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The Children of Huang Shi (2008)

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18 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
A well-intentioned movie that stays on a course of political correctness, 6 April 2008
Author: Harry T. Yung (harry_tk_yung@yahoo.com) from Hong Kong

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

To those who can remember that far, this movie has close kinship, or is even a non-identical twin to, "The Inn of six Happiness" where Ingrid Bergman portrayed Gladys Aylward, an English woman who escaped with 100 Chinese children from the invading Japanese. "Escape from Huang Shi" (or "The children of Huang Shi) is almost identical in many ways, the story of English reporter George Hogg who took 60 Chinese children on a "mini long March" along the Silk Road to safety before the Japaneses' onslaught hit the orphanage. There is a little more detail in this story prior to Hogg getting to the orphanage where he won the heart of the children embittered from witnessing atrocities unspeakable done to their loved ones. But the relationship between Hogg and these children is the heart of the story. Most remarkable is what we see during the end credit roll, where some of these children (now well advanced in age) recounting how they remember him – the most touching part of the movie.

This is not to say that the dramatization in the movie is not well done. Here, the credit goes first and foremost to the cast. Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Radha Mitchell are two of the most notable actors today not because of their looks (which they certainly have) but because they are good character actors. Meyers is great in his portrayal of Hogg as a mild-tempered young man from a sworn Pacifist family finding himself challenged by the emotion of hate triggered by some of the things he witnessed. Mitchell is wonderful as nurse Lee Pearson who seems at first hardened and drained of any emotions after all the atrocities she has seen, but later found to have a weak spot of her own.

Chow Yun-fat plays "Jack" Chen, a seasoned military man who saves Hogg from decapitation under a Japanese sword and goes on to help him all along the way. This character is portrayed with a dry sense of humour uncharacteristic of the Chinese people at the time. This is a good approach as it balances somewhat the story that is essentially heavily tragic. Chow handles the role with customary ease, making his character very likable. Michelle Yeoh plays Mrs Wang, a successful, pragmatic merchant who, although taking pains to hide it, also has a caring heart. Yeoh has everything it takes to bring out the dignity and charm that prompted Hogg to refer to her as "a great lady" when he said goodbye upon taking on the "march".

This Australia/China/Germany collaboration steers a careful course of political correctness in the sensitive issue of the delicate relationship between the Chinese Nationalist and Communists during the Japanese invasion. The depiction of Japanese atrocities of course need not be spared unless one wants to falsify history, but even here, there is only very brief mention of historical details. The main focus of this movie is a human story well worth telling, as the interviews of the actual survivors shown with the end credits clearly underscore.

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30 out of 54 people found the following comment useful :-
A Nutshell Review: Escape from Huang Shi, 15 April 2008

Author: DICK STEEL from Singapore

So the posters have Chow Yun Fat's mug splattered in the center and given top billing. However, this is actually Jonathan Rhys Meyers' vehicle as he plays the central character of George Hogg, an Associated Press reporter who smuggles himself into Nanjing pre-WWII and witnessed the atrocities of the invading Japanese army. Inspired by a true story, this is about the life of Hogg as he takes it upon himself to do whatever he can to save a group of orphans he gets set up and acquainted with.

What of Chow? His Chen Hansheng, a communist fighting against the Japanese, gets relegated to supporting appearances, to give us some brief history lessons on the uneasy alliance between the communists and Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists, as they only link up with each other to fight a common enemy when it conveniences both parties. You would come to think that, from the trailers, this is gonna be quite an action packed movie with Chow leading his group of merry men to do battle against the Japanese, but the movie employs a "fight another day" stance, and the central plot has nothing to do with that too.

