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.
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Awesome in all aspect! This movie is a piece of art! ... showing through Jim's eyes the war!
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
When the boy grew up, he realized it's an atrocity that the war brought about by the Japanese army. he felt repentance about Chinese people and his past view of war.After he made friend with Christopher Nolan who is good at time and space maneuvering, he decided returning back to 1937 of Nanking, China, and wanted to change to process of the war, but without any reason he lost all his batman's powers, and no gears with him too. he tried his best to save dozens of children in local church by his make-up skills which he learned from The Prestige's face disguise. and then director Zhang Yimou depicted in the movie Jin ling shi san chai, a.k.a. The Flowers of War.
Main protagonist is a high-society British boy dropped into the harsh environment of Shanghai during WW2 and has to ensure his own survival.Steven Spielberg delivered a very well made a mixture of the four cultures - Japanese, Chinese, British and American, with behavior patterns and nuances typical to each nationality. The magnificence of the Shanghai metropolis and the tragedy of the civilians facing the cruelty of wartime were remarkable.However, the most amazing thing in this movie is the boy Jamie Graham (young Christian Bale). Having a rich imagination and wisdom, Jamie tells to his mom that God, in his dream, was playing in tennis, and he assumes that if people can see God in their dreams, perhaps God sees humans in His dreams too.Jamie not only has his own opinions, but he also has his own vision. While adults, using logic and statistics, calculating the potential outcome of the war on the number of people and weapons, Jamie notes that the war will be won by someone who has COURAGE and that COURAGE is a national value of the Japanese.Separated from his parents by a cruel destiny, Jamie tries to survive in his new situation. Hunger is a driving force for the boy, who looks for opportunities. Gut feelings or intuition is helping him escape from a big evil - a Chinese street boy - and to join a smaller one - an American pragmatist called Basie. Giving a portion of the rice to Jamie, Basie has a far-fetched plan - to sell the boy - but his plan failed. Jamie is observing and learning the Art of surviving.Driven by a strong will to get through, Jamie is taking a University of life from Basie. Death is all around, but Basie is teaching Jim (his nickname for Jamie) to see opportunities even from the dead, whether it be an extra potato or pair of the golf shoes.At a certain point, Jamie even jumped above his teacher's head and saved lives of a British doctor and his patients. We see atomic bomb's explosion in front of Jamie's eyes. The boy amazingly compares the flash of it with the snapshot done by God.The end of the movie is HAPPY - Jamie is reunited with his parents.This movie a good recommendation to be watched by the whole family, and few times.