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Post by RhodoraO on Feb 17, 2017 6:21:40 GMT
Discussion, reviews, news, pics, etc.
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 3, 2017 6:49:44 GMT
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 18, 2017 19:40:58 GMT
The original newsbite of Bale's casting from Yahoo news, archived: Chinese film to star Hollywoods Bale By Michael Martina – Wed Dec 22, 11:16 am ET
BEIJING (Reuters) – Zhang Yimou, one of Chinas best-known directors, and local movie moguls is hoping for an ascendance on the worlds silver screens to match the country's rise on the global political and economic stage.
Winning that international audience may mean tying a Chinese story to a Hollywood face.
Zhangs newest project, a film to depict wartime Nanjing under Japanese occupation, will mark the first time a domestically-funded Chinese movie has placed a Hollywood actor -- Christian Bale -- in a leading role, producers told a news conference in Beijing Wednesday.
"The strategy for China's film industry is to go abroad. It is a goal for the future and matches China's fast development," Zhang said at the unveiling of Bale as the leading man in the film, currently titled in English, "Thirteen Women of Nanjing."
The movie, set to begin filming in Nanjing, formerly known as Nanking, in early January, is based on a book by Yan Geling, depicting a religious man (Bale) who attempts to save a group of young women forced into prostitution at by the Japanese army.
"I think anyone who is doing artistic work has the responsibility for cultural exchange," Zhang said.
"We (China) have done many Nanjing-related films, but many of them were directed inwardly, and young people in the West may not know them. So we hope we can make a good film and more young people in foreign countries will see it," he added.--- "Investors first and foremost think about the market, unlike Yimou, who is focused on art. We invited Bale to join because I am thinking about the market and because we want the world to better understand Chinese culture," the producer said. "Hollywood stars are expensive, but they are worth it because they can influence the whole world," he added.
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 18, 2017 19:58:33 GMT
A detailed article on the story of the film's making, casting Bale, the history depicted, general Chinese politics behind filmmaking and political entanglements that developed at the time of it's release. The article is really comprehensive and informative. This little excerpt on Bale's casting is worth archiving here: www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/movies/the-flowers-of-war-a-chinese-epic-with-many-back-stories.htmlMr. Zhang, with three previous Oscar nominations, has always worked with Chinese themes and actors. So when it came to casting the John Miller role, he consulted with David Linde and Bill Kong, a pair of producers who had worked with him on some of his previous films, and other Hollywood veterans.
“I’m pretty good friends with Steven Spielberg, and when I showed him the script, I asked him for suggestions on what kind of actors he thought I should be getting,” Mr. Zhang recalled. “I did want to get an actor famous in the West, because I want this film to be globalized and reach a lot of audiences. They all said one thing: You don’t need a big star, but you need a really good actor, and Christian is both.”Bale's talk excerpted from the article: The character of John Miller, which does not exist in the novel, is largely a cipher. That forced Mr. Bale, who starred in Mr. Spielberg’s Chinese-themed “Empire of the Sun” early in his career, to invent a past for him — that of an opportunistic refugee from the Dust Bowl who, with exquisite bad timing, has turned up in Nanjing after escapades in Shanghai — and to help write his dialogue.
“This was not his war, not his business, and he has no personal connection to it,” Mr. Bale said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles just before leaving for China for the premiere. “It was just something to be told as a story in a bar some day, over a few beers. But then, against all his desires, he comes to find that he just can’t live with himself to desert these people, knowing he’s their only chance. That’s what I started to find intriguing: This most unlikely of characters placed in that position.”
Even before he was attacked in a small village eight hours from Beijing, Mr. Bale had been made aware that making and promoting a film in China is an experience different from the process in other places. He noted, for example, that cast and crew worked seven days a week “because they don’t have unions over there.”
But other cultural gaps were less ominous. Mr. Bale said he was baffled by the sepulchral silence on the set the day he arrived, which his Chinese colleagues apparently thought was a Western custom, and never fully adjusted to expectations that he, as the “senior actor,” should offer acting tips to junior members of the cast.
“That was hilarious” as an example of cross-cultural misunderstanding, Mr. Bale said. “When they explained it to me, I stood with mouth agape, because it’s the absolute antithesis of anything that would be acceptable on a U.S. set. For me it would clearly be gross arrogance to suggest to another actor how to do a scene, so it was fascinating to be considered rude because I was not consulting with other actors.”
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 18, 2017 20:10:36 GMT
From Mike Hale's review at New York Times: [L]ong before its two and a half hours are up, “The Flowers of War” is sunk by the disproportion between the events being portrayed and Mr. Zhang’s distanced, strangely frivolous treatment of them — in essence, his refusal to take a point of view on one of the most gruesome chapters in Chinese history.
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His real approach to the events of 1937 is to use them as a backdrop for the kind of deluxe, Hollywood-inspired melodrama that has made him an art-house favorite. In the process he fails to deliver on most of the elements — grandeur, historical sweep, genuine pathos — that would have made the film worthwhile.
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Mr. Bale, turning in a respectable if oddly chipper performance under the circumstances, has the unfortunate task of playing a character who doesn’t really add up. Miller’s conversion from opportunist to savior may be another stock element of this sort of movie, but the scene meant to showcase his transformation is rushed and ineffective.
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 19, 2017 22:30:04 GMT
A write -up in connection with the incident involving Bale's attempt to visit a house-arrested human rights activist in China, during promotion for Flowers of War: www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/world/asia/christian-bale-attacked-by-chinese-guards.html?ref=worldExcerpts related to the film follow: The encounter, captured by a CNN camera crew who accompanied him on the eight-hour drive from Beijing to Dongshigu village, promises to become a public relations debacle for China, which has been eagerly promoting Mr. Bale’s latest movie, “The Flowers of War,” which premiered last Sunday at the one of the capital’s most important government buildings.
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The film, which premieres on Dec. 23 in the United States and Europe, opens this week in China on 8,000 screens and has been accompanied by a herculean publicity effort.
Speaking to reporters after the film’s premiere on Sunday, Mr. Bale — whose credits include “Batman Begins” and “The Fighter” — defended “The Flowers of War” against accusations that it was overly propagandistic. The film depicts Japanese atrocities during their 1937 occupation of Nanjing, a highly emotional topic that is often used by the Communist Party to stir up nationalistic sentiment among ordinary Chinese.
... “I think that would be a bit of a knee-jerk reaction,” he said of suggestions made by critics that it excessively demonizes the Japanese. “I don’t think they’re looking closely enough at the movie.”
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It is not the first time that Hollywood, eager to gain a foothold in China’s fast-growing film industry, has found itself entangled in Chinese domestic politics. Last October, a group of American producers shooting a comedy in the county where Mr. Chen is being held were criticized for their partnership with the local Communist Party officials who have orchestrated his detention.
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 28, 2017 7:55:18 GMT
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