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Such a frustrating disappointment

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

The acting in this movie is really good.

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.

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.

There already have been more than a few films about China & the peoples straggles in the 1930's & in WW 2. There also have been a few about a dedicated person helping children escaping from wars horrors. So what makes this film so much better.First, this was made in China in actual locations. The scenery is breathtaking.It is based on a real person Charles Hogg a journalist in his 20's,who reluctantly became head of a school of orphans,who with the help of a young nurse leads these young children 700 miles across China to a safer area.There was a similar film many years ago with Ingrid Bergman, Inn of the Sixth Happinness; which in itself was an excellent movie.Jonathan Rhyss-Meyer who is under 30 is Hogg & fits the role perfectly. Radha Mitchell is the Aunstralian nurse ,she has a difficult role to play, she does have personal problems.She too, fits here role perfectly.Ynn Fat Chow (AKA Chow Yun Fat)is a soldier & Hogg's friend. This fine actor has yet to give a bad performance. Michelle Yeoh also has a major role & is greatIn fact all the acting & all the production values are first rate.This film is based on fact,I cannot & will not say how accurate it is. I only know I felt watching it, I saw a wonderful well made film.As one would expect there are some clichés, Very few if any films escape from having themIt was excellently directed by Roger Spottiswoode. It did have a theatrical run in the USA, playing in small handful of theatres.WHY OH WHY do they do this is beyond me. Granted there are few exciting action packed scenes, this is NOT that type of film.. Ratings; **** (out of 4) 98 points (out of 100) IMDb 10 (out of 10)

THE CHILDREN OF HUANG SHI is a long (greater than two hours) epic tale that happens to be a true story of an extraordinary hero's life and gift to humanity during World War II. If as a film the telling of this story is a bit shaky in spots, it is probably due to the episodic series of events that happened very quickly and under existing conditions of profound stress. Yet despite the occasional misfires in production this remains a bit of history we all should know. George Hogg (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a journalist assigned to Shanghai in 1937 and with his colleagues he plans to explore the extent of the invasion of China by the Japanese. Under the guise of Red Cross workers his small band manages to enter Nanjing where now alone due to the loss of his friends to battle he observes and photographs the atrocities of mass murders of the people of Nanjing. He is captured by the Japanese, tortured when his confiscated camera reveals his terrifying photographs, and it is only by acts of fortune and the aid of a Chinese Nationalist Chen Hansheng (Chow Yun-Fat) that he escapes. Hogg probes the Chinese countryside for further evidences of the evil of the Japanese invasion, and he finds a village of children (adults are all absent) and realizes that he is in an orphanage without a leader. At first reluctant to assume the role of guardian of these impoverished and filthy frightened children, he soon accepts his responsibility and is challenged by an Australian nurse Lee Pearson (Radha Mitchell) to become not only the caretaker but also the father/teacher/provider/role model these children so desperately need. Seeing the advancing of the Japanese, Hogg decides to take his wards 700 mile away to a small village by the Gobi desert reachable only by the infamous Silk Road. It is this journey and the way both the children and Hogg are affected by the challenge that absorb the greater part of the film. Observing the transformation of George Hogg's view of the world is made credible by Jonathan Rhys Meyers' performance. The cast of children often steals the limelight, but with supporting cast members such as Chow Yun-Fat, Radha Mitchell and Michelle Yeoh as an opium merchant the story never lacks color and character. The look of the film is dark, but the message of this story is full of light. Here is a bit of Chinese history we should all know! Grady Harp

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.