Empire of the Sun

PG 7.7
1987 2 hr 33 min Drama , History , War

Jamie Graham, a privileged English boy, is living in Shanghai when the Japanese invade and force all foreigners into prison camps. Jamie is captured with an American sailor, who looks out for him while they are in the camp together. Even though he is separated from his parents and in a hostile environment, Jamie maintains his dignity and youthful spirit, providing a beacon of hope for the others held captive with him.

  • Cast:
    Christian Bale , John Malkovich , Miranda Richardson , Nigel Havers , Joe Pantoliano , Leslie Phillips , Masatō Ibu

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Reviews

BootDigest
1987/12/09

Such a frustrating disappointment

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FeistyUpper
1987/12/10

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

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Tedfoldol
1987/12/11

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

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Glucedee
1987/12/12

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

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timdinchhammonds
1987/12/13

This a a story of loss. Loss of empire, both British and Japanese and of innocence, of the character played by a young Christian Bale, who turns in a superbly nuanced performance, uncommon amongst thirteen year old actors. Born of empire but not of England we see the main protagonist, Jim played by Bale admire, what is the Japanese war machine, mostly their airforce. This does make one feel somewhat uncomfortable but due to the complete lack of British or any other allied military power in the region, it is the only military role model he has. Perhaps this underlines, that we are products of our immediate experience and not some codified ideal written in tablets of stone. The film is long at two and a half hours; though directed by Spielberg, I doubt very much that even he, would get away with that today and it would probably benefit from some judicious editing as many of the latter scenes add little value to the message of this film. Seeing this film at the cinema, thirty years ago as a callow youth, I would have been surprised that the young actor Bale, would become an international super star but having seen it for the first time since, tonight; I wonder with such a performance, how could it have been otherwise.

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aziz-tarak
1987/12/14

When a prisoner boy salute his enemy aircraft pilot ,Even Kamikaze . Its his love for the man who fly in the sky , respect for the soldier who is fighting even when they are his captor . He Do not understand war , His innocence question the harsh reality of war , and his hope for a better tomorrow . Even when sun flashes in the sky , he wanna bring back life to someone . Steven Spielberg work with young christian Bell is amazing , Bells performance beyond expectation . at THE end Its the Sun what flashes in the sky of the Empire of the Sun . A Story of War , Respect and Hope .

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berberian00-276-69085
1987/12/15

I have some reminiscences about China and Chinese, but let's first talk about the film. I browsed a long list of some 100 movies on this topic and decided to choose 3 titles - merited because are produced and directed by American European staff, shot on location in China and based historically on true stories. That makes a difficult combination, especially having in mind how little do we, white people, know about Chinese National Psychology during 3000 years of China history and culture. So have the list:1. Empire of the Sun (1987) - about a lost English boy in Japanese occupied Shanghai during WW II;2. 55 Days at Peking (1963) - about the Boxer rebellion in 1900. Earliest big budget Hollywood movie shot in China, I presume;3. Last Emperor (1987) - about the end of Manchu Dynasty in China and ensuing National Democratic Revolution. I guess, film 1 & film 3 were intentionally produced in one and same year to counterpoise directors Spielberg versus Bertolucci.Seemingly, Chinese cinema devoid of it's martial arts status subsequently lacks much artistic value. Or at least this is my opinion as non-Muslim, non-Communist white spectator. For instance, John Lone and Joan Chen may look different in perspective of the Asiatics because of peculiar outlook (eyes are not slanted and skulls do not protrude) but nevertheless they remain Chinese if estimated by European and American referees. So Yellow Race does exist in the looking glass - how old and culturally viable is matter of United Nations to debate. Period.I am not an "old cock hanging on its dungs" (anonymous citation). Most of the white people seldom had contacts with Asiatic races, per se. Here in the Balkan countries of Eastern Europe we have few representatives of the Far East. Unlike former Soviet Union, which is Slavic and Orthodox like us, most East Europeans are not acquainted with Asiatic mentality. We have long traditions with dealing the Muslim population of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan). They are good Muslims, with Asiatic faces and no Jihadist inclinations, whatsoever. Thank You!

