Excellent And Believable

Rating: 8/10 (9 January 2006)

Young Christian Bale offered a powerful performance in this drama about a young boy separated from his family after the Japanese occupation of Shanghai and sent to an internment camp, where he has to find a way to survive.
Bale's portrayal of Jamie (or Jim) was the highlight of this movie. I thought he captured the boy's confusion perfectly. Raised in Shanghai, as a child of privilege living in an opulent British enclave, Jamie has lost touch with his British roots (as he notes at one point in the movie, he's never even been to Britain.) He admires the Japanese and, although he never actually says this, one gets the impression that he'd really like the Japanese to win the war. At the same time, he becomes increasingly aware of the brutal treatment those interned with him are receiving at the the hands of their Japanese captors.
In the camp, Jamie is befriended by Basie (John Malkovich), an American prisoner with whom he establishes a somewhat complicated relationship. Basie comes to treat him largely as an adult; while Jamie depends on him more and more. Their friendship has its ups and downs, and Malkovich also put on a good performance in the role.
Although the story is fictional, it struck me as a believable portrayal of something that could have happened. I had a little bit of trouble with the timeline. The first half of the movie is set obviously in late 1941, just before and after the Japanese attack, and then there is a sudden shift to 1945 in the last half of the movie. The intervening years are left out. One wonders about what life in the internment camp had been like in those intervening years. I found that omission of 3 plus years a bit jolting, although doing much with it would have made a long movie even longer. Essentially, as I think back to the story, three scenes remain with me: (1) when Jamie, looking for his toy plane, stumbles across the Japanese soldiers; (2) when Jamie is separated from his mother (played by Emily Richard); and (3) the last scene of the movie, which I won't describe because I don't want to spoil it.
Overall, I thought this movie was excellent. 8/10