Review of The Flowers of War (2011) by Zanele J — 30 Dec 2012

Courage triumphs, a movie about people who made mistakes that cost others their lives and live the rest of their lives in penance. Very inspiring, we are bound to make errors, some less costly and some deadly, what makes things right in the end is owning up and making the necessary changes.

Christian Bale plays a John Miller who narrowly escapes the Japanese invasion of Nanjing, he finds refuge in a vacant catholic church, he is joined by school girls, and later prostitutes from the infamous brothels, there are cohabitation issues with the virgins and the prostitutes and John Miller with his hedonistic bent is welcome on the mature women's sides. He is irresponsible, stupid, and horny.

When the innocence of the convent student is threatened by the Japanese who view them as sexual objects, the hungover John Miller dons the priestly robe and flies the red cross flag and commands the soldiers to leave the church, this buys him some time until one senior soldier, tears the flag with his sword and the mayhem continues. Major Li, having booby trapped the surrounding area, kills two of the soldiers getting ready to rape a girl and draws them outside, saving the girls, he gets killed in a bravest showdown ever brought to the screen, he kills himself with most of the irreverent soldiers.

The remaining Chinese soldiers all died bravely, the basically died with many Japanese soldiers. The ending of the movie is touching, when the prostitutes give themselves over to the Japanese in order to buy time for the girls to escape with John Miller, who has ordained himself into priestly hood. The story is told in three languages and is easy to follow. Sad movie.

Recommended.