Devilish Yun-Fat Can’t Save Children from Disappointing

George Hogg (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, August Rush) has no desire to be a hero. The British journalist, covering the 1937 Japanese occupation of China, just wants a good story that will being him fame, and he thinks he’s found it after smuggling himself and fellow newsman Barnes (David Wenham, Married Life) into the war-torn province of Nanjing. 

Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Chow Yun-Fat in Sony Pictures Classics' The Children of Huang Shi

After uncovering evidence of a genocidal massacre, Hogg is captured by the military who immediately march him off to a secluded location to be executed. He’s saved at the last possible moment by Chinese guerilla Chen ‘Jack’ Hansheng (Chow Yun-Fat, The Curse of the Golden Flower). Amused by the man and his situation, the charismatic partisan leader takes the reporter to a rundown orphanage to hideout for a while, secretly hoping he’ll be able to assist the 60-plus children struggling there to survive.

His heart irrevocably moved by this calamitous situation, the writer transforms himself from selfish egotist to self-sacrificing father figure doing all he can to keep everyone in the abandoned school-house safe. But when the Japanese inch ever closer to their humble home, Hogg decides to take the children on an unthinkable trip through the 10,000-foot mountains and the unrelenting deserts cutting China in two. It will be a tough journey, some might even say impossible, but the proud Brit is undaunted, his indomitable spirit going to lead these kids to a better life away from bloodshed and war even if it kills him trying to do it.

Part of me feels like The Children of Huang Shi shouldn’t miss. I mean, you can’t get more uplifting then a once self-centered individual finding the strength of character to save a bunch of parentless children, and with Asian legends like Yun-Fat and Michelle Yoeh (Sunshine), re-teaming for the first time since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, in the cast you at least know it can’t be all bad. Yet this Roger Spottiswoode (Tomorrow Never Dies) directed epic bores on almost ever level, and the only thing I found even remotely uplifting was walking out the theater door when it was over.

While that’s maybe a bit harsh, unfortunately it isn’t by all that much. This film oozes saccharine self-importance to the point finding an honest emotion not covered in treacle is a virtual impossibility. This is another entry in the long line of “White Man Saves Colored People” movies, and while I completely agree George Hogg’s tale deserves to be applauded and told I’m just as absolutely certain he wouldn’t want it done like this. The man becomes something akin to a virtual saint, and if he were any more superior to those around him he might as well as just crowned himself King and then be done with it.

There are some moments that work and don’t feel forced or false. Hogg’s early trek through the shattered city of Nanjing is absolutely horrific in its starkly poignant power, while the man’s first meeting with Black Market leader Madame Yang (a slinky and seductive Yoeh) is suitably intoxicating. There is also a great moment with one of the kids who has become deeply connected with the cultivation of the orphanage’s garden, his reaction upon realizing it must be destroyed before they leave for a new home devastatingly priceless.

The other huge plus here is Yun-Fat. His part may be small but the man certainly makes the most of it. He is a dynamic presence giving the film energy and urgency it doesn’t possess without him. Every time he showed up my heart skipped a beat and I felt a small pang of quiet joy, the actor so good that even a slightly upturned devilish grin is near enough to save the picture from its eventual failure.

He just can’t do it, however, and when the movie finally crashes down into maudlin and overly trite melodrama I couldn’t help but find difficultly in hiding my frustration. Spottiswoode directs with all the subtlety of an elephant, and where that approach can work in straight ahead action pictures like his woefully underrated Shoot to Kill or a James Bond sequel it fails miserably here. There were times I felt like was being smacked up the side of the head by a Japanese machine gun, and as good as some of the performances are (Meyers is far better then the material probably warrants) it’s just not enough.  

There is a good movie just waiting to be made about the Japanese invasion of China during Word War II. There is probably an even better documentary that could be constructed about George Hogg and his heroic exploits. The Children of Huang Shi, however, is not it, the film nothing more than another disappointment in a 2008 already littered with them.

Film Rating: êê  (out of 4)

Additional Links:

-  2008 SIFF Blog by Sara Michelle Fetters
-  2008 Seattle International Film Festival Home Page
-   The Children of Huang Shi Theatrical Trailer