The Children of Huang Shi
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
I took a bit of time thinking this movie over before I was to post a blog entry on it. Most people will probably consider me weird for not liking this movie as much as they did (I think I'm the only one in the class who didn't like it as much as everyone else...). The Children of Huang Shi just didn't really work for me. I'll go onto explain why this movie didn't work for me and what I thought of it overall. And one thing I can talk a lot about is movies. So this entry may be huge!
This movie is based on the story of a British reporter called George Hogg who goes to Nanjing and ends up saving 60 orphaned boys by helping them travel through the silk road.
I think I expected more from this movie than it could offer. The pace of the movie was relatively slow and I kept waiting for something to happen, only it didn't... however, there were some (although relatively minor) build-ups. The storyline was plain and although one may argue that it's based on a true story and the director/writer wanted to stay true to the story, but the thing is, it's BASED on a true story. This generally means the movie has been altered a little to sort of fit to the prescriptions of cinema and movies. The fact that the build-ups were minor and somewhat absent, and there was no climax in the movie lowered my opinion of this movie in general.
The acting was alright. But Jonathon Rhys Meyers' (who was great in Match Point) George Hogg failed to work on me too. From the movie, I picked up George Hogg was obviously a Christ-like figure except Rhys Meyers' acting or I guess, interpretation of how he should play George Hogg, did not make me really look up to him as one should to Christ-like figures. Although this may be the fact that the movie didn't manage to portray the fact that he saved 60 orphaned boys as a huge issue! The passage through the mountains/on the silk road was pretty dull also, with the exception of a little sandy tornado. The ending, well, it was pretty anticlimatic. And as soon as Hogg had said "It's just a scratch." I had a feeling that his end might be coming (Romeo and Juliet anyone? "Aye, tis nothing but a scratch." I might have paraphrased sorry). Although I was sort of wondering whether he would really die because he was a Christ-like figure (and in most movies/books the Christ-like figure generally sacrifices their life for something they believed in or dies a horribly martyr-like death eg Cool Hand Luke, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Lord of the Flies), but it was based on a real person. This sort of made me anticipate the ending, just to find out whether Hogg would really die, because I was curious as to whether a REAL-LIFE Christ-like figure would suffer an end much like they do in fictional books, movies etc.
As for the theme of the amount of change an individual can make, I was glad that the theme was there because I managed to pick it up by the end of the movie. This theme is one that I like a lot, having watched many Frank Capra movies like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life, both of which have the main message of how much change an individual normal man can make to his country or just the people around him. It's through these two movies that I realized how much an individual can do and I am always so touched when I watch these two movies and cry at the end from how wonderful it is that a person is able to do something like that. However, I didn't cry in The Children of Huang Shi because I don't think that the theme was predominant enough for me to feel so touched by the end of the movie that I end up in tears. Some people might criticize me for comparing this movie to the old Capra movies, but I'm just writing down my thoughts and please don't judge me!
On a good note, I learnt some new information from this movie. I didn't know that George Hogg even existed before this movie. I didn't really know of the Europeans who were involved in helping the Chinese out during the occupation of the Japanese before the start of WWII but through this movie, I've found out that there were actually some Europeans who had helped many.
My overall thought from the movie was that I think it could've been done better. It could've made me cry, it could've made me look up to George Hogg and there are more things it could have been done. Although some people in my class will probably beat me for saying this, I wasn't really touched emotionally by this movie (Maybe Cindy will, she sure was emotionally touched, bawling her eyes out next to me through the WHOLE movie). I'm glad that I was able to learn some new information about 1937 in China.
Labels: humanities, movies
