Do you know it?it is a work of 1987,took in shanghai…the story is about a boy jimmy’s childhood during the second war…
Do you like it?what’s ur opinion?
Boy do I ever remember it. Hated it, hated it, hated it.
Everyone else seemed to like it though.
It was a good film, but I didn’t particularly enjoy it. (Is that possible? Knowing a film is good, but not really liking it?) and seeing it once was enough. That’s the kind of movie that you see only once.
By the way, I kind of freaked when I saw Christian Bale in “Reign of Fire”. I was like “that’s the kid from Empire of the Sun!!”.
Yep, I remember it - I enjoyed it and used to own a copy (that is, until the great apartment burglary of 1997), and I just haven’t bothered to buy another copy.
Loved it. Apparently the JG Ballard book on which it’s based is really good too.
One question: At the end, when he sees the Hiroshima bomb go off, has he been shipped over to Japan, or is he still meant to be in Manchuria?
I liked the film but it was a bit long. I’d like to see it again as I saw it when it came out and had not visited Shanghai at that point. I am not sure but I think little to none of the movie was actually filmed in Shanghai. I remember trying to find the homes where they all lived on my first visit and there is no such neighborhood.
The book is really good. I really enjoyed, was it John Malkovich, as the American fixer. Although a stereotype, I think it’s probably pretty accurate as King Rat had a very similar character.
Jjimm, I think that was a dream. The boy was in the Shanghai area, far from Manchuria or Japan.
I saw it as a youth and enjoyed it (for some reason, my favorite part was the song that the boy sung at the beginning). It was, however, a very long movie. My folks and I went to see it at around 4:30 or so, assuming it would finish in time for us to go out for dinner. By the time the movie actually ended we were ready to nibble our own elbows off.
Barry
The book wasn’t only better, as is usually the case, it was a better movie than the movie itself. Ballard did such an incredible job describing his scenes, sights, colors, sounds, even smells that it was easy to see the story unfold in the mind’s eye. The movie seemed flat, dull, shallow by comparison. It wasn’t even possible to understand the characters’ thoughts and motivations, not even Jim’s, really.
By all means, read it. Don’t, however, infer from the foreword that it’s totally autobiographical. Although Ballard really was a boy interned in a Japanese camp in Shanghai, he was never separated from his parents and he never had to live on the streets alone.
The song at the beginning, and when he watches the Japanese airplanes, is a Welsh hymn that I’ve heard a few other places.
Well, Jim’s a difficult character to empathize with. He’s self-centered, has a highly overactive imagination, and tends to be a major pain in the ass. But, he’s not heartless. Kind of reminds me of myself at that age, which is probably why it’s one of my all-time favorite movies.
He’s still in China, but closer to Shanghai. Which, is about 500 miles away from Nagasaki, so I’m pretty sure that seeing the “flash” was artistic license.
Like godzillatemple, the song is my favorite part of the film, and the part that really sticks in my head. It’s a haunting and heartbreakingly beautiful tune. If I ever find myself idly whistling a tune, it’s always that song. I am pretty sure it’s called “Suo Gan”.
It’s curious how people remember the movie being long, since both Schindler’s List & Saving Private Ryan were both quite a bit longer. I think Empire serves as an interesting transition film to Schindler’s, with the WWII setting and the aspirations to serious drama; the two even have similar setpieces (city evacuation, prison camp life). I remember liking it at the time, but haven’t seen it since (hmmm, maybe I should rent the DVD). Bale is remarkably good–probably the best child performance in a Spielberg movie (and that’s saying something), and revisiting the movie would be interesting since many of the supporting players (Joe Pantoliano, Ben Stiller, Miranda Richardson) are much better known now. I remember it being visually striking and thought it seriously underappreciated at the time, though time may have not been so kind 15 years later.
Great book, thin movie. Spielberg just translated the images from the book literally without getting them; he made them concrete and one-dimensional.
I’m surprised no one mentioned that this was a Steven Spielberg film. I remember getting excited about its coming out, but not being terrifically moved by it. Maybe that’s why Spielberg never seems to mention it. Unlike The Color Purple and Schindler’s List, people seem to forget this one.
Spielberg seems to have a big Japanese WWII fascination. Between this and 1941 and the opening to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (which also “opens” in Shanghai in the 1930s, with the Bad Guys being pretty clearly Japanese fellows trying to gain legitimacy by obtaining the remains of a Manchu emperor).
The IMDB confirms that the song is “Suo Gan”, and says it’s a Welsh lullaby:
Well, as a great man once wrote, “Time is relative; lunchtime doubly so.” Of the three movies, Empire of the Sun was the only one I saw in the theater while hungry…
Barry
I can’t remember if I read it here on SDMB or somewhere else, but there is a another level to this movie than simply the story of a boy trying to survive the war.
I really enjoyed it and think it is one of Spielberg’s stronger efforts.
It is one of my favorite movies and one of the best movies ever made.
The book btw is autobiographical.
The thing with this movie is that it relies on images to tell a story rather than dialogue. Add that to the fact that the main character for the first half of the film is a spoiled rich kid and it can be a tough sell.
Fist off that song. Sou Gan. (I had no idea it was Welsh)
This song appears three times in the film and it is very signifcant when it does. The first time of course we are meeting Jim. His boyish behaviour does not match his angleic voice. We see his comic book with the American fighter pilot on the cover and his servants but we don’t see his parents.
We also see a paupers funeral. That is that casket with a corpse in it, floating in the harbor and it is hit by the Japanses warship. VERY SYMBOLIC STUFF.
The entire movie is like this and it really is more of a poem than a story but the story of a boy growing up, trying to learn a moral code, trying to find a place in his ‘society’, all in an international prision camp during a war is compelling and it is one of the most beautifully filmed and acted movies I have ever seen.
I saw it in ninth grade, during our symbolism unit. I wasn’t there for the whole thing, I think I was sick a day or two, but I do want to read the book/see the movie again…and it was long, but…
probably because i was that kids age when i saw it (or maybe even younger). It was okay, i’m sure i’d like it better now that i’m older.
I’m trying to imagine what Shanghai was like in the book. The kid gets out of the first holding camp in the city by claiming to know the way to Hong Qiao airport. It’s only 10-15 k from the bund out to Hong Qiao. Christ you can walk it. IIRC, in the book, they take trucks and get lost. There are all sorts of big famous villas out in Hong Qiao so there must have been roads and a route back then. Kinda wierd to me anyway.