The Flowers of War
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The Flowers of War |
| Original title | The Flowers of War |
| Country of production | China |
| original language | Mandarin , English , Japanese |
| Publishing year | 2011 |
| length | 146 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Zhang Yimou |
| script | Liu Heng |
| production |
William Kong , David Linde , Zhang Weiping, Zhang Yimou |
| music | Qigang Chen |
| camera | Zhao Xiaoding |
| cut | Peicong Meng |
| occupation | |
| |
The Flowers of War ( Chinese 金陵十三釵 , Pinyin Jinling Shisan Chai ) is a Chinese history - drama from the year 2011 . The story takes place in Nanking , China during the Second Sino-Japanese War and is about war crimes , especially against women, by the Japanese occupiers, known as the Nanking massacre .
The film was submitted as a Chinese entry to the 84th Academy Awards , but was not one of the nominated films afterwards.
action
In 1937, Japan attacked China and started the Second Sino-Japanese War . The Imperial Japanese Army overran China's then capital Nanking on December 13, 1937 and began various war crimes that became known as the " Nanking Massacre ".
During the invasion, not all students of a Chinese school were able to flee via ships in the port of Nanking and therefore had to return to their school, which was located in a church. They were attacked by Japanese soldiers while they were fleeing, but were also protected by one of the few remaining Chinese units in the city under the command of Major Li, so that the escape was successful. During the escape, the girls also met the American John Miller. He is an undertaker and looks for the school to bury the local priest. Therefore, he joins the students.
When he arrives at the school, he meets George, a boy who has helped the priest at school. He informed him that there would be no funeral because the body was laid out outside the building and hit by a bomb there. Since he doesn't want to pay John either, he indirectly forces him to stay at least temporarily at school. When asked about the presence of alcohol, George also says no.
A short time later, a group of prostitutes tried to get into the church because the refugee camps were overcrowded and the church seemed a safe place. Rejected at the door by George, they gained access themselves and are hidden in the basement under the kitchen.
The students do not like the newcomers, among other things do not allow them to use the bathroom. However, when one of the schoolgirls is shot and Japanese troops storm the church, the schoolgirls do not reveal where the prostitutes are hiding because they did not reach the cellar in time. The soldiers then try to rape the girls. John Miller, drunk, tries to appeal to the soldiers' honor, but is later put down. Major Li is now the last survivor of his unit, who waits in front of the church and hopes to be able to protect the girls in this way. He lures the soldiers out and kills them in an ambush. Li dies in the process.
Then the Japanese Colonel Hasegawa came to the church, apologized to John and the girls for the actions of his soldiers and promised protection by soldiers stationed by him in front of the entrance. He also left potatoes behind and announced another visit, as he would like to hear the students sing. Yu Mo, who had always denied John Miller before, paid him respect for his selfless work against the occupiers and reaffirmed her wish that he should help the people escape the city with his western face. The girls and George appealed to him to remain in church to protect the children. He decided on the latter, but at the same time tried to repair an old truck in order to be ready for an escape route. Here he persuaded the father of a schoolgirl, who was cooperating with the Japanese, to procure the necessary tools. He also gave John a pass with which he could leave the city to the west. The schoolgirl felt ashamed of her father because he worked with the enemy.
Shortly before his death, Major Li had brought a boy to the church who wanted to fight alongside the Chinese so that he could die in peace and in a warm environment. One of the prostitutes fell in love with the boy because he reminded her of her brother. To play him a nice song, she wanted to get new strings from her former brothel, so she left the refuge in an unknown way with a friend (she wanted to get her earrings) and set off through the occupied city. The others worried and persuaded John to leave the church and look for the women. He found both of them in the brothel, brutally desecrated and murdered. Back at church, he said they both died from ricochets and did not suffer.
When the Colonel returned a few days later, he handed the alleged priest John Miller an invitation, which asked the students to sing at the victory ceremony. The adults in particular knew what this meant and when asked, the Colonel could not or would no longer guarantee security. He only announced that this was not in his decision-making power and that the order came from above. John then refused, but Hasegawa was not dissuaded. The security forces were then reinforced and an escape was out of the question. In addition, the girls who had previously sung for the Colonel were counted. 13 schoolgirls would be picked up the next day (12 schoolgirls and one prostitute who happened to be in the show looking for her cat).
Yu Mo, meanwhile also more emotionally connected to John Miller, suggested going to the celebration in place of a schoolgirl so that she would not lose her childhood and innocence in the same way as it once happened to her. Even if John declined the proposal, all prostitutes later decided to take the place of the children, except for the one mistakenly counted. Since there were only 12 women left by the two dead, George also sacrificed himself, who wanted to make his dead priest proud by protecting the students. As part of the preparations, the truck was repaired, boxes were built and the prostitutes were made up like children by undertaker John Miller to keep up appearances. Each of the people now disguised as students (women and George) also took a piece of glass with them as a weapon in order to "take as many Japanese as possible to their deaths".
When the Japanese wanted to pick up the girls, the father of one of the schoolgirls came back. He pleaded that his daughter should be spared and again pointed out his bribery. The soldier gave the father another look at his daughter (while she was being brought onto the truck), whom he did not recognize because she was not in the group, and then shot him. The mistakenly counted woman pleaded that she was not a student and that she did not want to be taken away. But the soldiers didn't understand her. After the vehicles were gone, John rushed to the basement hiding place, fetched the students, and put them on the truck. He then loaded it with wine boxes and drove west to the city limits. When he got there, he showed the pass and asked if it would let him through. After leaving four cases of wine for the soldiers, he was able to drive on without the students being noticed. To the daughter, who loathed her father, he said: "Your father is a good man, without him we would not have been able to flee."
The students never found out what became of their 13 rescuers (flowers), but they were free.
production
The film was announced in December 2010. Pre-production also started in the same month . Filming began in Nanjing , China on January 10th, 2011. The language of the film was 40% in English and the rest in Mandarin with short scenes in Japanese.
Financial success
The production budget was approximately $ 94 million. The film grossed $ 311,000 in the US and $ 95 million in China.
Web links
- The Flowers of War in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The Flowers of War at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- The Flowers of War at Metacritic (English)
credentials
- ↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/9447846/The-Flowers-of-War-the-Chinese-film-that-is-sparking-a-revolution.html
- ↑ Iris Chang: The rape of Nanking. The forgotten holocaust of World War II. BasicBooks. New York City, New York, USA 1997, ISBN 0-465-06835-9 , p. IX.
- ↑ 13 Flowers of Nanjing (TBA) - Running Time, Budget, Production Details . MovieInsider.com. Retrieved August 3, 2011.
- ↑ http://www.movieinsider.com/m8404/nanjing-heroes-/%7Ctitle=13
- ↑ http://www.worstpreviews.com/headline.php?id=21373
- ↑ http://thedailyrotation.com/trailer-for-wwii-epic-the-flowers-of-war-starring-christian-bale/
- ↑ http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=flowersofwar.htm
- ↑ http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/despite-christian-bale-flowers-war-leaves-us-audiences-cold-34515/