China’s official 2012 Foreign Language Oscar submission is Zhang Yimou’s The Flowers of War, which has since been picked up for domestic distribution by Wrekin Hill Entertainment and will hit Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York theaters in late December for one week Oscar qualifying runs before expanding for a nationwide release in Winter 2012.
The film is an adaptation of Geling Yan’s novel “13 Flowers of Nanjing,” centering on the Nanjing Massacre, when Japanese troops killed thousands of Chinese citizens in what was then the nation’s capital in 1937. Christian Bale plays John Haufman, an American trapped amidst the chaos of battle and the ensuing occupation takes shelter, joined by a group of innocent schoolgirls and thirteen courtesans, equally determined to escape the horrors taking place outside the church walls.
You can check out the domestic trailer directly below and get a more detailed plot synopsis and check out a couple of early images from the film here. For the full field of Foreign Language Oscar submissions click here.
