Hottoceame The Age of Commercialism

Glimmerubro It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

timashworth04 I am amazed at the few who gave this low ratings. It is, for me, one of the great world war two movies. Told from the p.o.v. of a bright intelligent young English boy who has led a pampered life , we see how the larger world struggles force him to adapt and live by his wits in order to survive. Although the photography, special effects and scenes of battle are amazingly shot to make you feel a part of the action, it is the personal story of a young boy becoming a man that is compelling. We are shown how he experiences not only the horror of war, but the beauty of it as well, as emotions are heightened by life and death struggles. I wish I had seen this on the big movie theater screen, but still worth watching in any setting.

cinemajesty Film Review: "Empire Of The Sun" (1987)To the minority of moviegoers in holiday season 1987/1988, director Steven Spielberg had had created a masterpiece of cinema. At a closer look "Empire of The Sun" had been an ambitious Hollywood movie production, which luckily features one of the most talented child-actor of his generation Christian Bale, carrying nearly 150 minutes of film on his 12-year-old shoulders with just a second-half anker-point in shapes of actor John Malkovich within an unrealistic-designed Prisoner-War-Camp abandoned by the Japanese, when the war for Chinese soil seems lost, and leaving Jim, the all-too-early becoming an adult, traumatized by war, finds his child memories in ruins in the middle of a ghastly desert base, filled by damaged properties of value within the spirit of a child's stolen time of life never lived.Copyright 2018 Cinemajesty Entertainments 2018

p-seed-889-188469 I stumbled across the existence of this movie just a couple of months ago, 30 years ago after its release. I'm not quite sure how I missed it back in 1987 but based on a score of 7.8 on IMDb and an overwhelming number of its reviews including the word "masterpiece" I was determined to seek it out and mentally prepared for a mind- blowing experience. I was therefore delighted to find it in the "classics" section of the movies on-board a recent international flight. It is not often that movies fail from the first frame, but this one did, literally. It begins with an overlong shot of some dirty water, some petals appear, then some pieces of wood, which in time turn out to be a number of wooden coffins. We zoom out to see a Japanese warship collide with them. So ends the first 2 or 3 minutes of this movie, showing a ridiculous situation which adds absolutely nothing to the story. We might be thinking, OK, well, the director has satisfied his ego and got the arty, gratuitous shot off his chest, now on to the real movie. But, alas, it was not to be so. The "plot" of this movie, and I use that word generously, is the picaresque meanderings of an obnoxious little boy to become an obnoxious slightly older boy over the period 1941 to 1945. This consists of a non-stop string of the most ridiculous, contrived, unnatural, laughable episodes you might have the misfortune to imagine. I made it to an hour and 20 minutes only because I could just not believe what I was seeing - it was, in its own masochistic way, fascinating, like watching a train crash. I will not bore you with the details of particular absurdities, but I am confident that if requested I could make a minute by minute itemised list of cringe-worthy examples. I was somewhat incredulous to find that this movie was based on a well respected "semi-autobiography" (whatever that is) by J.G. Ballard. That surely means that in its original form it had some redeeming qualities and that the author was not in fact anything like the ridiculous character in the film. Surely, hopefully, there has been a titanic "loss in translation" somewhere in the movie making process. I do not know if J.G. Ballard, Tom Stoppard or Stephen Spielberg is to blame but the screenplay is beyond execrable. It is as if it has been written by someone raised in a cave by wolves whose only knowledge of humans is from reading books. No man, woman or child I have ever known has acted, or spoken the way EVERYONE does in this movie. To say that EVERY character is a caricature would be an understatement, they are caricatures of caricatures. The Chinese are caricatures. The British are caricatures. The Americans are caricatures. The Japanese are caricatures. I also did not realise until after watching the movie that the "boy" was acted by Christian Bale. This I found astonishing as there are not so many movies about the 2nd Sino-Japanese war, the only one I know being "The flowers of war" in which Christian Bale also plays the lead role. Apart from staring Christian Bale both these films are similar in that they feature ridiculous characters in ridiculous situations. No offense to Mr Bale, he makes the best of a bad lot, but he does seem to be a bit of a jinx in this historical era. I realise that "Empire of the sun" is based on a "semi-auto biography" but it seems bizarre to me that the only movies of this historical era of China have British or American characters as their leads. Frankly, in an era in which millions of Chinese were being slaughtered or starved to death, why should I give a toss about the privileged treatment of a British boy, and a thoroughly unpleasant one at that? Perhaps one day we will get a real movie on this subject that will finally do it some justice. I do not know if the reverence for the Japanese that is so frequently flaunted in this movie is simply a reflection of J.G Ballard's original book, or something added by Spielberg or Stoppard. While I understand that in these enlightened times all the nations of the World are supposed to sit around the camp fire and sing "Kumbaya", it has to be said World War 2 was not Japan's finest hour as human beings. Therefore it seems not only strange but in poor taste that the Spielberg who recognises the horrors inflicted by the Germans on humanity in "Schindler's List" fails to recognise those inflicted by the Japanese in this movie, and in this respect it is an insult to the millions of civilian and military casualties. In fact, when I think about it, this movie is pretty much an insult to everybody. It is an insult to children, who do not behave like they do in this movie. It is an insult to adults, who do not behave as they do in this movie. It is an insult to every nationality represented. It is an insult to veterans. And it is an insult to the intelligence of the audience.

