Christian Bale has found somebody new to fight with. This time he’s found himself up against the Chinese security apparatus. Guards jostled the actor while he was trying to visit Chen Guangcheng, a prominent human rights lawyer, in Shandong Province. Chen was placed under house arrest after offering help to women who had endured forced abortions and sterilisations.

The bruising encounter, recorded by CNN, is a bit of an embarrassment for the Chinese authorities, as Bale was in the country to promote his new statebacked movie, Zhang Yimou's The Flowers of War.