the review of the flowers of Nankin

Rating: Null/10 (9 May 2013)

This film review is about <<13 flowers of war>> by Yimou Zhang in 2011. It is a movie based on the Nanking Massacre with a story around soldiers, girls, singing women, a boy and a fake father fighting the enemy in their own way.
The movie is 146 minutes long and I cried for 140 minutes. I was touched by those ordinary but great people, those warm and honorable souls. It does not like other movies about war, which are depressive and heavy with lots of national heroes and unforgivable enemies. This movie has many colorful scenes and focus on a special group of victims. The storyline is very clear and attractive.
The 13 flowers is not the real 13 women, it is 12 women and a boy. The main character is Yumo, who is the leader and the most popular one in those singing girls. They are also living as whores. But they are not like others; they are pretty, lovely and have elegant looking. Yumo used to be a student of church like the girls do; she could have another kind of life if she was not raped by her stepfather and forced her to entertain the guests. Their body and human dignity are been violated, their job is been spurned. The culture defined their characters. But in the end, the "humble" women save 12 lives and sacrifice themselves gratefully. The shine of humanity is pretty dazzling on them. Especially when one of them wants to play a complete song to that injured soldier before he died. She said the young soldier looked so similar to her brother. She went out under the dangerous guarding to find her string in her working place. On her way back, she was found by the enemy and they took her. Because of the beauty she had, she was raped by all of them. How cruel the war is. It is strongly compared with the nicely humanity. The humanity is dramatically performing in this movie. Those people who were supposed to be humble expressed gracious; who were supposed to be nobody expressed like a hero. With no doubt, the gracious people were selfless and kind, the real heroes were brave and sacrificial.
As the part of cinematographic style, there are many scenes I fascinated. There is a huge colorful window on the top floor of church; it is so different with the whole background color. The girl who narrated the story in movie always looked out through the window. The beautiful light irradiated on her face and body, it gives me a pure and peaceful feeling. Through the window, she saw the soldier who saved their lives; she saw the enemies who were guarding them; she saw those singing women forcing to come into the church with reckless laugh. Every time her emotion has fluctuated, she must stand in front of the window. Her attitude changed about those women from contempt to dependent, which also reflect the women's gracious humanity. Another great scene is when the enemies coming into the church and wanted to rape the girls, the fake father overcome his cowardice and bravely stand in front of the colorful window with a huge red cross flag and a full of righteous speech as a real father to save the girls. The whole picture is surrounding by a holy light, without national boundaries, without religion, just the compassion, justice and morality in the deep humanity. The other scene is about when the girl was almost raped by the enemy, there was a bullet from the soldier accurately shooting through the window and pierced on his head. The girl was saved. The shot was performed more slowly than the average when the bullet is pierced the window. It seems like the bullet was carrying a strongly power to come to save them, just like God was coming to save them.
The ending does not clearly describe the experiences and the future that those women and the boy have. It leaves us a space for imagine. They know what they will face when they get there and they persuade themselves that it is their daily job, if they can hold they may keep alive, but the girls cannot if they go. I was so touched by their action.
This film is transferring a spirit, not record of actual events like other movies about Nanking Massacre. This film is also a brilliant gift of tenacious and resilient women with a unique angle of a story in Nanking Massacre. The audience emerges with a sense of varied and gracious humanity in war.