Horrible movie with even worse playing of history

Rating: 1/10 (13 February 2002)

Somehow, I don't understand why Spielberg chose to make this movie. It was essentially a prison camp movie but why set it in China? If it is in China, then why is it about white people? In the entire movie, the Japanese are glorified as a warrior nation, while the Chinese are portrayed as dirty people. If Spielberg wanted to make a prison camp movie, he should have just skipped to Schindler's List or make a movie about a REAL prison camp perhaps. It seemed like Spielberg simply wanted to make a movie in China, since he haven't done so before. But Spielberg decides to completely neglect the real victims in the war, the Chinese, and decide to make a movie about a tiny minority that was stupid enough to still pursue their imperialistic fortunes even at a time of war.
Some historical concerns. In the beginning of the movie, it states that China and Japan has been in 4 years of undeclared war already, therefore the starting scene was set in 1941. Shanghai fell in 1937. Also, Shanghai fell only after the largest battle of WW2, the Battle of Shanghai, and in the movie it seemed like the Japanese all of a sudden walked into the city and caught everyone by surprise. The Battle of Shanghai took 3 months! You would think people would know to get out of Shanghai by now, especially Westerners who had the means and a place to go, BACK HOME! Also, Shanghai was liberated by the Nationalist army, not by Americans, but whatever, its a Hollywood movie. This movie only had a couple historical mistakes because there was only a couple scenes of history in it! The prison camp could have been anywhere, anytime, any war, just change the subjugators. The scenary of the camp was also bland and generic enough to make you think it was filmed in Bakerfield. The generic camp also made the movie completely generic. All this makes you wonder, why China? If China, why this? It's not like the China war had much movies made about it. Spielberg could have made much better movies with China in WW2 as the background, such as something about the Nanking Massacre, or the Chinese defense against the Japanese, or even the American "flying tigers". Instead Spielberg chose the most unrealistic and obscure nook to make a grand epic about. Baffling. The movie itself was bland except for the boy, who made you wonder if he had gone crazy from the change around him. One minute he was a pampered kid from a western imperialist family, the next he was a refugee, although still better treated than the Chinese. Atleast he wasn't shot immediately on sight. Watching this movie makes me sad about how the world is treating the 2nd Sino-Japanese war from 1937-45 as a forgotten war.