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Daniel Hart
1987/12/16

GOD playing tennis: that's what Jim Graham (Christian Bale), a privileged British schoolboy living in high colonial style in the pre-Pearl Harbor Shanghai of 1941, sees in one of his dreams. God taking a photograph: Jim thinks he sees that four years and seemingly several lifetimes later, as a starving, exhausted prisoner witnessing the brilliant light of the atomic bomb.What transpires in between, the sweeping story of Jim's wartime exploits after he is separated from his family, is set forth so spectacularly in Steven Spielberg's ''Empire of the Sun'' that the film seems to speak a language all its own. In fact it does, for it's clear Mr. Spielberg works in a purely cinematic idiom that is quite singular. Art and artifice play equal parts in the telling of this tale. And the latter, even though intrusive at times, is part and parcel of the film's overriding style.Yes, when Jim crawls through swampy waters he emerges covered with movie mud, the makeup man's kind; when he hits his head, he bleeds movie blood. It's hard not to be distracted by such things. But it's also hard to be deterred by them, since that same movie-conscious spirit in Mr. Spielberg gives ''Empire of the Sun'' a visual splendor, a heroic adventurousness and an immense scope that make it unforgettable.There are sections of ''Empire of the Sun'' that are so visually expressive they barely require dialogue (although Tom Stoppard's screenplay, which streamlines J. G. Ballard's autobiographical novel, is often crisp and clever). Its first half hour, for example, could exist as a silent film -an extraordinarily sharp evocation of Shanghai's last prewar days, richly detailed and colored by an exquisite foreboding. Jim is first seen singing in a church choir (the Welsh hymn ''Suo Gan'' will echo again hauntingly later in the story), then gliding through crowded streets in his family's chauffeur- driven Packard. At home, he asks his parents off-handed questions about the coming war. When the three of them, elaborately costumed, heedlessly leave home for a party on the other side of the city, it's clear that their days there are numbered just from the way the Chinese servants wave goodbye.That first glimpse of the choirboys will prompt audiences to wonder which of these well-groomed, proper little singers is to be the film's leading man. Mr. Bale, who emerges from the choir by singing a solo, at first seems just a handsome and malleable young performer, another charming child star. But the epic street scene that details the Japanese invasion of the city and separates Jim from his parents reveals this boy to be something more. As Mr. Bale, standing atop a car amid thousands of extras and clasping his hands to his head, registers the fact that Jim is suddenly alone, he conveys the schoolboy's real terror and takes the film to a different dramatic plane. This fine young actor, who appears in virtually every frame of the film and ages convincingly from about 9 to 13 during the course of the story, is eminently able to handle an ambitious and demanding role.But other episodes are less sharply defined. When Jim, who has proudly won his right to live in the American barracks, returns to the British camp in which he formerly lived, it takes a moment to remember why he's back - not because the motive is unclear, but because his departure from the one place and return to the other are separated by intervening scenes.Still, there are many glorious moments here, among them Jim's near- religious experiences with the fighter planes he sees as halfway divine (in one nighttime scene, the sparks literally fly). And there is a full panoply of supporting characters, including Miranda Richardson, who grows more beautiful as her spirits fade, in the role of a married English woman who both mothers Jim and arouses his early amorous stirrings. It is the mothering that seems to matter most, for Jim's small satchel of memorabilia includes a magazine photograph of a happy family, a picture he takes with him everywhere. For a surrogate father, he finds the trickier figure of Basie (John Malkovich), a Yank wheeler-dealer with a sly Dickensian wit. Basie, who by turns befriends Jim and disappoints him, remains an elusive character, but Mr. Malkovich brings a lot of fire to the role. ''American, are you?'' one of his British fellow prisoners asks this consummate operator. ''Definitely,'' Mr. Malkovich says.''Gone With the Wind'' is playing at the biggest movie theater in Shanghai when the Japanese are seen invading that city, and ''Gone With the Wind'' is a useful comparison, at least in terms of subject and style. The makers of that film didn't really burn Atlanta; that wasn't their method. They, too, as Mr. Spielberg does, let the score sometimes trumpet the characters' emotions unnecessarily, and they might well have staged something as crazy as the ''Empire of the Sun'' scene in which the prisoners find an outdoor stadium filled with confiscated art and antiques and automobiles, loot that's apparently been outdoors for a while but doesn't look weatherbeaten in the slightest. Does it matter? Not in the face of this film's grand ambitions and its moments of overwhelming power. Not in the light of its soaring spirits, its larger authenticity, and the great and small triumphs that it steadily delivers.

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