And pairing up in the same movie after their Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon stint is Michelle Yeoh, only this time, they don't get to share any scene together, and worse, Yeoh's role as a rich merchant Mrs Wang gets severely diminished. No doubt it is clear that the prospects of uniting Chow and Yeoh together would bring in curious crowds who can't wait to savour the opportune moment, but alas they happen to be just the side dishes.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers, joined by Radha Mitchell, fresh from her battle with a beastly crocodile, takes on leading man status, as the reporter who finds himself thrusts into Huang Shi, and into the enclave of 60 male orphans, living in filth, and without hope. Strongly encouraged to stay behind and take care of them, he becomes the reluctant and unwilling teacher, but slowly wins over the hearts and trust of the children, and hence begins a fairy tale like environment that seemingly is remotely away from the war in China, except for the enemy planes flying overhead serving as a reminder.

However, it's soon that they find themselves between a rock and a hard place, with the Japanese inching closer, and the Nationalists wanting to possess their land for their use, as well as to conscript those boys into warfare. Not wanting that to happen, Hogg packs them all up, and so begins the journey proper as per what the title says.

The events that unfold are just plain sailing without any tension involved, nor any excitement built up. It just flat-lines its way through beautiful environments of mountains and plains, coupled with treacherous snows and sandstorms, but otherwise, it seemed that their 1000km trek looked quite peanuts. What's more amusing here though is how the Chinese cast look so much more comfortable speaking English - I thought Chow has improved by leaps and bounds, but Meyers and Mitchell really sounded very off in their Mandarin diction, that you'll find it quite ridiculous that the parties they speak to, can understand them totally. Brownie points have to be given for their courage to speak, and give the language a go, though again it could be playing to character as one cannot master the language in such a short period of time.

At the end of the day, this played out more like a simple account of an event that had happened (of course again with artistic license taken), and the documentary-styled interview segments at the end while the end credits play, affirmed what happened and gave us some insights into Hogg's character, much more that what the film had portrayed. While the alternate title might seem to involve the Children quite a bit, only a few were given names and faces, and even fewer given personalities. Similar to movies like Schindler's List and Hotel Rwanda where the ability of one man helped save many, but this one lacked that crucial emotional punch.

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Near to greatness, 11 June 2008

Author: Mallediction from Portugal

I really loved this movie though many may disagree and find it a bit childish, i prefer to look at it as a message of hope. OK, Maybe hope is a lie,blah blah...but sometimes, just sometimes, we need to pretend it's not and this movie achieves that. for an hour and a bit, it gives you that feeling, that sometimes throughout human history, there are actually some people (one man, one woman, one child, it doesn't matter) that can make hopes true just by believing it very hard and working very hard for it's beliefs. But at the same time, this movie never tryes to hide the harsh reality of war (and this history passage in particularly), just recognises it but put it a bit out of the big screening drama, and show an other side: the history of great men in the middle of it that deserve an homage, passing the message, that, when life happens, some run, some make the best they can with it even if they wonna run. OK, the dialogues were a bit to much worked out, the story goes a bit away from many details for political politeness (i guess) which is the only flaw i can see in the all movie. The actors, all of them, seemed really up to the job it was supposed to be delivered: I think it meant to be an homage, a simple story of courage and hope of one man, and not a war movie, so i think it achieved its goal. For the fans of harsh war movies (as myself): OK, this is not one of them, but i don't think it was meant to be either, and i think it served it's purpose, and i think it's not weak to recognise we can like both genres for they complete one another.

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8 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Heke is a hero, 12 May 2008

Author: avan ye from China

I watched this movie last Saturday, and here are some feelings of mine. "The children of Huangshi" brought me an vivid image of the reality during the pre-WWⅡ. George Hogg, also known as Heke was a courageous, insistent and responsible man. He treated the homeless orphans as ordinary innocent children while the Japanese enemy and the nationalists never showed any mercy to them. Children were victims of the wars. They lost their families, their childhood, and even their courage to live. Wars also raised the hatred in their mind, changing them into devils. In the movie, two echo scenes impressed me a lot： One is the photo of Shikai' family, the other is a photo of a Japanese soldier. Shikai saw his parents and his sister be killed atrociously by Japanese and since then he became dissociable and unreasonable and the only hope to him was the photo. When he got the chance to kill Japanese, he did it decidedly, only to find that a family photo holding in the soldier's hands. Heke tried to release the children's hatred and he wanted them to be normal children. At some aspect, he succeeded, because the children of Huangshi, e.g. Laosi, found his way back to be a happy child under Heke's education; however, the damage of the war was too huge to be cured. Most of the children were saved but not what they were used to be any more. Anyway, Heke is a great man. Although he is a foreigner, he is our national hero forever.

