"It was at the moment when the maurading Japanese soldiers broke into a cathedral, tried to rape a bunch of innocent Chinese schoolgirls, and a lone Chinese rifleman across the way managed to get off a few shots directly through the church’s stained-glass windows, and into the neck of the Japanese attackers, that it became clear to me that director Zhang Yimou’s new epic about the 1937 Nanking massacre “The Flowers of War” is, well, frankly, propagandistic and, yes, anti-Japanese. Actor Christian Bale, who stars in the film as an American who comes to the aid of several trapped Chinese girls and courtesans, has recently defended the film, telling the BBC, “It’s far more a movie about human beings and the nature of human beings’ responses to crisis.” He added that the film discusses how a crisis “can reduce people to the most animalistic behaviour but also raise them up to the most honourable behaviour you could ever witness.”"