"Empire of
the Sun" is filled with so many great moments.
Moments of sheer power. Moments that will engage
you and completely keep you attention. It's a
shame that the space between these moments isn't
up to snuff.
"Empire of the Sun" is about a young British boy
named Jim, who lives with his family in Hong
Kong in 1939. The world is on the brink of WWII,
and the Japanese invade, shattering Jim's life,
separating him from his family, and forcing him
to spend four years in a Japanese prison camp.
Being a film by Steven Spielberg, you can bet
that there will be themes or friendship and
trust.
"Empire of the Sun" is like Spielberg's warm-up
for "Schindler's List." It's a tale of people
being held in a camp, but it's a much brighter
film. It doesn't have the sheer horror of the
latter. The people in the camp never seem to be
too angry about their situation. It's this that
hurts the film. I never understood most of the
characters and couldn't begin to understand
their situation. The film is also too long. At
152 minutes, it feels three hours. 20 minutes
could have been cut with ease.
Enough complaining. Overall, this is an
excellent film. Some of the images will stay
with me forever: chasing a model plane only to
be led to a group of hidden soldiers; a rich
neighborhood, now completely deserted and
looted; stealing a dead person's shoes and food
to stay alive; watching in awe from a tower as
planes bomb the area. Every ten minutes or so,
Spielberg present a scene of such extraordinary
awe and wonder, there is no way that the entire
film could live up to these individual scenes.
It's also worthy of noting, that this film
features one of Christian Bale's first roles. He
won a special award for his performance as Jim,
and it was well deserved. Most child
performances come across as irritating and
poorly done. Spielberg has the eye for promising
young actors, and the credit should go to him
for discovering this talented young man...who is
now becoming a force to be reckoned with in the
world of film.
Spielberg fans, Bale fans, and fans of film
about hope and survival should seek this film
out. You won't be disappointed, but you won't be
overwhelmed.
©
Written by Jacob Hall
TC Candler's Comment
n/a
Richard
Propes' Comment
I keep
promising friends I'm going to revisit "Empire
of the Sun." It has been several years since
I've seen it, but I remember being clearly bored
to tears. Bale has become quite the acting
force, and I suppose I owe this film another
chance.
