Flowers of War

Director: Zhang Yimou

Writers: Lie Heng, Yan Geling

Cast: Christian Bale, Ni Ni

From internationally celebrated director Zhang Yimou (Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern, Hero, House Of Flying Daggers) comes an epic tale of love and war – and an unlikely band of outcasts who emerge as unsuspected heroes from the shadows of a city’s occupation. As impassioned as it is visceral, the film enters the apocalyptic world of Nanjing in 1937 only to find a vibrant story about the most invisible people in the city, a story of unexpected romance, stolen moments of pleasure and an exquisite act of sacrifice in the name of hope.

Behind a walled church within the fallen city of Nanjing, the danger in the streets has thrown together an unimaginably contrary group of refugees: a flock of shell-shocked school children, a dozen provocatively seductive courtesans, and a renegade American (Academy Award® winner Christian Bale, The Fighter, The Dark Knight) posing as a priest to save his own skin, or so he thinks. Trapped by marauding soldiers, over the next few days they will struggle not only to survive but also to do what seems impossible under the circumstances -- understand and trust one another.

They are the kind of people usually forgotten in war, but the one thing they share is that they have not given up on finding a way through. When the children face an intolerable threat, all of the prejudices that might stand between them fall away and they find themselves sharing moments of unforseen tenderness and uniting in a courageous decision that, amidst the human folly of destruction, will become an inspiration.