Empire Of The Sun Film Analysis

778 Words2 Pages

Wenjia Yu
Mrs. Englenton
AP World History
21 April 2014
Empire of the Sun
Empire of the Sun, produced and directed by Steven Spielberg in 1987, is a movie that documents a young boy’s experience during World War II. The film was based on J. G. Ballard’s part autobiographical, part fiction novel, Empire of the Sun. Jim (played by Christian Bale) is a young, wealthy British boy living with his parents in Shanghai during World War II. The Japanese storms in and attacks Shanghai one day, and everyone frantically tries to escape the chaos. Jim loses his parents in the crowd and goes back to his house only to find it taken by the Japanese troops. Desperate for food and water, Jim attempts to surrender himself to the Japanese with no avail. He meets an American man, Basie (John Malkovich), and both are captured and sent by the Japanese to a detention camp, and later transferred to the Soochow Creek Interment camp. Jim settles in at the POW camp and runs errands, trades items, and form relationships with the prisoners and the guards—including camp official, Nagata. By helping around, Jim becomes well liked among the adults and eventually moves in with Basie. The prisoners in the camp live in bad conditions and the rations of grits and potatoes are low, forcing many to go hungry and famished. It is now August 1945 and after the attack of the camp by American aircrafts, the prisoners are forced out of the camp. Jim hears that the US has bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, officially ending the pacific war with Japan’s surrender. Jim separates from the group and struggles to survive until he walks back to the old Internment Camp. There, food is dropped from the sky, Jim sees Basie again, and US soldiers bring Jim to an orphanage for children ...

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...ay, such as during the viewing of the kamikaze ritual. In the end when Jim and his mother finally reunite, not a word is said. This kind of ending is very vague and unsatisfying, yet really reveals all the horrors and struggles that Jim has been through. The past couple of years have made him forget what his parents even looked like and the exhausted boy seems to age right before our eyes with that simple interaction. Empire of the Sun is recommended to any history buff or any student keen on gaining insight to the life civilians during the War, despite the fact that it is difficult to grasp and appreciate the plot without basic background knowledge about World War II and the events leading up to it. Empire of the Sun receives 3.5 out of 4 stars, due to the good acting and realistic and accurate portrayal of historical events, with minor faults in plot development.

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