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Have no doubt. Director Zhang Yimou's "The Flowers of War" is a propaganda movie where the Chinese are all heroic and the Japanese invaders are all despicable. We've seen this kind of war movie before, but haven't audiences matured beyond the black and white stark morality?The LA Times reviewer wrote "Zhang Yimou’s 19th feature is decidedly backward-looking: A lavish period weepie set against the atrocities of the Nanking Massacre, “Flowers” abounds with well-worn movie archetypes and slathers on schmaltz." and then added:
But however terrible and real the threat of rape, the clumsy screenplay turns every Japanese soldier into a rampaging maniac, some of them screaming exultantly upon discovering virgins. The exception is commander Hasegawa (Atsuro Watabe), a soft-spoken man who appreciates music. The genteel colonel isn’t, however, above arranging for the convent girls to be delivered into the hands of his superiors, setting in motion a contrived series of climactic events that are nonetheless affecting because of their elemental power.The Hollywood Reporter reviewer agreed writing, “If Warner Bros. had made a film with this plot back in 1942, it would have made effective anti-Japanese propaganda and probably absorbing drama in the bargain. Today it just plays like hokum.”
"The Flowers of War" was based on the novel "13 Flowers of Nanjing" by Geling Yan. The movie was the official Chinese selection for the Best Foreign-Language Film for the 84th Academy Awards and it didn't make the short list. It was, however, nominated for the Golden Globe Awards.
The story begins in 1937 as the Japanese Imperial Army marches into Nanjing and begins the massacre. Girls run back to their school, a Roman Catholic cathedral. An American mortician, John Miller (Christian Bale) joins them, but he's there to ready the priest for burial. In time, Miller and the girls are joined by prostitutes who hide in a cellar.
A Japanese officer (Atsuro Watabe) places guards outside the gates and assures the school girls will be protected. Yet he is overruled later when his commanding officers send an invitation to the school girls to come and sing at a victory celebration. The prostitutes and the only boy in the mission agree to disguise themselves as school girls and sacrifice themselves: They are the 13 flowers .
Miller leaves with the girls hidden in a truck, supposedly to freedom. That might seem like a happy ending, but we know that Christians and people with Western education weren't treated kindly under the Communist rule that followed the end of World War II. It's something like having the real-life Maria von Trapp and the Trapp Family singers escape into France or the story of the M.S. St. Louis.
My last review attempted to give readers a historical perspective but mostly bought out comments by hysterical pro-Chinese respondents. I then did research and found, not surprisingly, that other critics found the movie problematic for the same reasons, however, those people weren't identified as Japanese and I've found that sometimes being critical of a Korean movie or person or a Chinese movie or person can bring out the biases. I don't think that I'm prejudiced so much as the writers revealed their prejudices.
The movie was based on a novel by Geling Yan, "13 Flowers of Nanjing," (金陵十三釵) or Gold Tomb (Mausoleum) 13 Hairpins or 13 Girls of Jinling. Consider that Google Translate gives Mausoleum of War for 陵十三釵. I can't comment on the book because I haven't read it. The screenplay is by Liu Heng.
The movie was the top grossing Chinese film in 2011. While director Zhang Yimou has stated that the movie is about love and sacrifice, there's an uneasy undercurrent of sexism. Outside, where danger lurks, the world is cast in muted tones. Yet cinematographer Zhao Xiaoding makes the inner sanctuary where the prostitutes hide a place of saturated colors and glamour. The institute of prostitution under the Chinese is seen as less brutal than the rampage of the Japanese, setting up the old concept of war time rape as a crime against the property. As Susan Brownmiller wrote in her book "Against Our Will," the rape of women during war is used to demoralize the sons, fathers, brothers and husbands who are unable to protect their women. Rape as an offense against property becomes part of the rewards of war.
In "The Flowers of War," we don't see the pimps or madames that have left these prostitutes unprotected. The focus is on a saintly Chinese soldier who attempts to protect the Chinese women and makes the ultimate sacrifice. Yet while we hear about American soldiers taking revenge for the torture of their comrades by the Japanese, we rarely hear that might be the case with the Japanese soldiers in Nanking. R.J. Rummel wrote that Chinese peasants had as much to fear from the Nationalist Chinese soldiers. Swiss national Tom Simmen photographed Chinese soldiers near Shanghai in 1937 as they tortured and executed both Japanese prisoners of war and suspected collaborating Chinese.
