Majorthebys
Charming and brutal
Fairaher
The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
Teddie Blake
The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
timashworth04
I am amazed at the few who gave this low ratings. It is, for me, one of the great world war two movies. Told from the p.o.v. of a bright intelligent young English boy who has led a pampered life , we see how the larger world struggles force him to adapt and live by his wits in order to survive. Although the photography, special effects and scenes of battle are amazingly shot to make you feel a part of the action, it is the personal story of a young boy becoming a man that is compelling. We are shown how he experiences not only the horror of war, but the beauty of it as well, as emotions are heightened by life and death struggles. I wish I had seen this on the big movie theater screen, but still worth watching in any setting.
cinemajesty
Film Review: "Empire Of The Sun" (1987)To the minority of moviegoers in holiday season 1987/1988, director Steven Spielberg had had created a masterpiece of cinema. At a closer look "Empire of The Sun" had been an ambitious Hollywood movie production, which luckily features one of the most talented child-actor of his generation Christian Bale, carrying nearly 150 minutes of film on his 12-year-old shoulders with just a second-half anker-point in shapes of actor John Malkovich within an unrealistic-designed Prisoner-War-Camp abandoned by the Japanese, when the war for Chinese soil seems lost, and leaving Jim, the all-too-early becoming an adult, traumatized by war, finds his child memories in ruins in the middle of a ghastly desert base, filled by damaged properties of value within the spirit of a child's stolen time of life never lived.Copyright 2018 Cinemajesty Entertainments 2018
gabe5525
As a fan of Spielberg's films, I felt obligated to see this film. While this is certainly a good film, this is not a great one or even one of Spielberg's best. Christian Bale does give a great performance, the visuals are spectacular, and John Williams gives a haunting score. This film though is very unfocused and aloof which can make the experience a bit of a chore to sit through. I have no issues with slow dramas as long as they keep me interested in the characters and their stories, but I felt no long attachment or affection for the characters other than Bale. There are great moments throughout that can make this movie worthwhile, but other moments that will make you wonder what is going on or why it should matter. Spielberg tries to make us feel emotion for this boy and his predicament, but all I could feel was emotional confusion. Spielberg's film unfortunately for me meanders from moment to moment showing signs of depth and understanding but ultimately feeling incomplete at the end.
Leofwine_draca
Steven Spielberg's wartime epic, based on the novel by J.G. Ballard, is an exploration of life under Japanese colonial rule in China during the Second World War and just before it. Like many of Spielberg's worthy movies, it's a little overlong and sluggish, a little idealistic, and certainly far too sentimental for its own good, failing to particularly portray the true suffering and nastier aspects of the situation. However, it's also refreshingly unbiased, presenting the Japanese as a real people and culture rather than the usual demonised enemy you typically see in Hollywood productions. EMPIRE OF THE SUN is certainly a lavishly-mounted movie, well photographed throughout, but it suffers from some real flaws, not least the lack of sympathetic characters. Christian Bale does very well as the lead, but there's no getting over the fact that his character is quite insufferable.