Bill Slocum A tough film about the cruelty of war and the death of innocence, "Empire Of The Sun" seems dedicated to a single point, that Stephen Spielberg can make a serious film. Unfortunately, "serious" is not the same as "good."It's December, 1941. Young Jamie Graham enjoys a life of privilege in western-controlled Shanghai, China. Those good times are about to end, thanks to the very same Japanese war machine Jamie idolizes. After the tanks roll in, he is separated from his parents and forced to fend for his own in a bleak landscape.Based on the real-life experiences of author J. G. Ballard, "Empire Of The Sun" is a story about human suffering above all. Another review here, more positive, describes it as "a small story told on a vast canvas," and that captures it for me, too. It's a painterly film, with vivid imagery abounding. In that way, Spielberg often channels the director originally slated to make this, David Lean. That said, I found myself thoroughly alienated from the people and situations involved.Christian Bale is a stunning actor, able at 12 to deliver the kind of performance as Jamie that raps you on the head like a two-by-four. But he's a handful. Either he's talking a mile a minute or staring off into space in some kind of feral transport. He's also really obnoxious and unlikable. This is noticed by some of the other characters, too."You're starting to get on my nerves," says an American scrounger he runs into in Shanghai, Frank (Joe Pantoliano)."Very difficult boy," is the verdict of Sgt. Nagata (Masatô Ibu), commander of the internment camp where Jamie is sent.My favorite is the response given by fellow prisoner Mrs. Victor (Miranda Richardson), when Jamie asks why the Japanese closed the schools: "To punish their parents."You have to find things to entertain you watching "Empire Of The Sun," since this is one time Spielberg won't do that for you. Like Jamie, or Jim as it becomes later, this is serious business all the way through, with starvation and disease gnawing at your elbows and hardly any hope in sight. Don't look for a bright light here; it just may be an atomic explosion."First one side feeds you, the other side tries to get you killed, then it's all turned around," Jim is told by his sometime buddy Basie (John Malkovich). "It's all timing."Malkovich is in great form, as movie-star ready as he ever looked on screen, and to solid effect, but I never got his purpose here. He doesn't bond with Jim, nor figure much in the outcome. No one does; Jim just wanders around until the scene shifts, after long languors, to something else. There's a desperate need here to trim, especially in the beginning and the end, but Spielberg and screenwriter Tom Stoppard are more concerned with Big Moment Cinema. We watch Jim serenade kamikaze pilots with a schoolboy chorale, and a minute later he's cheering their deaths at the top of his lungs, chanting "P-51! Cadillac of the skies!" If Spielberg can't engage you, he'll overwhelm you trying.Spielberg has gone on to make other serious movies, and to my mind, done so more successfully even if his tendency to overpush remains. You see moments here that remind you how good he is at scene-setting, but if I said I cared for five straight minutes watching "Empire Of The Sun," I'd be lying.