stunning view of life in war

Rating: 10/10 (25 February 1999)

The absolute beauty of this film unrivals anything else I've ever seen. People have often viewed it as one of Spielberg's ho-hum adventures, ranking somewhere between Jaws and Schindler's List but it is far more insightful than that. The agony and terror of young Jim slowly turns him into a young man when in the POW camp. So many aspects of this film are visually stunning and emotionally devastating, such as the Japanese occupation of Shanghai, the P-51 attack on the airfield and the death of Jim's young Japanese would be kamakazi pilot. When I saw Saving Private Ryan, the first thing that struck me when the P-51 ripped the Tiger tank apart was Empire of the Sun. Its view of a savage war through a boy's eyes can't be described, it's just absolutely stunning.