This is a pretty good movie, which is frustrating because it could have been great

Rating: 7/10 (26 May 2020)

It's an incredibly moving story of human perseverance and redemption, set in one of the darkest moments in human history. The cinematography is great. The characters are compelling. The acting is superb, not just the leads Christian Bale and Ni Ni, but I was particularly impressed by Huang Tianyuan, who gave an incredible performance as the deceased priest's adopted son.
This movie had every reason to go down in history as an all-time great, but Zhang Yimou pulled his punches in two major ways:
First: he did not force the emotional impact of the Nanjing Massacre. There were some sad scenes to be certain, but it's not until later in the movie and the impact is softened by some immediate karmic justice inflicted on some of the perpetrators. The near-superhuman feats of Major Li to defend the girls further distract from the brutality of the Japanese occupation, and the hopeless plight of the Chinese. As a result, the emotional impact of the situation is dampened. For those unaware of the actual history, the film may not leave a real impression.
Secondly (Potential spoilers ahead): The sex scene between Yu Mo and John Miller takes a lot of the impact out of both of their character arcs (not to mention, given this film's subject matter, it certainly seems inappropriate for it to devolve into a romance). It is not out of character, per se, but distracts from the otherwise profound development that both of them go through as characters. For Yu Mo, it does not directly detract from the bravery of her actions, but narratively speaking, it transforms her role in the story into simply a reward for John Miller doing the right thing. Her character arc seems to be her evolution from a prostitute and sex object into a heroine who bravely sacrifices herself to save the innocent. But the film still treats her as a sex object anyway. For Miller, his character arc involves him transforming from a selfish man motivated only by money, booze, and sex, into a man who is willing to sacrifice himself to risk his own safety to give even a slim chance of salvation for the schoolgirls. However, turning his relationship with Yu Mo into a romantic one, it seems to portray his transformation from a man motivated by money, booze, and sex, into a man motivated by sex. Hardly compelling. Long story short, this is one of the worst instances of the trope "the hot male and female leads have to hook up during the movie."