Empire of the Sun

I was a big, big fan of this movie back when it originally came out, and re-watching it now, I still think it’s a great movie, especially the amazing performance by a very young Christian Bale. Sure, this being one of Spielberg’s first forays (if not the first) at making a serious drama, he does slip a bit at times (like the scene where Bale finds the old fighter plane and pretends he’s flying it, with his paper model flying around), and I feel like the John Williams score doesn’t work a lot of times (too “movie”), but for the most part it’s a mesmerizing film, and shows a side of WW2 that we didn’t really see elsewhere (the experience of British expats in Shanghai under the Japanese occupation). Still well worth a watch.