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Steven Spielberg’s China-set Empire of the Sun – the first American film to be shot in Shanghai since the 1940s – forgot one important element: the Chinese
- The movie adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s novel starts strong but ultimately falls short, with questionable creative decisions rendering it dated
- Convincing depictions of war-torn Shanghai give way to overly sentimental scenes underscored by underrepresentation of Chinese, despite being shot in China
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The year 1987 was pivotal for international co-productions. Two huge Western films grappling with the intricacies of Chinese history – and shot on Chinese soil – were released, and pitted against each other at the Oscars.
The first was Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor, which risked alienating its hosts with some harsh political home truths. The second was even riskier: a US$30 million Steven Spielberg epic shot partly on location in Shanghai, with a cast of thousands and no stars. No wonder the original director lined up for the project, David Lean, passed.
Based on J.G. Ballard’s 1984 novel of the same name, Empire of the Sun tells the story of English schoolboy Jim Graham (a young Christian Bale), who grows up in Shanghai’s International Settlement expat community. “We’re awfully lucky aren’t we?” he muses, “Living here and having everything.”
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