After knuckling down to a more intimate drama in The Fighter, it would seem that Christian Bale is looking to get a little more epic for a new acting assignment – and we don’t even mean The Dark Knight Rises. He’s signed on to star in Zhang Yimou’s massive historical film about the Nanjing Massacre, Nanjing Heroes.
Yes, we don’t expect too many laughs from this one (but then, Bale’s not exactly known for his comedy roles these days) and it chronicles the slaughter of thousands of Chinese citizens by the Japanese in 1937. Bale’s playing a priest named John who pulls a Schindler’s List and helps many of the potential victims by working with German businessman called John Rabe.
"I met Christian in America and was impressed with his serious book research for the role," Zhang tells the Hollywood Reporter. "It's the overall strategy for Chinese cinema to approach the world and broaden its influence but casting Bale was a coincidence because the script happened to have an English-speaking part in the lead."
Yimou is planning to spend around $90 million on the film, which is a hefty 600 million Yuan in Chinese budgetary terms and is basically equal to what John Woo pumped into Red Cliff. There’s no word on exactly when it’ll shoot, though we’d guess Bale will slip the Bat-cowl on one more time before he travels to China for Heroes.