The Flowers of War

[joshuawbb]

Some spoilers below!

Anyone watched this film yet? It's Zhang Yimou's newest film, based on a novel about the Nanking Massacre. I personally thought it was stunning, and that's coming from me who initially had reservations about the film, thinking it may be too politicised. Whilst the opening battle between Chinese and Japanese forces was a bit glossy, with stylised shots and plenty of pyrotechnics, the film very quickly shifts to depict the bleak and terrifying reality. Zhang's directing constantly shifts between violent and extremely affecting depictions of atrocities by Japanese, and calmer, almost surreal beauty; the intensity of each transition cuts through you as each tragedy unfolds. There is little holding back; the violence is very graphic.

Some reviewers criticised the flirtatiousness of the group of women, the playful nature of some scenes, but I think they're overlooking a major point that this film expresses - the 'macro' and 'micro' as such of the atmosphere. The occupation and extreme violence happening all around them sets the backdrop and mood of most of the film, whilst the conversations, relationships and little off-mood events between characters show that little bubble of everyday drama and irrelevance; between trying to escape, the characters try to make life continue as normal as possible for as long as they can, which is psychologically natural, given that since everyone knows the bubble can cave in at any time, you sometimes do your best put your mind off it. Such stories happen in every war.

(Spoilers) People who criticised the singing and enjoyment of the women before their next-day departure, panning it as too drawn-out, fail to realise that they're seeing that discomforting period where people often do the best they can to feel normal as time counts down to a seemingly certain doom. The viewer is meant to see their positivity as fleeting; it is not meant to be joyful, to the viewer it is meant to be sad. Read this to see what I mean: http://www.chinasmac...-execution.html

It's the trailer that gives a rather bad impression of the film and unfortunately people pre-judge. To me, this film stands alongside City of Life and Death as one of the greatest films made about the massacre. The acting was absolutely brilliant from the young Chinese cast - the church girls were superb, soldiers and women good too, and Christian Bale was also fairly good after getting off to a start.

It's a shame that so far a lot of media (written mostly by people who have not seen the film) criticises or outright pans the film based on conjecture or commentary on the film's politics. One mention of "state-funded" and papers like The Guardian and the WSJ take the ball and run with it, claiming that the film had a poor, unrealistic story (it's based on a book), that acting was awful and that it is only an attempt for the Chinese government to spread its soft power through big budgets. Also, name an article that doesn't quote the Japanese soldier's line "We've got virgins!". Pitiful reporting, unfortunately, it has undoubtedly put a great film into bad light.

[skylee]

I saw the trailer twice during this weekend and frankly the last shot showing the name Zhang Yimou was a bit of a turn-off. But I sure will see the film. It will be shown here on 19 Jan.

[daoyi]

I saw it yesterday. Overall, I thought it was good. It's not the best film I've ever seen, but it is definitely a different direction from a typical Chinese film. Most strikingly is the fact that the Japanese aren't all demonized in this movie. I enjoyed it and it is shown in both Chinese and English subtitles for those that can't speak Chinese

[peterlkj]

I watched it on Sunday night - was really shocked by the brutality of it, although of course I knew what was coming. Worth watching? Probably not.

I think a broader point is interesting though - this film is being talked about extensively in the Western media as one of China's efforts to increase soft-power, and somehow "compete with Hollywood", however I'm not sure that war films showing the terrible violence wrought on China over the past centuries are really the way to do it.

In my view, Hollywood's soft power comes from its ability to portray some version of the "American Dream" - an affluent yet diverse society. Probably even more important that the movie industry are the television series which, with all the obvious caveats, show some idealised version of life that people can buy into every week for an hour or two. If China really wants to start to win the global battle for "hearts and minds", it needs to present a view of China that people can identify with, and even aspire to be a part of.

[xiaocai]

Have you ever thought that maybe they did not really want to "compete with Hollywood"? Of course certain countries can be more influential than others at some point of time if we look back in the history, there were the ancient Greece, the Roman empire and many others, but it does not mean that every other civilisation in the other parts of world have to "compete" with them by copying what they were doing in order to establish their own values. To be honest I would be very sad if that was the case for us. We may not be able to win the global battle for "hearts and minds" any time soon (at least not as long as we are still declaring that we are a communist nation), but I think the primary object of the movie could also be simply entertaining the people from where it is based on and meanwhile, even maybe not be so obvious and have not been effectively carried out in this particular case, giving them the opportunities to reflect on the tragedies that have left these deep scars that are taking too long to heal. Maybe not too many of us will be too aspiring to become a part of any massacre but I will be very upset if there is few Chinese people who can connect themselves with what happened in Nanjing, in the six weeks starting from December 13, 1937. I still remember reading a review on Rotten Tomato which gives "rotten" to 霸王别姬 citing that the movie is "emotionally not involving", which made me laugh by the way, while many other positive reviews only focusing on the "breath taking Peking opera scenes". What can I say, I will pick it over 卧虎藏龙 on any day.

[gato]

Maybe not too many of us will be too aspiring to become a part of any massacre but I will be very upset if there is few Chinese people who can connect themselves with what happened in Nanjing, in the six weeks starting from December 13, 1937.

I know Zhang's a different man than he was 20 years ago, but I still hope he'll make more movies like "Ju Dou" some day.

[xiaocai]

I think that's when he still had some aesthetics and courage while his fame and wealth were on the rise. Unfortunately to me it seems that he has lost the former two on the way of maximising the latter two. 英雄 put me off completely and I can't even remember what his subsequent movies are all about. Well maybe this is not really what he wants either, but you can't really do much in a harmonious society can you.

