2008, Australia/China/Germany
Adventure, Biography, Drama, History, Romance, War
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Extended version:
The path to enlightenment is not always the one we first choose to follow. In Roger Spottiswoode's film, The Children of Huang Shi, a reluctant hero changes the lives of a people he only came to observe.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers portrays real-life journalist George Hogg who came to China in 1937 to report on the Nanking Massacre by the Japanese. Armed only with knowledge of the local language and a camera with which to shoot from safe distances, the young Brit sought the truth ignored by the rest of the world but assumed the assignment was temporary. Yet the reality that soon engulfs him proves inescapable.
A tourist in hell, Hogg becomes dumbstruck by the daily risks taken by those attempting to survive. Guided by the West Point-trained leader of an underground Chinese partisan group (Chow Yun-Fat) and unknowingly forced into an important role by a tough American nurse (Radha Mitchell), Hogg is led to a dilapidated home of abandoned children. Orphans of war, they have become wild shells of their former selves.
Though younger and more impressionable than their adult counterparts who attempt to escape physically or mentally, it becomes obvious that each character -- young or old -- is scarred by war. With no chance to heal, the Chinese citizens are repeatedly ravaged by attacks and hang by the threads of a society in ruins.
Doubtful that he can help children who have endured so much psychological abuse, Hogg is hesitant to assist in their healing process. Shedding his selfish adventure, he helps the boys remember how to live a normal life again. Without losing the imminent sense of danger or dark atmosphere that clouds this period of war, Spottiswoode delivers the tale with compassion and allows the immediacy of the boys' tragedies to become a turning point for Hogg.
As the Japanese army threatens to occupy their home, Hogg proposes a 700-mile journey to climb every mountain by traveling the Silk Road in the footsteps of Marco Polo. Harkening ahead to the Von Trapps -- with 60 children instead of seven and the safety of the desert instead of Switzerland -- he gains the children's trust and attempts the impossible.
Perhaps a narrow slice of a complicated life, the focus of The Children of Huang Shi falls to the emotional toll that the horrors of war have on each individual. Each survivor is left with a nightmare that must be overcome, and the burden of memories is never discussed but always understood. The film is not grandly hopeful for a peaceful future, but rather it attempts to find solace for characters whose wounds are so fresh that they have not yet been able to numb them.
The story is rich and moving, delicately peeling back the layers of the cost of war for a small group of refugees. Touchingly, the film briefly features interviews with some of the actual orphans who recall the man who accidentally saved their lives.