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4 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Where do the children play?, 8 June 2008

Author: David Ferguson (fergusontx@gmail.com) from Dallas, Texas

Greetings again from the darkness. It is difficult to imagine a more powerful, emotional story than the real life heroism of George Hogg. He was a British journalist who truly saved the life and dreams of 60 war Chinese war orphans during the 1937 invasion by Japan.

The good news is that the story is remarkable, but the downside is how director Roger Spottiswoode ("Tomorrow Never Dies", "Turner and Hooch") is stuck with two miscast leads. Jonathan Rhys Meyers doesn't have the chops to pull off strength of Hogg and much worse is the downright horrible performance of Radha Mitchell as Lee, the war hardened do-gooder. The combination of these two severely weaken the film, but luckily not the story.

Chow Yun-Fat and the great Michelle Yeoh play important supporting roles and both are excellent in their English speaking parts. Both are masters at letting simple facial gestures express the bulk of their thoughts. The children in the film are a pleasure to watch, though, we really don't connect with any of them.

Some of the landscape is beautifully film and Spottiswoode does a good job of portraying the hardships of the 700 mile Silk Road journey, without it dragging the pace down. Again, the power of this story is unmistakable, but it is certainly not given its due by this rendition. Make sure to stay for the credits as we are treated to first hand memories of some of the surviving children (now very adavanced in age, but extremely lucid).

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7 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
We should thank Hogg, 7 May 2008
Author: min867 from China

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

As a Chinese,I Was moved by Hogg.He was a foreigner to Chinese,but he did his best to look after all the children.At first,he thought the only thing he wanted to do was to let the world know the china's events.Teaching the children was not his purpose.But in the end,he began to attend to the children and finally he took them a safety place called Shandan.He liked peace so he wanted to the children lived in a peace place.But unfortunately,he was suffered from lockjaw. The life was not easy for the orphans at that time.A boy felt home's importance and finally suicided.

We should remember the foreign friends who contributed a lot to China's revolution.In addition,we must treasure what we owe today.

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8 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Riding with Company for Thousands of Miles, 12 May 2008
Author: MacAindrais from Canada

Children of Hueng Shi (2008) **1/2

(Quick Review)

Caught this one a little while ago. I was a bit disappointed, though i wasn't really expecting too much I suppose to begin with. The story follows the true adventures of British journalist George Hogg during WWII in China, who witnessed atrocities at the hands of Imperial Japan. Hogg eventually ends up at a school, where he reluctantly, of course, becomes attached to the children. Hogg, played by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, along with the help of an Austrailian Nurse (Mitchell) and a Chinese Communist (Yun-Fat) leads sixty children on a thousand mile journey across China's mountains to safety, away from invading Japanese forces.

The technical quality of the film-making is solid - as is to be expected from Spottiswoode. However, it also carries the usual Spottiswoode flaws - namely more expositional dialogue than you can shake a stick at and convenient contrivances throughout. I enjoyed Spottiswoode's previous film, the far superior Shake Hands with the Devil (which itself it not without his usual faults), but I just couldn't get into this one. The dialogue is too heavy handed and half of it is dedicated to delivering a history lesson. Spottiswoode's desire to inform is certainly admirable, and the story and the background history certainly are worthy of telling. Nevertheless, attempting to deliver both in depth is a recipe for failure. The acting is for the most part fine: Yun-Fat delivers a fine performance, as does Rhys-Meyers, who I think someday will likely deliver an amazing rendering of a psychopath (the eyes!). Overall, I can't quite recommend it, and my review may be slightly off as I don't remember it very well (which may actually justify my review). I wouldn't however tell you to avoid it. I'll probably rewatch it someday myself just to see how this review stacks up.

