7.5 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.1 |
A story of love and war - and a band of outcasts who emerge as unlikely heroes from the shadows of a city's occupation. At once lyrical and visceral, in the apocalyptic world of Nanjing in 1937, a vibrant human story about the invisible people of the city and a series of unexpected relationships that lead to a resonant act of sacrifice.
Starring: Christian Bale, Ni Ni, Tianyuan Huang, Atsurô Watabe, Dawei TongDrama | 100% |
History | 58% |
Foreign | 58% |
War | 55% |
Period | 45% |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1
English, English SDH, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Westerners can be a little narrow minded when asked about history, tending to focus only on events that have affected their little corner of the globe. Therefore, if one were to ask a group of Americans about Japanese aggression in the 20th century, chances are nine out of ten (at least) of them would talk about the attack on Pearl Harbor on that epochal day that has indeed in the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt lived in infamy. But the Japanese had been invading imperialists for years before their incredibly destructive flight over Hawaii. If one were to ask a Chinese group about Japanese aggression in the 20th century, chances are the answers would be as consistent as the hypothetical responses given by Americans above, but in a totally different context. Japan had been involved in various conflicts with China for decades, and while skirmishes here and there had dotted the early 1930s, by the late 1930s tensions had broken out into a more “formal” conflict, the Second Sino-Japanese War (the first had been fought in the late 19th century, some indication of just how long the relationship between the two nations had been strained). The Second Sino-Japanese War lasted long enough that it actually was subsumed by the global conflict of World War II once Japan attacked the United States in December 1941, but four years previously the Chinese were desperately trying to maintain their national sovereignity after Japan launched a devastating series of attacks which saw several major Chinese cities falling rather quickly to Japanese forces. Shanghai had already fallen in 1937 by the time the Japanese turned their sights on the Chinese capital, Nanking. (It should be noted that Nanking is variously transliterated as either Nankin or the more contemporarily preferred Nanjing, but the subtitles of the film under review transliterate it as Nanking, so that is the spelling that will be employed in this review.) The Flowers of War is a fictionalized account of a group of survivors who band together as the Japanese run ramshod through the city of Nanking. Featuring a somewhat bizarre characterization by Christian Bale as an American mortician, the film is perhaps more notable for a fine assortment of supporting performances by a large (and largely inexperienced) Chinese cast. The film was China’s entry into the 84th Academy Awards as Best Foreign Language Film, though it failed to make the shortlist of eventual nominees.
The Flowers of War is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. This is an often sumptuously beautiful film, something that may sound a bit unusual considering the fact that so much of the film plays out in debris strewn battle sequences. But Yimou, despite his over reliance on camera tricks, frames a very gorgeously wrought picture here, and this high definition presentation offers it with extremely appealing sharpness and clarity. Fine object detail pops extremely well and colors, while intentionally muted at times, pop quite nicely. About the only concern with this presentation is some less than convincing contrast at times, something which tends to bathe a lot of the interior cathedral scenes in too much murkiness. Otherwise, though, this is a really nicely filmic looking offering, with well rendered CGI artfully woven into the film and a generally extremely precise image that faithfully reproduces a cinematic appearance.
The Flowers of War features a very nicely done DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 mix in English and Mandarin which brilliantly utilizes the sound field in a number of boisterous battle scenes, and then just as artfully articulates some very quiet dialogue driven scenes. Ambient environmental effects are very nicely deployed around the surround channels, and one of the mix's best evocations is the huge hall ambience of Winchester Cathedral. Several sequences feature bullets zinging in from this direction or that direction, and the foley effects are extremely convincing, with impeccable use of discrete channelization. The subtle but very effective score is also very nice rendered in this lossless environment. Fidelity is superb and dynamic range is amazingly wide.
The bulk of the supplements is comprised of a multi episode feature called Behind the Scenes of The Flowers of War. It contains the following featurettes:
The Flowers of War is a huge film, and that may be one of its chief flaws. At almost two and a half hours long, it feels bloated at times, and that humongous feeling isn't helped by a middling performance by Christian Bale at its center. However, the rest of the film tends to work rather well, especially with regard to the kids, who are marvelous, and the general story, which manages to work up to some considerable heartstring tugging by the final act. Even with its flaws, it's hard not to admire Yimou's stagecraft here, balancing huge battle scenes against quieter moments between the characters. This film probably won't have the impact to Western audiences that it enjoyed in China, but with superior video and impeccable audio, as well as some enjoyable supplements, with warts (and/or weeds) and all, The Flowers of War comes Recommended.
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