Zhang says Bale to start in Nanjing film

[December 23, 2010]  BEIJING (AP) -- Zhang Yimou says Christian Bale will star in the Chinese filmmaker's latest project about 13 young prostitutes struggling to survive during the attack by Japanese soldiers on Nanjing in 1937.

Zhang said Wednesday that Bale, the star of the boxing drama "The Fighter," will play an American priest in Nanjing during the Japanese invasion.

Zhang says shooting is to start Jan. 10. He says he hopes to tell the story of war atrocities in Nanjing, especially to younger people in Western countries.

Historians say the massacre, known in the West as the "Rape of Nanking," resulted in the slaughter of at least 150,000 civilians. China puts the number killed at 300,000, making it one of the worst atrocities of the World War II era.

[Associated Press]

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