Customer Reviews

Empire of the Sun (Keepcase)

5 star:		(211)
4 star:		(39)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

This epic film is the first of Spielberg's World War II trilogy that includes "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan." It was made at a time when Spielberg was financially successfully but artistic merit eluded him. That this remarkable piece of filmmaking has been overlooked is no reflection on him; it is the failure of the tastes of critics and the public alike. Spielberg tells a beautiful story of the horrors of war, how families are uprooted and separated, and how the human spirit overcomes adversity. Christian Bale is superb in the film. I cannot comprehend why his career did not soar after the film's release. It was good to see him in the role of Jesus in the recently televised movie on Mary. John Malkovich is his usual fantastic self as a fellow POW who becomes Bale's Long John Silver, a sly comparison to the classic "Treasure Island." The film is beautifully photographed and has a subtle and moving score from Spielberg stalwart John Williams. It is a must for fans of the director and those who appreciate masterful storytelling.

The first time I ever saw this film was just last year when I was 15 years old. I had never even heard about it until I watched the Making of Saving Private Ryan. This documentary played a clip of some of Steven Spielberg's movies set during World War 2.

When I heard the beautiful John Williams' score play on my TV and a boy watching a lone fighter plane soar across the runway, I was immediately captivated and sat in awe as this boy cheered on the fighter plane. I immediately rewound the tape and read the title of this clip: Empire of the Sun.

I quickly ran to my local Blockbuster and rented the movie not even knowing what the film was about and was witnessed to the most amazing film I had ever seen!

The performances were top notch and the performance from the young Christian Bale, who plays the young boy, Jim, forced in a Japanese Intern Camp, is the greatest performance by a child I have ever seen, exceeding that of such names as Henry Thomas (E.T.) and young oscar nominee Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense).

The movie itself is a visual masterpiece with never a dull moment. This movie contains some of the most memorable and beuatiful scenes I have ever seen anywhere. The story itself is full of drama, action, and suspence that captures your heart and never lets go even after the end credits are rolling!

As usual, John Williams delivers with one of his greatest scores ever. The visual effects are astounding and perfectly executed to enhance the storytelling of the movie.

I disagree with some of the negative reviews that plague this underrated epic. Many people before its release expected it to be this huge blockbuster stemming off as an adaptation of a book by the same name. How can anyone expect a movie about a boy torn from his parents and forced to live in a Japanese Prison Camp, get cursed and beaten at and forced to eat bugs and potatoes for years to be a huge blockbuster. Many people attacked it for its lack of commercial success.

While this may not be the most historically accurate film in the case of how horrific the conditions of the prison camps really were, this would only destract the audiance from what the film should be and is, a film that begins tragically but ends up being a coming of age heartwarming epic drama about a boy forced to live and grow up fast under the harshest of conditions and yet triumphs against all obstacles.

EMPIRE OF THE SUN is my favorite Spielberg film. It's a close tie with CLOSE ENCOUNTERS ... but EMPIRE is really high on my list. What an outstanding (and underrated) film! I saw it in the theaters in 1987, owned an old video of it for a while, and bought this DVD as soon as it was released. The film, in all of its forms, has stayed with me all these years.

First, Spielberg has a top-notch script from Tom Stoppard (who is surprisingly restrained with the dialogue). The cinematography by Allen Daviau is exquisite (and the transfer to DVD looks outstanding on my widescreen HDTV). The acting -- especially Christian Bale as the main character, Jim -- is great as well. I get tears in my eyes if I just hear one of the EMPIRE OF THE SUN themes from John Williams' score.

THE COLOR PURPLE and EMPIRE OF THE SUN were Spielberg's "stretch" films where he attempted to do more adult work. EMPIRE OF THE SUN is deeply moving. On the surface, its story concerns young Jim and how is separated from his parents and survives a war camp in pre-World War II China. Thematically, Spielberg tells us the story of growing up, losing one's innocence, and learning that people will do anything for a Hershey bar. When Jim throws his suitcase containing all of his boyhood possessions into the river, he makes an important choice in life. And yet Spielberg, who is a sentimentalist, reminds us that after surviving life's hardships we all still need a hug from our mothers.

EMPIRE OF THE SUN is one of Spielberg's best -- if not THE best film he's made. I think it's been overlooked. Please try to see it.

I have been in awe of Haley Joel Osment for a few years now. However, I think I have finally seen a child actor outperform him. Christian Bale was nothing short of flawless in "Empire Of The Sun". In a different actor's hands, this film wouldn't have been nearly as moving and special. However, Bale displays more talent than most seasoned Hollywood actors.

As you probably know, "Empire Of The Sun" is about a young British boy who becomes separated from his parents during WWII and ends up in an internment camp. Being a Spielberg film, the direction and cinematography are, of course, stunning. Great effort was put into making this film appear realistic and it works wonderfully. In fact, this was the first major American film shot in China.

