ShareThisWhat matters about "The Children of Huang Shi" isn't that its inspired-by-a-true-story umbrella allows it to take a creative approach to dates, events and people, but that its purer motive of wanting to shine a light on a man who placed the welfare of others above himself is a tale worth telling in any form.The legacy of George Hogg is impressive, even if the Brit gets perhaps more credit than he is due in this Chinese-Australian-German co-production. Whether leader or follower, Hogg is the key to this inspiring tale.An Oxford graduate traveling the world, George (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is in Shanghai in 1937 as the Japanese invasion of China grows bloodier. He has gotten credentials as a newspaper correspondent, and he's eager to get to Nanking, from which the Japanese have banned journalists.George finds a way into the forbidden zone, and he witnesses a horrendous slaughter. He's about to lose his own life when Chinese partisan leader "Jack" Chen (Chow Yun-Fat) saves him.It's through Jack that George meets self-taught nurse Lee Pearson (Radha Mitchell), who treats his wounds and then sends him to recuperate at what turns out to be a rural orphanage in need of a manager. George wants to return to the "real" war -- with Nationalist and Communist troops fighting the Japanese and sometimes each other -- but he gradually realizes that his duty is helping these forgotten boys.Director Roger Spottiswoode ("Tomorrow Never Dies"), working from a script credited to Jane Hawksley and James MacManus, doesn't have all the building blocks he needs. The film primarily is about the awakening of a young man of privilege who experiences and witnesses horrors that he never knew could exist, but it has to show the extraordinary trek that set Hogg's efforts apart, and the two skeins have competing climaxes.Another problem is that, even without a Web search for the real story, it's clear that "Children" uses a Hollywood-style template of romance and heroics that detracts from the specifics of this case. However, the facts protect the story from criticism of it being another film that celebrates a white hero saving members of a non-white culture.Rhys Meyers, Chow and Michelle Yeoh as a merchant whose wares range from food to opium all do fine work. Australian Mitchell's native accent flits in and out, though she's supposed to be an American, and she plays her character in grand melodramatic style.The main kids are terrific, and the cinematography by Zhao Xiaoding is stirring without being distracting. "The Children of Huang Shi" reminds us that loving our neighbors shouldn't be limited by national borders.Rated R for some disturbing and violent content.Three stars (out of five).(Contact Knoxville News Sentinel film critic Betsy Pickle at pickle(at)knews.com.)
'Children of Huang Shi' an inspiring movie about '30s China
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