The movie fails to evaluate a system of sexual slavery that trafficked women from Japan and China to places as far as the United States. According to the National Women's History Museum, most of the Chinese female prostitutes who found their way to San Francisco were kidnapped, lured with false promises or purchased by brokers for sale. There were teenage girls and even babies and the average life span in the trade was only four years.
Because we don't see the ferocity of Chinese pimps but do see the beauty and strength of the 12 Chinese prostitutes in "The Flowers of War" an uncomfortable comparison is made between the benefits and bounty of the Chinese system of prostitution as opposed to the wartime enslavement by alien enemies in the guise of the Japanese. We're left to wonder if the American mortician John Miller wasn't enticed to China by the fleshy cheap adventures made available under British colonialism where exotic women were acceptably enslaved--the original yellow fever fanned by stories like Madame Butterfly.
There were people who could be called saints during World War II, but as a whole, men at war aren't saints. World War II was a brutal war where women were raped by the Axis powers and by the Allied forces. There are many instances of Allied forces deliberately killing Japanese prisoners. Even on home ground, moral ambiguity existed and in today's movies and TV serials we see such examples in TV series like "Foyle's War" or "Detective De Luca." "The Flowers of War" is a step backward story wise and it is troubling that China should put that movie forward as its entry into the Academy Awards.
My last review attempted to give readers a historical perspective but mostly bought out comments by hysterical pro-Chinese respondents. I then did research and found, not surprisingly, that other critics found the movie problematic for the same reasons, however, those people weren't identified as Japanese and I've found that sometimes being critical of a Korean movie or person or a Chinese movie or person can bring out the biases. I don't think that I'm prejudiced so much as the writers revealed their prejudices.
The movie was based on a novel by Geling Yan, "13 Flowers of Nanjing," (金陵十三釵) or Gold Tomb (Mausoleum) 13 Hairpins or 13 Girls of Jinling. Consider that Google Translate gives Mausoleum of War for 陵十三釵. I can't comment on the book because I haven't read it. The screenplay is by Liu Heng.
The movie was the top grossing Chinese film in 2011. While director Zhang Yimou has stated that the movie is about love and sacrifice, there's an uneasy undercurrent of sexism. Outside, where danger lurks, the world is cast in muted tones. Yet cinematographer Zhao Xiaoding makes the inner sanctuary where the prostitutes hide a place of saturated colors and glamour. The institute of prostitution under the Chinese is seen as less brutal than the rampage of the Japanese, setting up the old concept of war time rape as a crime against the property. As Susan Brownmiller wrote in her book "Against Our Will," the rape of women during war is used to demoralize the sons, fathers, brothers and husbands who are unable to protect their women. Rape as an offense against property becomes part of the rewards of war.
In "The Flowers of War," we don't see the pimps or madames that have left these prostitutes unprotected. The focus is on a saintly Chinese soldier who attempts to protect the Chinese women and makes the ultimate sacrifice. Yet while we hear about American soldiers taking revenge for the torture of their comrades by the Japanese, we rarely hear that might be the case with the Japanese soldiers in Nanking. R.J. Rummel wrote that Chinese peasants had as much to fear from the Nationalist Chinese soldiers. Swiss national Tom Simmen photographed Chinese soldiers near Shanghai in 1937 as they tortured and executed both Japanese prisoners of war and suspected collaborating Chinese.
The movie fails to evaluate a system of sexual slavery that trafficked women from Japan and China to places as far as the United States. According to the National Women's History Museum, most of the Chinese female prostitutes who found their way to San Francisco were kidnapped, lured with false promises or purchased by brokers for sale. There were teenage girls and even babies and the average life span in the trade was only four years.
Because we don't see the ferocity of Chinese pimps but do see the beauty and strength of the 12 Chinese prostitutes in "The Flowers of War" an uncomfortable comparison is made between the benefits and bounty of the Chinese system of prostitution as opposed to the wartime enslavement by alien enemies in the guise of the Japanese. We're left to wonder if the American mortician John Miller wasn't enticed to China by the fleshy cheap adventures made available under British colonialism where exotic women were acceptably enslaved--the original yellow fever fanned by stories like Madame Butterfly.
There were people who could be called saints during World War II, but as a whole, men at war aren't saints. World War II was a brutal war where women were raped by the Axis powers and by the Allied forces. There are many instances of Allied forces deliberately killing Japanese prisoners. Even on home ground, moral ambiguity existed and in today's movies and TV serials we see such examples in TV series like "Foyle's War" or "Detective De Luca." "The Flowers of War" is a step backward story wise and it is troubling that China should put that movie forward as its entry into the Academy Awards.
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