Last week I mentioned that my interest in Zhang Yimou’s The Flowers of War has been growing. Based on a novel by Geling Yan, the movie stars Christian Bale as a man trying to shelter young girls and prostitutes during the Nanking Massacre. With a budget nearing $100 million, it’s the most expensive Asian-produced film ever made. It opens in China this week and will be making Oscar-qualifying runs in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco later this month.
So now we have a new trailer, and while it looks like it’ll be visually striking — it’s Yimou, so that’s to be expected — I’m a bit worried about everything else. It starts out promisingly, then it turns into just another trailer. And there’s something about that “I already have” line that makes me cringe. Hopefully the movie isn’t just a lot of melodramatic award bait and instead conveys something more potent and human, which trailers always fail at communicating anyway.
