"He was a perfect man," says one of the real-life Chinese orphans, now aged, whose story is told by "The Children of Huang Shi." In the fact-based historical drama's end credits sequence, the man quoted speaks of English journalist George Hogg, who helped save dozens of boys left homeless by the brutal Japanese occupation of China in the late 1930s.
Hogg is the audience's viewfinder, through which it takes in a war-ravaged landscape. But the challenge of bringing Hogg to life is right there in that survivor's testimony. A saint isn't automatically interesting. Quite the opposite.
Very pretty but very stiffly written, "The Children of Huang Shi" strives for epic canvases relaying an intimate story. In following foreign correspondent Hogg's life and mission, director Roger Spottiswoode returns to the world he explored so well in "Under Fire" a generation ago. Here, though, the atmosphere doesn't breathe; it suffocates. The people never come to the forefront. And while there's no polite way to say it, something in the preening, photogenically sullen face of Jonathan Rhys Meyers works against audience sympathy.
I realize screenwriters have to relay the facts and the expository blah-blah some way or other, but in "Children" the writers barely know how to fill in the blanks between the basics. We get a half-dozen title cards before the opening credits, laying out the political particulars. Then, by the numbers, Hogg (Meyers) poses as a Red Cross driver to sneak into the occupied territory Nanjing, where he soon learns the extent of the occupiers' cruelties. Radha Mitchell portrays the American nurse who becomes his partner in orphan-saving. (Plus there's time late in the game for some discreet hey-hey). Chow Yun Fat swaggers around as the Bogartesque guerrilla fighter "Jack" Chen. While Meyers and Mitchell appear preoccupied with their own cheekbones, Fat keeps his head down and periodically enlivens the film.
Meyers sticks to the surface of every emotion, but he certainly can't be blamed for having to tell the improbably glam nurse: "You're a brave, beautiful woman." Pause. "You're the bravest, most beautiful woman I've ever met." Yes, and that's about the silliest line I've ever heard.
Cinematographer Zhao Xiaoding manages some lovely images, and some of Spottiswoode's compositions remind you he's capable of fine work. But Hogg never comes to life, on the page or on the screen. And China's suffering comes off as a backdrop for Anglo self-sacrifice.
