"As for Bale himself, he is enthusiastic enough in his role, alternating loucheness with dewy-eyed emoting, though there's an unavoidable feeling he's in a different movie to the rest of the cast. Bale specialises in a sort of coiled-spring ferocity, which is never far away from the surface, and doesn't always sit comfortably with the more balletic, formalised performances of the Chinese and Japanese actors. Be that as it may, Zhang pulls out lots of directorial stops: there are a number of bravura combat sequences (notably one in which a single Chinese soldier takes out an entire Japanese platoon), a gruesome scene outlining the (documented) nature of the Japanese sexual assaults on civilians, and tremendous handheld cinematography reflecting the girls' panic when the troops storm in. However, despite the energy and care with which each scene is set up, Zhang never quite manages to overcome the penned-in sense of the drama: despite occasional forays outside, most of the action remains churchbound. This wouldn't be a problem in itself – it just seems a little self-defeating in a war epic; the constant scurrying around and squabbling among the women characters doesn't help either, tending to distract from the larger picture. Be that as it may, the Nanjing massacre is still a running sore in China's 20th century history, and Zhang is brave to take it on. It's fair to say that something has been sacrificed in translation, the ponderous romance he offers to appeal to an international audience doesn't really do the historical record full justice. But in terms of focusing the world's attention on China's cinematic muscle, he does admirably."