Episode 58: Empire of the Sun (1987)

Wot wot, old top! Blimey, ‘tis time for another spot of the old “I Keep Meaning to Watch That,” dontcherknow.  Now, everyone join in for a rousing chorus of “God Save the Queen,” there’s good chaps!

Right, I’ll stop now.  I don’t even know why I did that.  Bit silly, really.  It’s not like this movie was made by an English fellow.  No.  It’s made by the very American Mr. Steven Spielberg and it was my choice this week.  Why? Because while I’ve seen quite a few of Spielberg’s motion picture talkies, I’d never seen this one and dadgummit, I wanted to.  So we did.  Based on the semi-autobiographical novel by J.G. Ballard, it stars a 12-year-old Batman.  Sorry, I mean a 12-year-old Christian Bale, as well as a fully-grown John Malkovich and an equally adult Miranda Richardson and tells the story of a young upper-class English boy who has been growing up in Shanghai during the prelude to WWII and suddenly finds his world turned upside down when the Japanese invade China.  The boy is sent to a Japanese internment camp where he has to grow up fast and learn an entirely new way the world works.  Is this one of Mr. Spielberg’s better efforts? Buy us a pint, guv, and we’ll suss it right out . . . OW! Ok, ok, sorry Mike, I’ll stop.

4 thoughts on “Episode 58: Empire of the Sun (1987)”

  1. Ok, that was my screw-up; I posted the “Godfather” and “Empire of the Sun” episodes in the wrong order. Nicely caught! Umm …. beeeecaaause …. it was a test! Yeah, that’s it! I was testing to see if anyone was paying attention! Yeah, that’s the ticket!
    So next week is another of our Specials, followed by a brand new series. I’m pretty sure.

  2. This is a great movie, I think I saw it on video when I ran a video store first. I saw “the color purple” in cinema and I HATED it. I found it insulting. No the acting, or even the story (though it pretty much cut out the blatant lesbian stuff) but the direction. Goldberg was used like E.T. or a special effect to me. Close Encounters lost the Oscar for special effects in 1977 to Star Wars which was a shame, the effects in Close encounters were and still are amazing. I was mortified by that. LOL

    1. Saw “Empire” on video years ago, don’t remember why. Never saw “Purple,” but CE3k was always one of my favorites. Saw it many times in the theater and it still holds up. This Christian Bale might just have a career in front of him!

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