Chrysanthepop 'The Children of Huang Shi' tells an important story of how a journalist rescued 60 Chinese orphans during the war between China and Japan. It is a heroic story but one that has tragic consequences. At first I thought it was a Hollywood movie as the dramatization was apparent and some of the sequences felt very Hollywoodish. However, it's actually an Australian production. I still wonder why Spottiswoode chose to dramatize it so much. The landscape is beautifully captured on screen as it juxtaposes with the tragedy of the war that is shown through the killings and the dead bodies. The movie feels slightly rushed in the beginning as one thing happens after another in rapid succession. However, once George makes it to the orphanage, the story unfolds smoothly. Initially, Jonathan Rhys Meyers looks very uncomfortable but once George settles in the orphanage, Meyers seems more at ease and does a brilliant job from then on. Radha Mitchell oscillates with her accent but otherwise she's quite decent. Chow Yun Fat provides some wonderful comic relief while playing his part naturally and Michelle Yeoh shines as a 'great lady'. The children actors too do a splendid job.There isn't much of a history lesson about the war but then again the story stays focused on Hogg and the orphans. Their relationship to him is the key part of the story which is superbly depicted. In addition, while the closing credits role, we get to witness a moving montage of some of the real children of Huang Shi, now aged, talking about Hogg and what he meant to them. Though dramatized, 'The Children of Huang Shi' is very much a watchable film and, every once in a while, the world needs to be reminded of such heroes who made a difference against all odds.

timsnoek OK, so this story is based on true events, I can see why someone would like this story to be told. But why didn't they work with good writers, this story is cut in little pieces, cliché upon cliché and then tight together to make one piece out of it. The actors really don't know what to do with the lines they get and the director really didn't know what he wanted to tell. Is this a hero-story? Is this a love-story? Is this a historic adventure? Is this a war-story? I give one example: in the beginning of the story, the love-interest (Mitchell) is talking to the hero (Meyers) about how important it is that she is around, being a nurse, and knows that one scratch can lead to an infection and to death. So she tells that she cleans the wounds and tells the patient how important it is to do this as quick as possible, even if 'it's just a scratch'. Later on in the movie Meyers cuts himself when he's working on replacing a tire and tells Mitchell 'it's just a scratch'. And she SMILES at him.What the f?!! Wasn't she supposed to clean this wound as she told all those people she nursed in the war to do so they wouldn't die? Guess what happens to Meyers... And actually it's her fault I yelled at the screen annoyed.and please, don't even mention the monologues the actors get to work with during the movie. Even a first year scriptwriters school student would do better in writing them. So cliché and predictable. I pity the actors - they must have read the script before they said yes. Why did they accept such bad writing? They probably needed the money. The sceneries are beautiful, Michelle Yeoh has the best part and is the only actor that I believed. (maybe because she didn't have that many lines?). I'm afraid those are the only things that worked out well. The story is fabricated and doesn't have a nice flow, the actors really have difficulties working the lines they get from the writers and clearly the director didn't know what he wanted to do with this story.If it wasn't for the beautiful settings, and the fact that you could sense there was (somewhere) a story worth telling, it would have been a total waste of time watching this movie. Well it definitely was a waste of money making it, I would read the book if I were you.

smatson123 Who was George Hogg, really? Do an Internet search and you'll see that his name is variously interpreted as a "footballer," a midshipman on the Titantic, and various unknowns in genealogy charts. But Nie Quangpei, a Chinese orphan whose life Hogg saved, had this to say: "They say there isn't a perfect man in this world, but Hogg was." Nie,now a middleaged tradesman in the PRC, seems to have had more insight into the forging of character than the writers and director (Australian Roger Spottiswoode) of the film. "He changed," says Nie of Hogg's transformation from a raw university graduate to a father figure to 60 boys under extraordinary circumstances. "He became a different man."While the facts are not widely public except to Sinophiles, they are impressive on their face. An English blueblood and Oxford grad, the handsome Hogg (Jonathan Rhys Meyers)tried his hand at journalism in wealthy, up-and-coming Shanghai and could have led the good life for the duration of WWII. Instead he connected with a like-minded benefactor, Rewi Alli, to determine what could be done with orphans and the homeless. After mastering Mandarin he became the headmaster of Shuangshi-pu school, mostly for orphans, in a northwestern province. He made a success of teaching and administering there until fear of the oncoming Japanese invasion convinced him to leave. Managing to cross some 600-700 miles in the dead of winter with children and books on carts, he re-established them in a converted monastery--all with little help and few resources. Though keenly aware of the irony of staying in China while his own country was under threat, Hogg came to terms with who he was and was deeply loved by his charges in the process. Today a statue in his honor stands in his final resting place in Shanan, Gansu.Spottiswoode, though, prefers to go for the blood, sex, and supposedly, the glory. Briefly seen as a journalist at parties in Shanghai, his Hogg finds a way to make it to Nanking to get the perfect story on the Japanese invasion, but while there nearly suffers a beheading when the invaders discover him. (In reality, the Japanese had their hands full with just dispatching locals with guns--the efficient killing method of choice--for the most part ignoring Westerners.) Just in the nick of time, Hogg is saved by a counter-revolutionary (a suave, goatee-bedecked Chow Yun Fat) and a beautiful American nurse, Lee (Australian Radha Mitchell), whose presence in circumstances of extreme personal peril is never entirely explained. But no matter: she is portrayed as the one who convinces Hogg to take shelter in an orphanage, to learn Chinese and otherwise take a breather. As she comes and goes to the orphanage, her existence means a film opportunity for romance, as though Hogg's real-life challenge of adapting to near-starvation conditions and nurturing traumatized children could have been inspiration enough for anyone. A hint of a love triangle also surfaces in the person of a beautiful, exquisitely dressed local merchant of opiates (Michelle Seoh) who will go to any lengths to serve Hogg's cause.History, as documentarian Ken Burns has proved, can be compelling in its own right. It can both stranger than fiction and more powerful, as we see the choices others have made that we do or don't choose to emulate. A decent tribute to Hogg's life would have demanded that his unheralded acts stand in stark relief to the pointless cruelties of war around him. That didn't happen in this movie. His legacy to the weak and unfortunate lives on, most recently in a book published this January in Beijing (Ocean Devil, by James MacManus). And final testimonies at the end of "Children of Huang Shi" from boys saved by Hogg--boys who are now in late middle age--do something to capture the essence of respectful biography but still, not nearly enough. The movie was exquisitely filmed in Chinese and Australian locales at a 40 million budget and unfortunately has grossed only 691,000 as of late July. If history and film could align a little more closely, I like to think that both the audience and box office would have profited.

David Ferguson 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).