The story behind Chinese war epic The Flowers of War
Geling Yan
The Chinese epic The Flowers of War failed to gain a highly-coveted Oscar nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film category. But as Bethan Jinkinson reports, the historical drama has resonated with Chinese audiences.
The film, directed by Zhang Yimou and starring English actor Christian Bale, opened in China on 16 December.
Since then it has been shown on thousands of screens across the country, taking $93m (£60m) gross in its first five weeks, according to entertainment research group EntGroup Consulting.
Read more at: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-16638897
! No longer availableOne of the best war movies I have seen, like the South Korean movie "Brotherhood", really difficult to watch a second time, at least straight through, maybe I can rewatch parts.
I think 'Saving Private Ryan' opened up the door for "realistic types of war movies", though in honesty, there were predecessors to SPR as well.
Though, it has Christian Bale, a largely Chinese movie, danged, if they didn't make a good one.
The referred to movie made in South Korea, "Brotherhood of War", this kind of illustrates, if SK and NK get together, there are some serious wounds between the two nations. Great movie and hard to watch again.
An excerpt here, starting 40 seconds in, shows how the Chinese Red Army sent a human wave against the South Korean side, the cinematography of this, showing all of these troops with their red flags on the mountain side (which that exact picture from the movie, I don't think is in this clip), was absolutely stupendous, this part, I'd re-watch again and again. We also had to face these human waves. Thousands and thousands of them doing this. Human waves were certainly used in the Iraq/Iran war as well by Iran with their population advantage.
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