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This is a top quality movie, 23 June 2008

Author: Samuela55 from United States

This is a top quality movie; it is inspirational. Jonathan Rhys Meyers' acting was superb. The scenery was beautiful and the children were touching. I highly recommend this movie. Here was a true hero in every sense of the word. George Hogg risked his life to save the lives of innocent children. He also risked his life to publicize the truth. His parents were courageous pacifists. He struggled with the dilemma of when pacifism is appropriate and when fighting back is appropriate. Yun-Fat Chow and Michelle Yeoh were also outstanding in their roles. It was interesting and informative regarding a period of history and location that is not that widely known about in the West.

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1 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Be forewarned: This is not a film for the historical-minded, 17 June 2008

Author: Chad Shiira from Mililani, Hawaii

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

"The Japanese are not savages," insists George Hogg(Jonathan Rhys Meyers)to a fellow photo-journalist, while from their vehicle, we see refugees traverse the Nanking roadsides and the Japanese soldiers who keep the Chinese capital under siege. Both men find themselves in this foreign land on a mission to substantiate reports about a massacre. When George finds himself separated from his colleague, he witnesses a group of Chinese men and women being gunned down mass execution style. Although "The Children of Huang Shi" doesn't whitewash the violence that went down in Nanking, the filmmaker does temper the killing to a degree, in which ethnic cleansing never becomes the subject of the film. If you're expecting an adaptation of Iris Chang's "The Rape of Nanking", you'll be sorely disappointed. When our story begins, the massacre is over and done with. Since "The Children of Huang Shi" withholds from its audience the number of Chinese people involved in the slaughter, this enables the filmmaker to portray the Japanese as rational people.

In one scene, George convinces an army general to call off his troops from searching for weapons at a random check-point. The filmmaker wants us to believe that the Japanese official would care about his soldiers contaminating the sterilized medical supplies meant for the sick and injured Chinese people. This show of clemency is downright laughable. In "The Rape of Nanking", Chang details instances in which women's babies were ripped out of their wombs, young girls being raped, while the city was reduced to rubble, and its people, literally, chopped into pieces. Later in the film, a Japanese soldier discovers the hat of a comrade placed on the head of a Chinese boy. George explains that the orphan found the hat on the ground during their sojourn. Even worse, one of the older boys points his gun at the Japanese contingent. Incredibly, an exchange of gunfire is averted, even though the historical record shows that the Japanese soldier had no qualms about aiming their guns at children.

But let's be fair. Along with the HBO documentary "Nanking", the story of Japan's war crimes are finally being told to a western audience. It's about time. Although the orphans don't get enough credit for their own survival, George Hogg is deserving of the accolades that his self-evident heroism brought him. But just in case the audience fails to recognize what this man accomplished, Mrs. Wang, an opium dealer, tells George how wonderful he is. Lee(Radha Mitchell) seconds that emotion. She had her doubts when the nurse assigned George to the orphanage. And then there's the real-life survivors who offer their testimony about his greatness during the closing credits.

The film never proves that the Japanese are savages, but Lee was in Nanking during the siege. If the audience knew about the nature of the attack, Lee's disproportionate anger over George's redecorating efforts on her living quarters, which inspires the nurse to storm out of the orphanage, would make this British woman completely insufferable.

The less you know about "The Rape of Nanking", the better.

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0 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
One Of My Picks To Click For Best Of The Year!, 2 July 2008

Author: Seamus2829 from United States

After I exited the theater that screened 'The Children Of Huang Shi', I was on a cloud. This is easily one of the best films of 2008 (so far the other is Mongol). The plot concerns a foreign correspondent from Australia in China covering the Chinese/Japanese war in 1937, who gets in over his head by venturing out of the safety zone of Bejing, into the thick of the war, and gets involved helping an orphanage of Chinese war orphans. A woman doctor also gets tossed in for good measure in the proceedings. This is a finely acted drama that is a bit rough to watch at times, but is well worth the effort. You could do a lot worse than 'The Children Of Huang Shi' (does 'You Don't Mess With The Zohan' mean anything?)

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