This is another of Spielberg's more serious works, along with movies like Shindler's list, the Color Purple and Amistad.
It's the story of a young British boy, living in China during WWII. For some strange reason the British don't realize the seriousness of their situation, and before they can flee the country, are rounded up and put in Japanese internment camps. The story centers on a young Brit (Jimmy) who during the confusion is seperated from his family and has to deal with this shocking change of events on his own.
Christian Bale gives an outstanding performance as the young Briton, he is able to get across the snobbish spoiled child, who is then reduced to a frightened, confused lost child, then progressing to the clinging begger trying to survive, and lastly to the bold, confident survivor. All the while never loosing his sense of awe and child-like wonder.
This is truely one of the great child performances of all time...actually, you can strike the word child from the previous sentence, I'm not sure there are many adult actors that could put this off so well!
John Malkovich is excellent in his role as the American doing what he must to survive in this chaos, he wields a certain amount of power, and has no feeling or loyalty to others.
I found the video transfer to be very good, the colors were well saturated, the image was sharp without edge enhancement, detail was good.
I only listened to the 5.1 soundtrack, but found it to be clean and clear, most of it (if not all) is within the front sound stage, which is fine as there's nothing really happening in the rear anyway.
Truely an excellent movie with some wonderful characters and beautiful images.
I'm glad to finally add this to my collection.
It's the story of a young British boy, living in China during WWII. For some strange reason the British don't realize the seriousness of their situation, and before they can flee the country, are rounded up and put in Japanese internment camps. The story centers on a young Brit (Jimmy) who during the confusion is seperated from his family and has to deal with this shocking change of events on his own.
Christian Bale gives an outstanding performance as the young Briton, he is able to get across the snobbish spoiled child, who is then reduced to a frightened, confused lost child, then progressing to the clinging begger trying to survive, and lastly to the bold, confident survivor. All the while never loosing his sense of awe and child-like wonder.
This is truely one of the great child performances of all time...actually, you can strike the word child from the previous sentence, I'm not sure there are many adult actors that could put this off so well!
John Malkovich is excellent in his role as the American doing what he must to survive in this chaos, he wields a certain amount of power, and has no feeling or loyalty to others.
I found the video transfer to be very good, the colors were well saturated, the image was sharp without edge enhancement, detail was good.
I only listened to the 5.1 soundtrack, but found it to be clean and clear, most of it (if not all) is within the front sound stage, which is fine as there's nothing really happening in the rear anyway.
Truely an excellent movie with some wonderful characters and beautiful images.
I'm glad to finally add this to my collection.
