Christian Bale knocks the socks off Zhang Yimou

Director Zhang Yimou has generous words of praise for Christian Bale, who leads the cast of his latest war epic, Heroes of Nanking.

He says Bale arrived on the set in Nanjing (formerly known as Nanking), a city in East China, alone on Feb 2 and insisted on the same accommodation as the crew.

"In my 20-year filming career I have never seen this - a Hollywood A-lister coming alone to an alien country and living with a crew of hundreds of foreigners," Zhang was quoted as saying in a statement put out by his production company. "That's very impressive to me."