MUMBAI: Batman star Christian Bale suffered a nasty brush with Chinese guards who forcibly blocked him and a CNN crew from visiting a blind lawyer-dissident being held under house arrest.
 
The star, who is in China to promote his upcoming Nanjing Massacre film The Flowers of War, was stopped on Thursday on the outskirts of the village in eastern China where the activist Chen Guangcheng has been detained.
 
Describing Chen as a personal "inspiration", Bale invited a CNN crew to accompany him on an eight-hour drive from Beijing to the village in Linyi district.

The same guards in green military-style overcoats who attacked the CNN crew during a February visit to the village were again present and directed punches at Bale and the crew, it is understood.
 
The Hollywood actor and CNN crew retreated to their van but were then chased down bumpy roads by the guards in another vehicle for 40 minutes, resulting in damage to the van, it is reported.