Based on Yan Geling's novel "13 Flowers of Nanjing," the Nanjing massacre plays front and center in director Zhang Yimou's tale.
根据华人女作家严歌苓的同名小说改编，张艺谋导演的最新电影《金陵十三钗》以南京大屠杀作为故事背景和中心。

　　
Zhang Yimou's great gift for stories of resilient women serves him well in "The Flowers of War," a uniquely harrowing account of the rape of Nanjing. Simultaneously florid and gritty, this fictitious drama about convent students and prostitutes hiding together from the 1937 Japanese onslaught is a work of often garish dramatic flourishes yet undeniable emotional power, finding humor and heartbreak in a tale of unlikely heroism in close quarters. Considerable advance hype and topliner Christian Bale should help the most expensive production in Chinese history recoup worldwide, though its grave subject matter and 141-minute running time rep not-insignificant obstacles.
张艺谋展现坚韧女性故事的杰出才华在金陵十三钗中展露无遗，这是一部展现南京大屠杀的独特电影。本片兼具华丽与坚韧，虚构的关于学生与妓女的故事有强烈的戏剧张力，但亦有不可否认的情感力量，英文影评在后半段结局处的英雄主义段落里还能找到幽默与心碎。考虑到前期炒作及克里斯蒂安贝尔的加盟，这部中国电影史上最贵的电影应能在全球收回成本，尽管其沉重的主题及141分钟时长意味着一些不可忽略的障碍。

　　
Set to open Dec. 16 locally and later this month Stateside for an Oscar-qualifying run, the picture will represent China in this year's foreign-language film race, an official endorsement that eluded Lu Chuan's more somber and nuanced Nanjing chronicle "City of Life and Death" (2009). Boasting a starry pedigree, a broad array of cross-cultural acting styles and enough English dialogue to make some viewers question its foreign-lingo designation, "The Flowers of War" is as total an antithesis to Lu's starkly realist treatment as one could imagine; still, as a rare attempt by a major mainland helmer to tackle a subject that remains an unhealed national wound, its cultural significance can be no more underestimated than its cumulative impact.
本片定于16日在中国上映，本月晚些时候也会有为冲击奥斯卡进行的放映，该片将代表中国参与今年的奥斯卡最佳外语片评选，这是官方的认可，他们并没有选择陆川那部更阴郁微妙的《南京南京》。本片强调其星光正统，广泛的跨文化表演风格的交融以及大量英语对白会让观众质疑这部电影的奥斯卡外语片属性。《金陵十三钗》恰是陆川电影中赤裸裸的现实主义的对立面；不过，作为极少数大陆巨匠涉及的这一未愈合的民族伤口的主题，本片的文化重要性与其不断累积的影响一样不容低估。

　　
Making his way through the bombed-out rubble of Nanjing, American mortician John Miller (Bale) arrives at a cathedral to attend to a recently deceased priest. To the dismay of the church's boy warden, George, and the dozen or so adolescent girl students in his care, Miller turns out to be a genially lazy opportunist who immediately plunders the communion wine supply.
贝尔饰演的殡葬师约翰米勒穿梭在遭受炮火轰炸满目疮痍的南京城，去一家天主教堂出席一位牧师的葬礼。但是他懒惰成性盲目乐观，每天只会粗鲁酗酒，让教堂看门男孩乔治和在教堂里避难的女学生们深感失望。

　　
When a small army of courtesans barge into the church seeking sanctuary from the Japanese, who have overtaken the city, Miller is delighted at the prospect of his own personal harem and flirts aggressively with the only one who can speak English, Yu Mo (Ni Ni). Knowing the Japanese won't attack a white man, Yu demands that Miller help her and the other women escape Nanjing, while George similarly begs him to help shield the students.
日本人占领南京古城，一群妓女躲入教堂避难。米勒为自己的艳福不浅的未来暗自窃喜，时常与中间唯一会说英文的玉墨（倪妮饰演）调情谈笑。玉墨明白日本人不会攻击白人，所以要求米勒帮助她和同伴逃离南京。乔治同样请求他庇护这些无辜的女学生。

