The Flowers of War
Short description
The Flowers of War is set in Nanjing in 1937, as Japanese forces take the city at the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War. John Miller, an American mortician, arrives at a Catholic church to prepare a priest for burial, only to find himself the sole adult among schoolgirls sheltering there. When women from a nearby brothel also seek refuge, John poses as a priest to shield both groups from the occupying army, and the arrangement grows harder to sustain as the danger closes in.
Zhang Yimou directed the film, the fifteenth of the twenty-five features he has made in chronological order, arriving between Under the Hawthorn Tree and Coming Home. The screenplay was written by Liu Heng and Yan Geling, and Zhang Weiping produced. Christian Bale plays John Miller, with Ni Ni as Yu Mo, alongside Zhang Xin Yi, Huang Tianyuan, Han Xiting and Zhang Doudou among a credited cast of fifty-seven.
The production cost about 94 million dollars and returned roughly 95 million worldwide. Audiences rate it 7.5 out of 10 on IMDb from around 58,000 votes and 7.4 out of 10 on TMDB from about 935 votes, while the film critics' rating stands at 5.5 out of 10 from 58 reviews, a clear gap between professional and viewer response.
What's left behind the scenes
- Before starting filming, Zhang Yimou studied the history of the Nanjing Massacre for three years. Some scenes in the film were recreated from photographs of that era.
- The film is banned in Japan.
- Hinamatsuri is a Japanese Doll Festival, or Girls' Day, celebrated on March 3rd. On this day, families with daughters display special dolls for public view, arranged on a tiered stand resembling a staircase.
- Steven Spielberg recommended Christian Bale for the lead role.
- Screenwriter Yan Gelin, whose novel was adapted into this film, wrote the book inspired by the story of Minnie Vautrin (1886–1941), an American missionary who was in Nanjing when the Japanese army entered. Being at the center of events between late 1937 and early 1938, she sought to protect nearby women and children from mass rape and murder. When the Japanese army soldiers demanded women for 'comfort' (a euphemism used to describe women used as sexual slaves), she faced a choice: to give the Japanese respectable women or prostitutes. Ultimately, the prostitutes volunteered to go, and they were never seen alive again.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