Another strong point of this movie is that it is shown through the eyes of a child. Often, war movies are all too harsh, violent and depressing. "Empire Of The Sun" successfully shows us glimpses of the brutalness of war but it also allows us to keep a constant feeling of hope and determination. That is in no small part due to the talent of Bale. He makes the viewer feel what he feels. There is an amazing amount of passion in his performance.

It's a shame that this is one of Spielberg's least respected efforts. I put off seeing "Empire Of The Sun" for a long time because of the tepid reviews it received. Instead of mediocrity, however, I found a movie filled with inspiration. Please do yourself a favor and see it as well!

In my opinion, this is Spielberg's best film. How on earth some people hate it, I do not know.

Empire of the Sun gets lost sometimes in the film snob's library; it's an epic war film, but it's also a Spielberg film, which stereotypes this masterpiece as standard Hollywood-fare. Spielberg fans want it to be faster, war fans are made uncomfortable by the deep characterization of the child protagonist. Much like Blade Runner, the audience misconceives what the movie is really about, and many film-goers absolutely refuse to empathize with a bleeding-heart child character. My only supposition is that people are too guarded about their emotions to risk feeling the sorrow and pain that these characters go through; any notion that this film is over-acted, under-acted, or lacks in character development is simply false.

Sure, the film tugs on the heart strings. But it's about a young boy destroyed by war -- it should. When it was released in 1987, audiences weren't interested in war. They were interested in light comedies, explosions, and the greed of Wall Street. No wonder this film wasn't nominated for best picture and Fatal Attraction was. If this movie were released today, it would win Best Picture in a heartbeat.

I have always liked this movie. Some people don't like a story where the hero is a boy who ends up half crazed in a Japanese prison camp. However, I find the story compelling and the young Christian Bale very persuasive and more than a few times to be deeply moving. The scene where Jamie Graham (Bale) has just been moved and saluted the Kamikaze pilots leaving and immediately followed up by the American P-51 Mustangs attacking the camp is burned into my memory. When he runs up to the top of a high building to be as close to the planes as he can be and even has one of the pilots wave to him and then he in half-delirium raves on about the Mustang being the Cadillac of the Sky, that he has touched them, he could feel their heat, he could taste them in his mouth while all the while the adults are scrambling and the camp is being strafed and bombed. Well, that is a powerful scene.

Here we also get a terrific performance from John Malkovich as the scavenger Basie. This petty criminal is also pretty smart and takes a liking to young Jamie. He probably sees something of himself in the boy and maybe that he likes doing something good. He helps Jamie survive in the camp after a fashion. But so does a very burdened couple, Mr. And Mrs. Victor (played with the right notes of kindness, mad frustration, and weariness by Peter Gale & Miranda Richardson). They become surrogate parents to the boy. Send him off at the first opportunity to live with the men, but, well, you will have to see the movie.

Dr. Rawlins (well played by Nigel Havers) also protects the boy as well as the camp members. He has a special affection for Jamie, but doesn't have the time or resources to really help Jamie. In so many ways, Jamie is on his own. And for a boy raised with such protection and privilege, well, surviving in such an environment is a real achievement.

I would love to talk about the movie with you. But I don't want to spoil it for if you haven't seen it. Please do. It is a very rewarding film even if a great deal of it is done without dialogue.

