Warning!!! Contains Spoilers.

Rating: 10/10 (9 May 2013)

"The Flowers Of War" (2011)(Wikipedia, 2013), another piece of work from director Yimou Zhang. A well known fifth generation film maker in the Chinese film industry. The Flower of War is a name full of contrast and contradiction. The story is based in Nanjing during the Japanese invasion during the second World War. A movie that gives our judgmental minds a shake up, a contrast between the holly and the impure and what they all mean when tested by life threatening situations. A group of students from the convent and a group of prostitutes find themselves seeking shelter in the same church. The mortician John who is also at the church to pick up the dead body of the resident priest finds himself tangled in the mess when he finds himself feeling sympathetic for the children after the Japanese soldiers stormed into the church and killed two of the students. The setting of the films is a war scene, rubbles everywhere, half collapsed building and smoke everywhere from the explosions, the whole picture give the viewers a sense of sorrow and doom. Everything you see is covered in thick grey dusts from the building debris. Humanity is the core element of the film emphasized in all the major sections of the film, starting from the beginning where the Chinese soldiers had a chance to retreat to safety but instead they sacrificed their lives in order to safe the girl students from the pursuing Japanese soldiers; John the mortician who had little concerns for anyone other than himself at least it seems ended up risking his life to stay and help the children; the prostitutes that even the girls despised at the beginning so much they would not share a bathroom with, ended up making the grand sacrifice to take the children's place of what seem to be certain ill fate. The director uses bright colors throughout the film to reinforce the theme of humanity is like a beam of light in darkness and a rainbow in the grey sky. The sense where the prostitutes arriving at the church, a total contrasting irony reinforced by the colorful clothing the prostitute were wearing; The bullet shattering the church's colorful glass windows; the explosion where the last Chinese gave his life to save the people in the church where brightly colored clothes were blown out of the building. These were emphasized by using slow motion technique to make the screen shot outstanding and memorable. Perhaps humanity is not determined by occupations and social status, more often than not, people that have lower social status or people in occupations that society despises are not there by choice, many have a story behind it and dose not make these people evil or heartless, in times of need people that we least expect can prevail and surprise many by showing who they are. The prostitutes did just that, as society despises them and they themselves to a certain degree accept. They were not prostitutes by choice and they all had their untold stories that has led them to where they ended up. Despite all that, when the humanity in these women were called upon, they bloomed like the most beautiful flower in the world and what they did for a living suddenly became meaningless as they will forever remembered for their bravery and their sacrifice to maintain the purity and innocence of the children. The scene where they did their final performance to show the children their famous song, they were illustrated as shining stars with glorious color and aura. Discovery and revelation of humanity in this film was quite well illustrated. Take John for example, at the beginning he was selfish and only cares for his greed and lust. During this phase his screen image was scruffy, dirty and covered in dust; the transition period where he debates with himself what his heart wants him to do, he was little bit cleaner but still rough round the edges; finally when he decided to let the humanity prevail, his image became clean shaven and quite a few shots with sunlight shinning on him like an angel and a savior. Attitude in life is as important as important as your life skills. John on various occasions used a little humour to ease the tension and make the situation easier for the children to cope, good example is when he told the children, 'if you are scared of someone, imagine that person sitting butt-naked on the toilet then it won't be so scary anymore. A great film in my view but I can already see the emotional reaction and the two-sidedness of opinion between the international and the national point of view as it tried to depict war and the use of the prostitute is surely to kick up a fuss amongst the Chinese audiences with strong cultural opinions and beliefs.