[peterlkj]

Xiaocai - of course you raise a perfectly valid point, but nevertheless much of the discussion about the movie in the western media is focusing on the rise of Chinese cinema, and so discussion about the competition among Hollywood, Bollywood and er... "ChinaWood"(?) is pretty much inevitable. If you don't think China is investing in the "battle for hearts and minds", I would have to disagree - whether they can "win" or at least significantly improve the image of China is another question.

[jkhsu]

Great post by joshuawbb. This is easily one of the best movies of the year. Left the theater today thinking these 4 words about the film: disturbing, brutal, funny, brilliant...

[skylee]

英雄 put me off completely and I can't even remember what his subsequent movies are all about.

山楂樹之戀 was not bad (but not great either). I think the way the story is told in Hero is tiring, but it is still an ok film, and the colours are intense and beautiful (never mind the message, the author has his freedom of speech too).

Zhang tends to disappoint the audience nowadays probably because we expect a lot from him. It is not ok for him to make a passable/average film. If his films are not exactly amazing, ground-breaking or something then some of us (like me) feel disappointed. (PS - and if his films are big, amazing etc then some of us (probably including me) would think he is just 好大喜功 )

PS - There is actually another thread on exactly the same movie (using its old name) - Nanjing Heroes

PPS - For those of you who have seen the Flowers of War, how do you like it compared to Nanjing! Nanjing!

[jkhsu]

When I saw this film, I knew nothing about it. I didn't see the trailer or read any reviews. Perhaps that might have been one of the reasons why I enjoyed it more than many of the critics did. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a really low rating which surprised me. If you are looking for historical accuracy, you probably won't like it. To me, the Nanjing Massacre was just a backdrop for this movie similar to how the Vietnam War was the backdrop for Apocalpse Now. With some minor changes, they probably could have used a fictional war and the movie would hold up fine. What made this film "brilliant" for me was the ingenious mix of terror and humor.

Also, it seemed like a good portion of the conversations in this movie were in English; a very different feel than other Chinese movies where the entire movie was in Chinese. While it didn't affect me much because I can't read the Chinese subtitles as fast, the version shown this week in the US did not have Chinese subtitles. I can't be sure the meaning came across the same in Chinese vs. English when the Japanese soldiers spoke (in Japanese). I know the critics here had an issue with one of those (English translated) lines.

I haven't seen Nanjing! Nanjing! so I can't compare. However, the trailer for that movie seems very different from Flowers of War.

[xiaocai]

英雄 is alright visual effect wise but I am just not fond of the the theme. Of course he is entitled to his own opinions but he did it in such a blatant way which I kind of found it unsavoury.

Maybe our expectations are too high but look at the marketing campaigns, if critics are disappointed because his new movie is not groundbreaking, then ordinary audience like me would probably be let down because it fails to meet whatever it claims to.

[rezaf]

I watched the movie today. It's difficult to say whether it was a good or a bad movie. There were a lot of good things about this movie including the acting but I also felt that the story was a little bit off at some points. Probably there were too many shifts in the behavior of the characters that came out of nowhere and there were too many imitations as well as predictable themes. The role of the good Japanese guy was also not very well developed and it seems like they had just put him there to say a few sentences so that later no one can criticize the movie for being biased. He was too much like the good German guy in Polanski's movie(The Pianist) but for comparison you can see how much better that German guy's character was developed in those short scenes. Even it didn't seem to be very moving for the Chinese audience(at least not as moving as I had predicted). I remember many people were moved to tears after 南京！南京！ but everyone seemed fine after this one.

[jkhsu]

The roll of the good Japanese guy was also not very well developed and it seems like they had just put him there to say a few sentences so that later no one can criticize the movie for being biased.

Are you sure that guy was good?

[rezaf]

I think he was supposed to be a good guy who had no choice but to obey the order from above at the end but probably it would have been better if they could show some signs of shame or hesitation on his face. On the other hand if they wanted to portray him as a bad guy they should have added some more information. Why do you think he was a bad guy?

[jkhsu]

I think they did show him with a bit of hesitation for maybe one second but then he just kept the orders and that was it. I think if they really wanted to cast him as a "good guy" they should have at least have him do something good to help out in the end. They could have easily had him killed trying to help out; that would have made him a good guy for sure. The problem was, once he decided to just follow the orders (assuming that is the case and this banquet was not planned all along), I could not see him as a good guy anymore. The good guys in this movie either risked or sacraficed their lives in some way. My friend who saw this film with me actually thought it was planned. I think this is up to interpretation though.

[rob07]

I remember this Chinese girl telling me the story about the worst date she had ever been on. She went to see 南京！南京！with a Japanese guy who had not previously heard about the Nanjing Massacre. It was a total disaster, but I guess she got a morbidly interesting train-wreck type story out of it.

[skylee]

Tell us more about the disastrous date.

[skylee]

I saw the film today and I think I liked it. I had read the book before seeing the film but I liked the film better. This is a bit unusual as I tend to prefer the first version (be it book or film) of a story that I come across. I found the story in the film better developed and made more sense than the book. For example, in the book the students keep singing everyday and their singing brings the enemies to them, which does not make much sense as sensible people will not make a sound given the circumstances. And I liked that the film showed how helpless people were, how there was no way out. It felt real. But the (attempted) rape scenes were fairly disturbing.

It is a good film. But I don't think I can bear to see it a second time (but I might change my mind).

[rezaf]

rape scenes were fairly disturbing

I wonder why the haven't labeled the film as parental advisory in China. Yesterday there were so many young children in the cinema. I remember a little boy(probably 5~6 years old) who apparently didn't know anything about sex started asking his parents about what the 鬼子 were doing to those girls.