A trailer for Zhang Yimou's The Flowers of War, starring Christian Bale, has come online and can be watched below.

Based on Chinese author Yan Geling's novel "The 13 Women of Nanjing," the film is about 13 prostitutes who stepped in for female university students who were to be taken as "escorts" for the troops during the period when nearly 20,000 women and girls were raped and killed by the Japanese troops.

Bale plays a Catholic priest who shelters a group of prostitutes and female students in his church during the brutal 1937 invasion and pillaging of the Chinese capitol by Japanese troops known as the "Rape of Nanking."

The film has been selected as the Chinese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards.