Flowers of War (4 Stars)

This is a film about the Nanking massacre of 1937. Like "John Rabe", it's a true story, based on the memories of one of the survivors. The two films take place in the same city at the same time, the second half of December 1937, but they have nothing to do with one another.

Christian Bale is John Miller, an American undertaker who is called to bury the priest who ran an American convent school. Due to the Japanese attacks he barely makes it there alive. In the convent he finds only terrified Chinese girls aged between 12 and 14, and a 10-year-old boy who had been adopted by the priest. John feels responsible for the children, so he pretends to be the new priest in order to negotiate with the Japanese. While he's there a group of prostitutes take refuge who had escaped from a Chinese brothel. Together they have to fight to survive in the face of overwhelming Japanese brutality.

This is a darker, more depressing film than "John Rabe". When the film started, for the first half hour, I thought to myself, "Wow, this is another five star film". As it continued I was disturbed by the repeated rape scenes. To put it bluntly: the Japanese intended to kill every man, woman and child in the city, so why not fuck the women first? They considered the Chinese to be subhuman, on a level with animals, so they had no rights. Nevertheless, the rape and murder scenes turned my stomach, so I've deducted a star. People less sensitive than me will enjoy the film more.