The Children of Huang Shi

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).

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.

Gripping and intense film depicting terrible deeds during Japonese invasion in Shangai and Nanjing (1937) . After that, at the city take place violations, mutilations, and massacres. Some prisoners are interred in a prison camp but later they are led to fire squad, scaffold and alive burying. Later on , an orphaned children group escapes led by the journalist named George Hogg (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a nurse (Radha Mitchell) and a communist Chinese (Choe Yun Fat).

Director de-glamorizes war showing true horror and terrible events . It's a staggering evocation of the Chinese Holocausto in Nanjing , as the atrocities are depicted matter of factly as by-product of sheer Japanese evil. The opening twenty minutes in which the reporter appears as hidden observer turns out to be a graphic depiction the facing off is , on its own, and is magnificent . As the exciting beginning results to be pretty stirring , the developing of the movie regarding invasion China is partially similar to ¨Empire of the sun¨ and suffering of the children on the escape is really moving . The starring, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and the rest of the cast are excellent , as the movie is powered by splendid performances in charge of American and Chinese actors who during filming suffered some inevitable pains for the hard environment . Filmed in perfect color by cameraman Zhao , reflecting appropriately the Chinese scenarios . Spottiswoode makes a breathtaking work which directs spectacularly with groundbreaking scenes in a heartbreaking context . He dedicated long time joining information and interviewing experts for that scenes would adequate to reality of events. This masterpiece finally didn't garner the world attention and respect that the story deserve and had a regular box office . The motion picture is acceptably directed by Robert Spottiswoode who realizes a spectacular and impressive production. He's a successful director from TV movies and cinema, as terror genre(Terror train), adventures(Air America,Shoot to kill), Scif-Fi (6th day), James Bond film(Tomorrow never dies), and his best movie is ¨Under fire¨.

The film is based on actual events about George Hogg , a courageous British reporter , who along with a brave nurse saves a group of orphaned children during the Japanese occupation of China in 1937, these are the following : George Aylwin Hogg (1915-July 22, 1945) was an English adventurer. He was a graduate of Oxford University in economics. He is known as a hero in China for helping New Zealander Rewi Alley save 60 orphaned boys during the Second Chinese-Japanese War, including leading them 700 miles (1,100 km) through dangerous mountain passes, escaping the approaching Japanese secret police in the Shaanxi area .Hogg then decided to relocate the boys to Shandan in Gansu Province 700 miles (1,100 km) away. The first half (33) left in November 1944 and in January 1945, the remaining 27 boys followed. They traveled heavily snow-covered mountain roads by foot. After a month of travel by foot, 450 miles (720 km), they arrived in Lanzhou.Hogg hired six diesel trucks to complete the trip. Early March 1945, Hogg and his boys arrived in Shandan. Alley rented some old temples, turned them into classrooms and workshops, and appointed Hogg as headmaster .

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.

Film version of the life of George Hogg. Hogg was a British national who went to China during the Rape of Nanking as a reporter and ended up taking care of a bunch of orphans in the face of Japanese barbarity on the Chinese people.

The version I saw was dubbed completely in Chinese and had English subtitles. As it stands now its a good but rather standard film about a man who tried to do something in the face of war. The film stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Hogg. He's fine, but I don't think he's given much to do since much of the action seems to be reduced to cliché, even the romance with the broken Australian nurse has the feeling of been there. Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yoeh have small but important roles (respectively) as a general who befriends Hogg and a black marketeer who helps him. I liked it but didn't love it (its one of those films thats "almost.." but isn't and falls between the cracks). Perhaps because of the possibly bad subtitles or more likely the clichéd script the under appreciated Roger Spottiswoode used just isn't great. This isn't to say there aren't a couple of great set pieces, there are, the attack on the train in particular, but its not enough to raise the film from the near great to the great, or from nearly very good to very good. It just sort of misses. The just sort of misses feeling was re-enforced after I read some pieces on line which gives more details on the real George Hogg (He needs a miniseries about his life not two hour film) 6ish out of 10