The Flowers of War (English) :: A moview review
James Ahongsangbam *
Movie Title: The Flowers of War
Cast: Christian Bale, Ni Ni, Zhang Xinyi
Time: 145 minutes
Genre: Drama
The movie is based on the novel Thirteen Women of Nanjing by Yan Geling Shu (Zhang Xinyi). A student from the convent of Winchester Cathedral narrates the story of escape from the Japanese soldiers when Japanese occupied Nanjing on Dec 13th, 1937.
Shu and a student from the cathedral lost their group of students, where they met mortician John Miller (Christian Bale) who also lost his way in the war. He accidentally met Shu and the girl hiding who was also on the way to the convent to bury the head father Ingleman of the convent school. On the other hand Major Li of Chinese soldiers were fighting the Japanese and also helping them reached the convent. Somehow they reached the church, wherein John was looking for the night to stay and the children’s with him meant nothing to him initially.
A group of ladies from a brothel of the famous Qin Huai River entered the church to hide. What meant to John were wine and a night stay with girl. But when Japanese attacked the church and tries to rape the children’s, he himself declares a priest and saves the children.
Hasegawa, a Japanese soldier guarantees the protection of the Church and the Children’s. However the children’s were kept for some other purpose and the ladies from brothel led by Yo Ho(Ni Ni) help the children and the priest to escape.
Costume design made in the film is an appreciable one especially the hair design made by John for the ladies who really change the appearances of the ladies to girls of the age 13 or 14.
Editing made in the film is of high quality, especially when the guns are shot and sound of firing and the mixing of timely editing with the scenes are fantastic. In addition to this I can rate the film as one of the best Adapted Screenplay.
Overall the film gives a very good impression of the sufferings of a war and the quality shown is very good. Not only is this movie for those who loves peace and history but for everyone who wish to have a good time worth watching movie.
* James Ahongsangbam wrote this review for e-pao.net
The writer is a resident of New Delhi and can be contacted at shangbam(at)live(dot)com
This article was posted on August 14, 2012.
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