Usually people love or hate this movie, indeed is impossible not to be hit by `Empire of the Sun' in one sense or in another. Personally I think that it's a unique movie and in its way a masterpiece, but not easy to understand. Indeed to understand well the movie it's good to read the book `Empire of the Sun' by J. Ballard ( one of the most important and controversial writers of our age ). In the book J.Ballard recall as a semi-autobiographic story his early years in Shanghai ( China ) when, after Pearl Harbour at the age of eleven, he was imprisoned by the Japanese in a concentration camp outside Shanghai for three long years. It's not a common story, Ballard recall his memories and tell what he saw as a child with the perspective of a child, it's a psychological trip and in this sense it's a true story. This is the first thing that I want to point out, for all it's strangeness and absurdity this is a true story. The book and the movie tell what really happened in the mind of Jim ( James Ballard ) during those years. As the book does, also in the movie, things and facts are distorted by the point if view of a child with a lot of imagination. A strange child intrigued by the loneliness and sadness of the Japanese. The movie doesn't procede with an objective representation of reality, what you see is what Jim see, or better, his hallucinations, the reflex of reality in his mind. The Movie is full of these hallucinations and symbols. The first is the `City of clowns' . The rich British living isolated in the International settlement of Shanghai, surrounded by some million of poor chinese coolie fighting to survive. Jim feels that they are out of place and strange as clowns in the eyes of the Chinese. Then there is the abandoned house, where Jim live alone like a ghost for some time. Footprints in the talc is all what remain from his disappeared parents. Slowly his previous secure world recede from him like the water recede in the pool in his garden. At first Jim's growing survival instinct is jammed by the moral restraints of his education. But soon, when he meet Basie, he learned what he has to do to survive. Basie is not a character, he is a ghost creature, an mirror of Jim's own dark side: the ability to do everything to survive without suffering any moral consequences. In the movie this is well represented when we see Basie and Jim wandering the detection center like vultures, but the book is more explicit in this point. When Jim arrives in the camp, where he will stay for three years, he is already a `survivor' like Basie, and find easy to adapt to the camp's life, while the adult British live like ghost with their mind immersed in their memory of England ( like the Victors ). He become what they call `the war child' and they despise him because he has learned to enjoy the camp. In some interviews Mr. Ballard told that this was exactly what was his feeling with camp. It's strange, but not so strange if you think that Jim was born in Shanghai and never went to England. Soon all what remain to him from his early years is a faded image of his parents and the sad song he used to sing as a choir boy. After years of imprisonment the only world he knows is the camp and its simple rules, his heroes become the Japanese pilots of the nearby base. They are his enemies, but they represent the impossible dream of escaping the misery of his life. Again what we see is not a real representation of Japanese pilots, what we see in the movie is the dream like image of the Japanese pilots in Jim's mind, an idealized representation of the solitary and brave men he admires , dreaming to be one of them. With this view you understand why are wrong those people that say in the movie there is lack of reality, this is not the pont. Many also find absurd that Jim, in a clandestine way, thinks that it's better that the Japanese win the war so that the camp can go on. But J. Ballard himself told this was what really happened to his mind. After years of imprisonment the only world that existed in his mind was the camp, and the Japanese were the people that bring the food in the camp, without Japanese there will be no food...it's absurd but true. Ballard himself told that the most difficult thing for him was not going in the camp, but was going out of the camp and facing the reality of the world outside. I think that no other story like this shows how absurd can be the war, especially for a child. Many criticize the absurdity of some situations in the movie, but this instead it's the heart of the story. All what happens around Jim and in his mind is so absurd, but, in same time, it's true as the final hallucination: the flash of the Atom bomb. I think that it was very difficult to transfer a so deep and dark book in a satisfactory movie, but Spielberg did a very good job with the story and with the young actor. For me, this is one of the best movies I ever saw, but it's not a movie for everyone. If, after watching the movie, you feel a deep sadness and you are willing to watch it again, as it happens to me, then you entered in the spirit of the movie.

Based on J. G. Ballard's Bestseller and masterfully transformed to film by Steven Spielberg, we journey with Ballards childhood memories of the Japanese occupied Shanghai (he was actually a POW in Shanghai with his parents!!), China from Dec 1941 to the liberation in 1945 by American troops.

This sleeper classic of 1987 reflects the genius storytelling of Spielberg before his Director skills were recognized by Hollywood and his Oscars!! (Shindlers List & Saving Private Ryan). Spielbergs fixation of WWII and the Greatest Generation is a direct result of his fathers experiences, stories and the holocaust. Few stories were told about the Japanese' atrocities against humanity and the Chinese. This story helps explain the other war during WWII through the eyes of civilian POWs and especially of Ballards as a 12 year old boy in war ravaged China from 1937 - 1945.

In Summary: A 12 year old rich, spoiled, totally dependent, English boy Jim Graham (played brillantly by Christian Bale) who idolizes Japanese aviators, the Japanese Zero aircraft and the supreme air power of the Japanese Military. Separated from his parents during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai shortly after Pearl Harbor finds him suddenly cast into the world of war, alone. Thrown into POW camps with thousands of European & Americans learns to be come a survivor by befriending everyone, including the Japanese. Through 4 years of incredible suffering & circumstances becomes a man, an independent survivor. As the war winds down he sees the Japanese vulnerabilty and downfall. He now idolizes the new world power America, the American aviator & the P-51 Mustang aircraft "Cadillac of the Sky".

This will be come a WWII Spielberg classic, especially now that it has been released on DVD, WIDESCREEN & DIGITALLY REMASTERED. This movie totally consumes us and the John Williams sound track adds to the story telling.

Note: SIDE A - is the ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN movie 150 mins. SIDE B - is Steven Spielbergs documentary "A China Odyssey". (about the actual events in China vs Empire of the Sun). A great background featurette showing us the detail and history of Shanghai then & now!!

This is a great film and now can understand the "EMPIRE IN THE SUN".

For me, Empire of the Sun is Spielberg's masterpiece - a notch above Schindler's List and Amistad and several notches above anything else he has directed. It's a crime that the film took so long to garner a following; in this respect, it reminds me of Terry Gilliam's two great films - Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen. All three films were made during the 1980's, when it was still possible to make films with huge casts (imagine the costs of filming something like this in Shanghai now!), and before the technologies of the 1990's rendered it easy and affordable to produce glitzy effects in virtual locations. Empire of the Sun is what Hollywood (and Spielberg) can be and rarely is. In addition, it contains one of the greatest performances in all of film by a child actor. An almost flawless film.

As another reviewer so aptly put it, Empire of the Sun is a movie that stays with you. Somehow, on some level, you will be deeply affected by this movie. It is about resilience, hope and survival amid the tragedy and ruins of war. Christian Bale and John Malkovich are perfectly cast.
Empire of the Sun is Spielberg movie art at its best. ~ Mrs. B.