The director of China’s entry for the Foreign Language Oscar The Flowers of War will receive the International Federation of Film Producers Associations award at this year’s Asia Pacific Screen Awards.
Having shifted from having his early films banned in China (despite being officially submitted as Foreign Language Oscar entries) to more mainstream fare in more recent years, his current Oscar submission marks another first for a Chinese-funded film, featuring a Western lead, played by Christian Bale. It also marks a shift in government policy towards the telling of history, as the subject matter (Chinese sex workers volunteering to replace university students as escorts for invading Japanese soldiers) has been previously banned.
