As Christian Bale approached an impromptu checkpoint leading to this tiny village in eastern China, four men blocking the narrow path started marching toward him in menacing unison.
If you are unaware of the latest news make sure you go through Breaking News and Hot News.
"I am here to determine Chen Guangcheng," the "Dark Knight" actor said and I translated, with correspondent Stan Grant and cameraman Brad Olson next to us.
"Go away!" the plainclothes guards barked, pushing us back.
Amid the scuffling and yelling, dozens more guards in olive-green, military-style overcoats -- and 2 gray minivans -- emerged in the other side of the checkpoint, all coming toward us.
"Why can one not visit this free man?" Bale asked repeatedly, only to receive punches from guards aiming for his small camera as they attempted to drag him away from the rest of us.
Christian Bale roughed up in China
Christian Bale visits China as activist
Once we retreated, I recognized the ringleader -- exactly the same burly man who had hurled rocks in the CNN team 10 months earlier to force us from the same location.
A precarious scene ensued Thursday as one of the gray minivans chased our car at high-speed on bumpy country roads for many 40 minutes.
Once the dust settled, we counted a broken car, a damaged camera -- and a Hollywood star disappointed at -- although not shocked by -- his failure to see an individual hero.
"What I really wanted to do was to meet the man, shake his hand and say how much of an inspiration he's," Bale said.
The person, 40-year-old Chen Guangcheng, has been confined to his home together with his wife, mother and daughter, and watched around the clock by dozens of guards since he was released from prison in September 2010. A nearby court had sentenced him to a lot more than 4 years in prison for damaging property and disrupting traffic in a protest.
If you are unaware of the latest news make sure you go through Breaking News and Hot News.
Blind China activist recovers amid call for his release
His supporters maintain authorities used trumped-up charges to silence Chen, a blind, self-taught lawyer who rose to fame within the late 1990s thanks to his legal advocacy for what he called victims of abusive practices by China's family-planning officials.
Bale first discovered Chen through news reports, including our coverage in February, when he is at China filming "The Flowers of War," a wartime drama set in 1930s Nanjing in which he plays a mortician attempting to save several schoolgirls in the clutches invading Japanese soldiers.
Blind lawyer makes Chinese officials jittery
The injustice faced through the activist and the family stirred such strong emotions in Bale that, upon hearing his impending return to China to advertise the film, he chose to do something unusual to boost the international understanding of Chen and thereby to turn up the heat around the Chinese government.
"This doesn't come naturally to me, this is not things i actually enjoy -- it's not about me," he explained during our eight-hour drive from Beijing to the eastern town of Linyi, where Chen's village is situated. "But it was just a situation having said that I can't look the other way."
Considered to be a media-shy celebrity, Bale reached out to CNN and invited us to join him on his journey to go to Chen.
In the car, he lamented the American public's lack of edcuation on Chen's case, despite senior U.S. officials' increasingly vocal support for his freedom. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Gary Locke, the American ambassador to China, have both championed Chen's cause.
Although China's state media has largely ignored the story, Chen's plight has spread on the internet and outraged an increasing number of Chinese "netizens." Many have attempted to visit Chen, and activists say nearly all would-be visitors have been turned back, often violently, by plainclothes police and local thugs.
"I'm not brave carrying this out," Bale emphasized. "The local people who're standing to the authorities, who are visiting Chen and his family and getting beaten or detained, I want to support them."
As our car sped toward Beijing at nighttime, Bale wondered aloud if he'd not be allowed back -- a prospect he is ready to accept -- even as "The Flowers of War" became China's official entry into next year's Academy Awards.
"Really, what else can I do to help Chen?" he kept asking because the clock struck midnight, together with his latest movie -- partially funded by the state -- going to open nationwide in China.
If you are unaware of the latest news make sure you go through Breaking News and Hot News.
"I am here to determine Chen Guangcheng," the "Dark Knight" actor said and I translated, with correspondent Stan Grant and cameraman Brad Olson next to us.
"Go away!" the plainclothes guards barked, pushing us back.
Amid the scuffling and yelling, dozens more guards in olive-green, military-style overcoats -- and 2 gray minivans -- emerged in the other side of the checkpoint, all coming toward us.
"Why can one not visit this free man?" Bale asked repeatedly, only to receive punches from guards aiming for his small camera as they attempted to drag him away from the rest of us.
Christian Bale roughed up in China
Christian Bale visits China as activist
Once we retreated, I recognized the ringleader -- exactly the same burly man who had hurled rocks in the CNN team 10 months earlier to force us from the same location.
A precarious scene ensued Thursday as one of the gray minivans chased our car at high-speed on bumpy country roads for many 40 minutes.
Once the dust settled, we counted a broken car, a damaged camera -- and a Hollywood star disappointed at -- although not shocked by -- his failure to see an individual hero.
"What I really wanted to do was to meet the man, shake his hand and say how much of an inspiration he's," Bale said.
The person, 40-year-old Chen Guangcheng, has been confined to his home together with his wife, mother and daughter, and watched around the clock by dozens of guards since he was released from prison in September 2010. A nearby court had sentenced him to a lot more than 4 years in prison for damaging property and disrupting traffic in a protest.
If you are unaware of the latest news make sure you go through Breaking News and Hot News.
Blind China activist recovers amid call for his release
His supporters maintain authorities used trumped-up charges to silence Chen, a blind, self-taught lawyer who rose to fame within the late 1990s thanks to his legal advocacy for what he called victims of abusive practices by China's family-planning officials.
Bale first discovered Chen through news reports, including our coverage in February, when he is at China filming "The Flowers of War," a wartime drama set in 1930s Nanjing in which he plays a mortician attempting to save several schoolgirls in the clutches invading Japanese soldiers.
Blind lawyer makes Chinese officials jittery
The injustice faced through the activist and the family stirred such strong emotions in Bale that, upon hearing his impending return to China to advertise the film, he chose to do something unusual to boost the international understanding of Chen and thereby to turn up the heat around the Chinese government.
"This doesn't come naturally to me, this is not things i actually enjoy -- it's not about me," he explained during our eight-hour drive from Beijing to the eastern town of Linyi, where Chen's village is situated. "But it was just a situation having said that I can't look the other way."
Considered to be a media-shy celebrity, Bale reached out to CNN and invited us to join him on his journey to go to Chen.
In the car, he lamented the American public's lack of edcuation on Chen's case, despite senior U.S. officials' increasingly vocal support for his freedom. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Gary Locke, the American ambassador to China, have both championed Chen's cause.
Although China's state media has largely ignored the story, Chen's plight has spread on the internet and outraged an increasing number of Chinese "netizens." Many have attempted to visit Chen, and activists say nearly all would-be visitors have been turned back, often violently, by plainclothes police and local thugs.
"I'm not brave carrying this out," Bale emphasized. "The local people who're standing to the authorities, who are visiting Chen and his family and getting beaten or detained, I want to support them."
As our car sped toward Beijing at nighttime, Bale wondered aloud if he'd not be allowed back -- a prospect he is ready to accept -- even as "The Flowers of War" became China's official entry into next year's Academy Awards.
"Really, what else can I do to help Chen?" he kept asking because the clock struck midnight, together with his latest movie -- partially funded by the state -- going to open nationwide in China.
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