Empire of the Sun

I can't believe it took me so long to get around to watching this film, it was incredible and it's easily one of the best films Steven Spielberg ever made. My mind boggles as to why he was snubbed so badly at the 1987 Oscars only to land so many accolades for his other WWII films a few years later. Oh wait, my mind doesn't boggle at all - those two other films involved Americans and Jews, of course they were going to win awards. Silly me.

Anyway, this is an excellent film. I haven't read the famous book so I can't comment in regards to it, but everything about this movie felt right and I didn't feel like I'd been cheated out of any information or things like that. A very young Christian Bale actually gives one of his best performances here as a British artful dodger-styled schoolboy in Japanese-occupied China, and his acting feels a damn sight less forced and poseur-ish than a lot of his most recent stuff (especially things like Terminator Salvation and The Dark Knight). John Malkovich is equally brilliant as the circumspect American scumbag who shows Bales' character how to survive in wartorn China. His introduction is beautifully shot, it's like Spielberg was predicting that Malkovich would one day be a star and hence threw all his craftmanship and knowhow into this one sequence. Also look out for an early supporting role from a fairly serious Ben Stiller.

Although I didn't feel like the film had lost any of it's punch or coherency, I was still a little saddened to realise that a lot of footage had been cut (especially in regards to the part played by Paul McGann, who came to this film fresh from his breakthrough leading role in Withnail and I and ended up mostly on the cutting room floor for his troubles). Empire of the Sun is just begging for an epic director's cut... it's a shame that the film isn't more well regarded as positive critical attention would probably encourage Spielberg to do such a thing. Anyway, this is a forgotten classic, one of Spielberg's absolute best and unfairly unsung, and shows the famous director at a point in his career when he was finally starting to combine his flair for entertainment with the kind of artistic merit they usually give Oscars out for. It's also the closest anyone other than David Lean ever got to making a true David Lean epic.