AltWeeklies Wire
Roger Spottiswoode's Western-Do-Gooder-in-the-Third-World Flick Lacks Heartnew
The script suggests that the whole point of the brutal Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s was the moral redemption of a cynical British journalist and a guilty American ex-army wife.
Baltimore City Paper |
Geoffrey Himes |
07-08-2008 |
Reviews
'The Children of Huang Shi' Offers a Middling Historical Dramanew
The film is a "based on a true story" movie that feels about nine degrees removed from what probably really did happen -- and that within those degrees was probably a more interesting story.
The Memphis Flyer |
Greg Akers |
07-07-2008 |
Reviews
Good Intentions Can't Save 'The Children of Huang Shi' from a Bad Scriptnew
One gets the sense of the Chinese government looking over the script with a magnifying lens. The commissars are less likely to be embarrassed by the way this film scrubs up the murderous politics of the war era than they ought to be embarrassed by the script.
Metro Silicon Valley |
Richard von Busack |
05-29-2008 |
Reviews
'The Children of Huang Shi': Epic Borenew
Spottiswoode is hardly alone in distilling a distant country's pain into the story of one white Westerner, armed with a similarly pale romantic interest and wry native sidekick, making a difference while world history rages around him.
L.A. Weekly |
Ella Taylor |
05-27-2008 |
Reviews
'The Children of Huang Shi' is Lovely to Look Atnew
But that's about it. The real star of Huang Shi is the cinematographer, Zhao Xiaoding, who was a camera operator on the breathtaking epic Hero and director of photography on House of Flying Daggers.
New York Press |
Raphaela Weissman |
05-22-2008 |
Reviews