Empire of the Sun

An adaptation of the autobiographical book by J. G. Ballard was something I had been looking forward to for a long time. It has an interesting theme and a great cast (Christian Bale, Miranda Richardson, John Malkovich). Empire of the Sun may also remind us of The Lover by Marguerite Duras in its broad scope, but like other Spielberg retro films, I'm afraid it has become dated. This amounts to an interesting trip into the cinema of the 1980s. Young Bale was already incredibly talented back then, but for a deeper experience, you would need to see the film back then. (01/31/2020)

Spielberg can tell these stories like no-one else (in this case, so well that I'm surprised he wasn't awarded the golden statuette) and in an incredible way he was able to capture the atmosphere of the Second World War from a perspective I've probably never seen before. Christian Bale had already shown with his first role that great things could be expected of him, and in twenty years he’s managed to prove it, as evidenced by his current roles. Plus, John Malkovich and Joe Pantoliano make an excellent duo, and when Ben Stiller showed up I couldn't believe my eyes. It's quite fun to watch older movies with actors who were new stars at the time. (07/22/2008)

An amazingly portrayed real story told from a child’s perspective, which is hurt a little by its excessive runtime and having too many endings. But every scene is so masterfully put together and each of those endings are so emotionally strong and semantically different (which is important), that there’s nothing to complain about. It should be swimming in Oscars, at least for he music and the cinematography. (01/17/2021)

A very romantic take on a Japanese internment camp, which made me regularly suspect several times during the film whether this was the protagonist's fever dream. With The Color Purple, for the first time, you could see the problem of a director's hysterical reverence when depicting major themes, which dilutes the viewing experience. Empire of the Sun presents another of his problems, namely the need to use his directorial skills to highlight traumatic moments in history, but without traumatizing the viewer. This aspect of his personality stems from the fact that as a filmmaker he takes on an exaggerated responsibility for his works, so while he wants us to be aware of the oppression and suffering depicted, he doesn't want to present it to us and instead tries to simulate the importance of the events through the enormity of the film. And he succeeds spectacularly indeed. The air raid on the airport is absolutely breathtaking. (12/08/2021)

Steven Spielberg is not my favorite and this movie didn't change that. I hadn't seen it before, only now. And I have to appreciate how well he managed to capture the time and the setting. Spielberg has a gift for that, as well as for building a story. This time it is relatively darker than usual, but it still didn't touch my heart. However, Christian Bale already showed his qualities back then. (12/05/2015)