the church, discovering the school girls. After soldiers terrorize and kill two of the girls, Miller, who has donned a priest uniform, attempts to pose as a man of the cloth and help them. The General in charge of bringing “safety” to this region promises Miller that no more harm will come to the girls, but he states that he loves music and wishes to hear them sing. Under no circumstances are they allowed to leave the church premises. After the girls perform as a choir, said General announces that the girls have been invited to a Japanese celebration of their dominance over the city. But when Miller refuses to allow them to go to such a function, it becomes clear that the girls have been kept for more than just singing, and they are to be used for sexual services with Japanese soldiers. At this point, the prostitutes offer to dress as the schoolgirls and attend the function in their place, the rationale being that they are, after all, already fallen women.

The first hour of The Flowers of War is quite compelling, featuring some brilliant cinematography, interesting character dynamics, and some sickeningly brutal moments of war violence (including a graphic, though brief, rape scene). Yimou employs the use of exploding color in several scenes of bombs and explosions, and creates several sequences involving shattering tinted glass and mirrors, as if to show that images of great beauty can be born out of carnage. Bale is an interesting element as a drunken, selfish Westerner, until he dons the priest uniform and suddenly becomes a hero martyr. Strangely, one of the young girls pops up intermittently as a narrator and is given a barely fleshed out subplot involving her traitor-turned father.

The ‘flowers’ of war also happen to be flowers of female archetypes, and the intriguing dichotomy of whores and virgins eking out existence in a Catholic church is at first a compelling face-off. But the film’s largest weakness is the romanticized martyrdom of the prostitutes. Why is it innately logical to lead them to slaughter? Why are the virginal, indoctrinated school girls’ lives worth more? While the story may be based on true events, Yimou’s film strays away from calling this sacrifice into question, instead having prostitutes utter lines like “we should do something heroic” as justification for sacrificing themselves. And another prostitute tells a young girl to go live a good life for her, one that she never had the chance to live. Caught in this mess, Bale is left only to sputter sob-choked speeches attempting to make everyone feel special and strong. Inevitably, he tells Mo that he’s fallen in love and will return for her, announcing a romance that, only several days before, was evidently borne out of Bale’s drunken attempts to force her to have sex with him. Maybe a heart can grow four sizes in one day. Who knows? (Isn’t it a bit heartless that he can’t even sacrifice one school girl, not even to save the woman he’s fallen in love with? It’s a little harsh knowing he’s handing his love over for not only a brutal gangbang but a horrific and painful death as well.) But it’s this romanticized melodrama that lends the proceedings a fatal note of levity, making for a distracting and questionable finale.

Rating 2.5 stars