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Empire of the Sun
My Rating:
(out of 5 stars)
2.5 Stars
Empire of the Sun Poster
Primary Location: First Saw:On Video Saw at/with: With Greta at her West Haven Apt.
Rating: PG" Year: 1987 Category: Drama
Director: Steven Spielberg Time: 154 min. Writer: J.G. Ballard & Tom Stoppard

Reviews
Mine: Too long, and too pretty for the story, but still a good movie. Spielberg has yet to realize that to make a movie about hard topics, the movie can not be so pretty that we all want to be there (see also 'The Color Purple"). Malkovich is terrific.
Leonard Maltin/Plot synopsis: British boy, living a well-sheltered life in Shanghai, is separated from his parents and forced to fend for himself when Japan invades China at the outset of WW2. Sprawling, ambitious, but emotionally distant and loaded with cinematic crescendos (replete with crane camera shots and overbearing music by John Williams) that simply don't have the emotional content to warrant all that fuss. Tom Stoppard adapted J. G. Ballard's autobiographical novel (Ballard appears briefly in Beefeater costume in an early party scene).
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Cast
Christian Bale Christian Bale as:
Jim
John Malkovich John Malkovich as:
Basie
Miranda Richardson Miranda Richardson as:
Mrs. Victor
Nigel Havers as:
Dr. Rawlins
Joe Pantoliano Joe Pantoliano as:
Frank Demerest
Leslie Phillips as:
Maxton
Masato Ibu as:
Sgt. Nagata
Ben Stiller Ben Stiller as:
Dainty