Empire of the Sun | | Cast : | Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson | | Director : | Steven Spielberg | | Studio : | Warner Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | December 09, 1987 | | DVD Released Date : | June 03, 2003 | | Language : | Unknown (Dubbed), English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), Portuguese (Subtitled), English (Original Language), Japanese (Subtitled), Thai (Subtitled), Chinese (Subtitled), Korean (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 09, 2005 | | Summary | Child's view of war... | Content
 | EMPIRE OF THE SUN is a wonderful film for Steven Spielberg to have made. It gave him the freedom to make an "adult" film and yet still hold on to his childlike charms and flair for creative and showy filmmaking. Ironically, those are also the reasons that the film failed at the box office, and also the reasons that their is such cult support for the film. The film is unjustly overshadowed by two of his other wonderful WWII films, SCHINDLER'S LIST and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. One of the reasons many viewers were cold to the film was its unique emotional front.
Obvious war emotions explored in other films (PEARL HARBOR) are thankfully missing. Here, the emotions involve a young boys misguided attachment to the Japanese Army (who would soon be his captors). In a scene where Jim (CHRISTIAN BALE in a wonderful child performance) embraces an enemy plane and receives a salute from Japanese fighter pilots is not only beautiful, but also shows the world he longs to live in. And during an attack on the camp, Jim witnesses a P-51 fighter fly in close proximity and, in only a way a child could imagine, the pilot acknowledges him with a wave. The emotional payoff to the scene is wonderful. Young Jim's reunion with his parents also avoids the obvious emotions, rather focuses on a young boy who has really given up hope - or need - to ever see his parents again... These and hundreds of other images in the film are simply stunning, accentuated by a soaring musical score by composer JOHN WILLIAMS. This remains one of my all-time favorite films but is not without faults.
There are themes wonderfully presented visually followed up by awkward dialogue for those who missed the point... When the atom bomb appears in the distance, young Jim thinks what he has seen is the soul of his recently departed caretaker, Mrs. Victor heading up to heaven. Later in the film he unnecessarily states it, twas already obvious.
JOHN MALKOVICH gives a Spielberg performance right up their with Richard Dreyfuss and Harrison Ford. Watch for Ben Stiller in the small role as the American known as "DAINTY". The film is given a beautiful audio and video transfer and includes the documentary from the CLV laser disc, but nothing new is attahced. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 06, 2005 | | Summary | A movie with a heart | Content
| This is one of my biggest favorit movie of all times!
Its wonderful, heartbreaking, cool and awsome!
If you like long movies that you can dream yourself into ,buy this movie. I watched it when i was very young here in sweden and i loved it back then and still do.
I hate Steven Spielberg's new movie (war of the worlds) ,why is steven doing yet another movie among others that is telling people that america is the only surviving country "europe is totally wiped out" as they say in that movie.
Go burn Steven,but thank you for Empire of the sun!
Empire of the sun is a movie worth buying for sure.
and if you are a big fan of Christian Bale ,then buy (Mio in the Land of Faraway) thats an old but cool movie with Bale. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 03, 2005 | | Summary | Very emotional film | Content
| Based on J. G. Ballard's autobiographical novel, tells the story of a boy, James Graham, whose privileged life is upturned by the Japanese invasion of Shanghai, December 8, 1941. Separated from his parents, he is eventually captured, and taken to Soo Chow confinement camp, next to a captured Chinese airfield. Amidst the sickness and food shortages in the camp, Jim attempts to reconstruct his former life, all the while bringing spirit and dignity to those around him.
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| Rating | | | Date | July 31, 2005 | | Summary | Metaphorical Perspective on Life | Content
| This film provides a primer on how to perceive the events (good and bad) that occur in this world using metaphors.
THIS FILM SHOULD BE A MUST SEE FOR ALL CHILDREN AT HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 29, 2005 | | Summary | Of guts, glory, and growing up | Content
| "Empire of the Sun" is the charming yet frequently haunting tale of the casualties of war. It reflects the sacrifice, longing, suffering, and sometimes exhilaration that war forces people through. It is not, however, the tale of a Band of Brothers, or of a heroic young soldier, or the desperate nurse awaiting the lad who's never coming home. There is no Finest Hour, no last-ditch effort to save a comrade or win a war. Rather, it is the war-time experience of one twelve-year-old expatriate, who had the simple misfortune of being wealthy and English in Shanghai when the Japanese invaded during World War II. Separated from his parents, he is taken to a prison camp, where he loses his innocence but gains perspective on the world.
This story could have easily descended into yet another maudlin coming-of-age movie (think "Hope and Glory," released the same year), had it not been for two remarkable forces: Steven Spielberg and Christian Bale. Spielberg never gets the credit he deserves for this film; it is a mostly quiet and simple film, and lacks the stupendous heart-pounding action sequences and creatures he's better-known for. But it is also a film capable of getting inside one's head (and heart) and staying there, one you remember months and years after seeing it, and it captures without over-sentimentality the idea of a young boy being forced to grow up too quickly, but not always disliking it.
It's a little strange to watch this film now, with Christian Bale all grown up and donning the Batsuit these days; here he is a wide-eyed, ruddy-cheeked young boy with a fiercely aristocratic English accent and the gleeful twinkle of zest for life in his eyes. Beneath the youthfully exuberant exterior, however, is an actor of extraordinary caliber. Young Jim's transformation from a posh and pampered public-school boy of twelve to a hardened, almost feral survivor of fifteen is remarkable for its believability and natural feel; it is a change in the character simultaneously emotional, mental, and physical, and Bale nails all these elements with intensity and an almost preternatural flair for emotional realism. Jim grows up before our eyes, almost without us realizing it until the change is so complete that we can barely remember the plucky, rosy-cheeked choirboy, but are unable to pin down when exactly he ceased to exist. His eyes in particular are brilliant at drawing the viewer in: they can be wide and enraptured or tear-filled or coolly calculating but always demand our attention, making us feel what he feels. It's a big and demanding role - there are only a handful of scenes without Jim front and centre, and more than a few scenes with no one onscreen but him - but Bale handles it with artful aplomb and vitality.
He is supported by a remarkable set of actors, particularly John Malkovich in a rare role as the good guy Basie, and Miranda Richardson as a delicate Englishwoman who takes Jim under her wing in the camp. I quite liked the relationship between Basie and Jim; they are good for each other. Basie teaches Jim the survival skills he will need to last in a war-time prison camp, forcing him to grow up to keep him alive, and Jim reminds Basie, perhaps, of the childhood he left behind, making him more sympathetic a man than he might otherwise be.
The film looks beautiful too: Spielberg can frame a shot like no one else, and his remarkable talents are on display here as much as in any of his other work. The close-ups particularly are put to excellent use: Spielberg has extraordinary actors at his disposal here and is wise enough to sometimes let their faces do the talking. The feel of the locales, whether it is 1940s Shanghai, the British Enclave, or the Japanese prison camp, is wonderfully captured. John Williams' score is perfection (when isn't it?), suitably dramatic, restrained, or jubilant when called for.
I think perhaps this film is often overlooked because it doesn't seem to take sides; Spielberg is more interested in telling one story than making a political point. Jim is interested in heroes and is young enough to take them where he can find them, even if they are Japanese pilots; something about this does not fit with the frequently black-and-dry mentality that WWII inspires in viewers, and that is reflected in Spielberg's own "Saving Private Ryan," a far inferior film to this. "Empire of the Sun" is unlike, really, any other film Spielberg has made, but it is for this reason I feel it is his finest achievement: restrained, elegant, yet passionate, it is a beautiful story that engages the attention and imagination and stays with one long after the credits roll. |
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