The Children of Huang Shi

Review By: Michael Dance
MichaelDance@TheCinemaSource.com

The Children of Huang Shi doesn't stray far from the formula of epic period pieces: the man who finds redemption by doing something good for the world, the woman he falls in love with, the perilous times that throw obstacles in his path at every turn. While some of this will feel overly familiar, it's not necessarily unwelcome if the story is worth telling.

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers stars as George Hogg, a real guy, who started out as a naïve British journalist and ended up leading sixty orphaned Chinese boys across a thousand-mile stretch to safety. The story begins in 1938 as Hogg sneaks his way into Japan-invaded China, almost gets himself killed, and ends up being sent to a remote village overrun by a group of rambunctious, diseased, and unsupervised boys whose parents were all killed.

You know how it'll work: first he'll resist and want to go home; then he'll develop attachments to some of the boys; then, once they're all friends, the real world will intervene and try to destroy them, which forces them to eventually go on the aforementioned thousand-mile trek to safe land.

The movie's vague "based on true events" stamp leaves me suspicious as to how much of it was just made up, and I'm assuming, apart from the basic structure, a lot. Unfortunately, the reason I can tell is because each supporting character plays a role you've seen a billion times: the strong-willed hottie (Radha Mitchell) who at first despises Hogg but once she realizes he's a reformed man, falls in love with him; the friend with questionable politics who you love anyways because he's effortlessly charismatic (Chow Yun Fat); the one orphan with the tortured past who refuses to accept the outsider.

If you've never seen a movie before, these characterizations might feel fresh, and the movie might feel unpredictable; for the rest of us, we wait patiently for the next plot point and try to admire the cinematography and sturdy technical filmmaking prowess on display.

The central performance always has the potential to be the saving grace of films like these, but Rhys-Meyers doesn't do a thing with his character. A more charismatic actor might win you over and prove the film is worth watching as more than just a history lesson; while I've greatly admired Rhys-Meyers's past performances, especially in Match Point, here he's the perfect microcosm for the entire film: capable but bland.

Movie Grade: C+

Synopsis:

In war-torn 1930's China, a young English journalist, an American nurse and the leader of a Chinese partisan group who meet in desperate and unexpected circumstances. Together they rescue 60-orphaned, children leading them on an extraordinary journey, across hundreds of miles of treacherous terrain, through snow-covered mountains and an unforgiving desert. Along the way they discover the true meaning of love, responsibility and courage.