Christian Bale is an impressive man. Not just because he's one of the finest actors of his generation, but because he refuses to fall into a Hollywood spell. Sure, he can get every film blog on the planet to report what color shoes he wore on the set of The Dark Knight Rises, but he's also willing to spend time out of the Hollywood spotlight and in the world of indie and foreign filmmaking.

One of his latest diversions out of the spotlight is The Flowers of War, the latest film from House of Flying Daggers director Zhang Yimou. However, to be fair, this film isn't exactly a low key indie like The Machinist or I'm Not There. With a reported budget of $94 million, Yimou's latest is the most expensive movie ever produced in mainland China. Why did it cost so much? Well, if you hit play on the below trailer (via The Playlist), it's pretty obvious where the money went. Producing a historically accurate retelling of the 1937 Nanking Massacre isn't exactly cheap.

The Flowers of War is currently without a US distributor, but it's unlikely it'll stay that way for long. Not only is this China's official submission to the Academy Awards for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, but it's poised to break box office records when it opens in China on December 16th. Even without an American draw like Christian Bale, this is the kind of movie that's destined for at least a US arthouse run; add in Batman as a Jesuit priest who protects a group of women from an invading Japanese force, though, and it wouldn't be a total shock to see this go even wider some time in 2012.