Movie review: The Children of Huang Shi
Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Chow Yun Fat in “The Children of Huang Shi.”
From Friday’s The Oklahoman:
“The Children of Huang Shi” is a fictionalized dramatization of the life of George Hogg, a British journalist who came to China in the midst of the three-way nationalist-Communist-Japanese war in 1937.
Hogg (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) witnesses the murder of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers, and is set to be executed himself.
He’s rescued by Communist rebel Chen Hanshing (Chow Yun Fat) and sent to a masterless Chinese orphanage in Huang Shi.
The boys there initially plan to run Hogg off, but his determination eventually wins them over.
However, the continued advancement of the Japanese army puts the boys at risk. Hogg leads the 60 orphans on a 700-mile journey, through desert and mountains, to escape the army. Sandstorms, snowstorms, bandits and soldiers stand in the way, but Hogg, Chen, and Nurse Lee Pearson (Radha Mitchell) keep the orphans moving.
Along the route, Hogg and Pearson fall in love, though this part of the story feels tacked on.
The story is suitably epic, but the dialogue is clunky, and Meyers and Mitchell are either miscast or misdirected by Roger Spottiswoode (“Tomorrow Never Dies”).
Zhao Xiaoding deserves praise for his outstanding cinematography. It’s a well-shot and good-looking film, but it seems like there’s more depth to the real-life story than the screenplay provides.
The film’s closing scenes, featuring the surviving children of Huang Shi speaking about Hogg, seem to confirm this.
— Matthew Price
MOVIE REVIEW
“The Children of Huang Shi”
R 2:05 2 stars
Starring: Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Radha Mitchell, Chow Yun Fat
(Some disturbing and violent content)
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment