Empire of the Sun has been on my watchlist for quite some time. Unlike most things on my watchlist, I didn’t have a good venue to watch the movie. I saw it was on the leaving soon portion of HBO Max which really motivated me to see the movie as soon as I could.

The movie starts right before Pearl Harbor, but the movie is not set in Hawaii. Rather in Shanghai, China in a small international community of Westerners. The main character is Jamie Graham, just a young boy with wealthy English parents.

The signs of war with Japan become quite apparent, even to a child like Jamie. While their community is technically protected under a treaty, far-right regimes like Imperial Japan might just ignore previously established treaties.

Unsurprisingly, chaos soon unfolds and Jamie is separated from his parents. While not yet a political target for Japanese soldiers, life won’t be easy for Jamie once the war really spreads across China. World War II will take many lives, but will Jamie survive to see 1946?

Overall, I really enjoyed Empire of the Sun a lot. Especially given its very long run time at 2 1/2 hours long. This is one of Steven Spielberg‘s best directing examples, and it was also neat to see Christian Bale at such a young age. I am definitely glad I saw it before it vanished from HBO max.

Score: A-