Christian Bale To Star In Chinese Epic Nanjing Heroes

Christian Bale is coming into his own lately with his performance in The Fighter gathering tons of Oscar buzz. He's also primed to start production The Dark Knight Rises in the fall. His next project according to TheHollywoodReporter will be Nanjing Heroes a film focusing on the Japanese invasion of Nanjing during 1937 that lead to the Nanjing Massacre.

It's not new subject matter for Bale as a child actor he starred in Steven Spielberg's Empire of The Sun. Where he played a young British boy living in China and is forced into an interment camp but still idolizes Japanese pilots. The era has also been used as settings for recent films such as Shanghai and City of War.

The Chinese production will cost $90 million and will be the one of the most expensive films made in China along with John Woo's Red Cliff. It will be directed by Zhang Yimou who is best known to western audiences for making the Jet Li epic Hero. Zhang has hired Dark Side FX to handle the film's effects they've worked on Saving Private Ryan and The Dark Knight.