Christian Bale attacked in China
The encounter, captured by a CNN camera crew who accompanied him on the eight-hour drive from Beijing to Dongshigu village, promises to become a public relations debacle for China, which has been eagerly promoting Mr. Bale’s latest movie, “The Flowers of War,” which premiered last Sunday at the one of the capital’s most important government buildings.
Directed by Zhang Yimou, the movie was partly financed by loans from a state-owned bank and it is the country’s foreign film submission for the Academy Awards. At $94 million, it is also said to be the most expensive Chinese-made film ever. Officials here have expressed hope that it might earn China its first Oscar.
The footage of Mr. Bale’s attempted visit is dramatic. In it, he is seen pleading with the men who guard Dongshigu’s entry points and then retreating as they push and punch him. “Why can I not visit this free man?” he asks repeatedly. The men, dressed in thick green winter coats respond with shouts of “Go away.” Even after they have retreated into their car, the group, which included a translator, was chased for 40 minutes by men in a gray van.
“What I really wanted to do was to meet the man, shake his hand and say what an inspiration he is,” Mr. Bale said.
In recent months, scores of Chinese activists have had similar experiences, although some have endured far more violence, sometimes at the hands of uniformed police who the victims had called for assistance.
None of the journalists, diplomats or rights lawyers who have made the journey to Dongshigu have succeeded in meeting Mr. Chen, 40, who has been imprisoned in his home, along with his wife and child, since his release from prison in September 2010.
A self-taught lawyer, Mr. Chen crossed the line from celebrated lawyer to persecuted dissident after he took on the case of thousands of local women who had been the victims of an aggressive family planning campaign that included forced sterilizations and abortions. In 2006, he was sentenced to four-and-a-half years during a trial that his legal defenders described as farcical. The charges included destroying property and organizing a crowd to block traffic, crimes allegedly orchestrated while he was under house arrest.
Mr. Bale’s encounter with China’s authoritarian system is sure to complicate efforts to publicize the film, part of a government campaign to bolster the country’s so-called soft power. The film, which premieres on Dec. 23 in the United States and Europe, opens this week in China on 8,000 screens and has been accompanied by a herculean publicity effort.
Speaking to reporters after the film’s premiere on Sunday, Mr. Bale — whose credits include “Batman Begins” and “The Fighter” — defended “The Flowers of War” against accusations that it was overly propagandistic. The film depicts Japanese atrocities during their 1937 occupation of Nanjing, a highly emotional topic that is often used by the Communist Party to stir up nationalistic sentiment among ordinary Chinese.
Mr. Bale plays an American mortician who dons the vestments of a Catholic priest in his effort to save young Chinese women who have taken refuge in a Catholic boarding school during the Japanese invasion. By some estimates, 300,000 people died during the ensuing orgy of murder and rape.
“I think that would be a bit of a knee-jerk reaction,” he said of suggestions made by critics that it excessively demonizes the Japanese. “I don’t think they’re looking closely enough at the movie.”
The government has yet to officially react to news of Mr. Bale’s tussle, although it was largely blocked from the Internet on Friday. CNN featured the video on its homepage but the video could not be opened.
It is not the first time that Hollywood, eager to gain a foothold in China’s fast-growing film industry, has found itself entangled in Chinese domestic politics. Last October, a group of American producers shooting a comedy in the county where Mr. Chen is being held were criticized for their partnership with the local Communist Party officials who have orchestrated his detention.