　　
Zhang entertainingly tracks the tensions among this strange gathering of individuals, even staging a near-catfight between the indignant students and their diva-like guests. But the infighting comes to an end when Japanese troops invade the church and, not realizing there are courtesans hiding in the vicinity, try to force themselves on the students -- a sickening scene marked by the girls' screams and the sounds of clothing being ripped, all whipped into a frenzy of terror. Yet the attackers are momentarily held at bay when Miller, in a moment of moral courage finds a way to stop their assault.
张艺谋颇具娱乐性地处理了这些奇怪个体之间的紧张关系，甚至展现了愤怒女学生和尤物宾客之间的激烈争吵。日本军队侵入教堂，他们没有发现避难人群中有妓女，而是企图逼迫女学生。这是一幕让人毛骨悚然的场景：女学生的尖叫声，衣物被撕裂的声音，都营造了恐怖的气氛。米勒鼓足勇气站出来阻止了日本士兵的暴行，但这也这是暂时的安全。

　　
Scene by scene, "The Flowers of War" is an erratic and ungainly piece of storytelling, full of melodramatic twists and grotesque visual excesses, which are nonetheless delivered with startling conviction. Zhang has no interest in sparing the viewer's sensitivity, and his willingness to push past the limits of good taste is what paradoxically lends his film a curious integrity.
金陵十三钗的叙事并不规则，故事充满夸张的曲折和怪诞的视效。张艺谋让观者深陷感性情感中，而他将过去的美学品位推向极致的意愿使电影成为矛盾的整体。

　　 On the surface, the most problematic element of Liu Heng's screenplay (adapted from Yan Geling's novel "13 Flowers of Nanjing") is the familiar manner in which it uses a white American character as an entry point for Western audiences. Yet Miller turns out to be just one figure in a panorama that distributes dramatic weight evenly across the board, and allows the students and especially the courtesans to perform unexpected, deeply moving acts of decency and self-sacrifice. While not every character is individuated in the film's large ensemble, the viewer emerges with a sense of a vibrant and varied human tapestry whose colors glow all the brighter in the wake of impending catastrophe.
表面上看，刘恒剧本（节选自严歌苓的小说《金陵十三钗》）的问题在于用一个熟悉的美国白人套路作为连接西方观众的桥梁。但是米勒（贝尔饰演的角色）只是作为一个充满戏剧性的角色为整部影片的平衡性添彩，预留了空间给女学生和妓女的出人意料的表演，尤其是妓女们的高尚和自我牺牲令人动容。在群像塑造上，并不是每个角色都有个性化表现，观者能感受到在灾难发生前愈加光辉、生动而丰富的人性脸谱。

　　
Twenty-four years after starring as a young lad trapped in Japan-occupied China in "Empire of the Sun," Bale has fun playing Miller as a loutish, liquored-up rascal early on before slowly becoming a figure of integrity and fatherly tenderness, a transformation managed by sheer force of movie-star charisma more than anything else. The actor blends in surprisingly well with the mostly non-pro distaff cast, including 23-year-old newcomer Ni, who comes off as stilted in her English dialogue scenes but charges her other moments with a quiet, radiant dignity.
贝尔曾在日本侵华题材电影《太阳帝国》中饰演一位小男孩。24年的今天，贝尔这个角色由早期的粗鲁酗酒的流氓慢慢转变为正直而充满慈父光辉的形象，这种塑造转变主要归功于演员的个人魅力。贝尔和这些非专业演员的融合出乎意料得好，包括23岁的新人倪妮，她在英文对话场景里略显青涩，但在其他场景里拥有安静而闪耀的尊严。

　　
Other thesps who register strongly include Atsuro Watabe as a Japanese colonel with a deceptively kind, cultured appearance; Tong Dawei as a heroic Chinese soldier who protects the church with his dying breath; 13-year-old Zhang Xinyi as the brave young student who narrates much of the drama; and Cao Kefan as her desperate, hapless father, a role virtually identical to the one played by dead ringer Fan Wei in "City of Life and Death."
其他演员还包括渡部笃郎塑造的看似善良有教养的日本军官，佟大为塑造的英雄赴死保卫教堂的中国士兵；讲述电影独白的13岁女学生张欣怡，以及饰演她那绝望不幸的父亲的曹可凡：与范伟在南京南京里的角色很像。

　　
The film's reported $100 million budget is entirely evident in its large-scale battle sequences, shot and staged with intense verisimilitude and impressive spatial coherence. Yohei Taneda's production design, particularly his set for the cavernous cathedral space, reps a staggering feat of period reconstruction in the streets of Nanjing itself. Chan Quigang's score is effective but goes a bit heavy on the violins.
报道，电影的1亿美元投资充分体现在大规模的战斗场景上，高度逼真且拥有很好的连续性。种田洋平的设计，特别是教堂的空间感，完成了还原金陵古城的惊人壮举。陈其钢的配乐起到了效果，但小提琴部分略显沉重。