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The Children of Huang Shi

2008

Roger Spottiswoode

Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Radha Mitchell, Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh ...

6.4

4,961

Drama Inspired by true events, THE CHILDREN OF HUANG SHI is a portrayal both sweeping and intimate of people who, thrown into an unexpected and desperate situation, discover their capacity for love and responsibility. It tells how a young Englishman, George Hogg (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) came to lead sixty orphaned boys on an extraordinary journey of almost a thousand perilous miles across the snow-bound Liu Pan Shan mountains to safety on the ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"Tells an engrossing story of a remarkable man, but nevertheless it's underwhelming. Dramatic and romantic tension never coil very tightly, as the film settles into a contented pace. (...) Rating: ★★½ (out of 4)"	NEU
United States	Claudia Puig USA Today	"Sometimes the most compelling real-life stories make better documentaries than dramas. Such would seem to be the case with The Children of Huang Shi. (...) Rating: ★★ (out of four)."	NEU
United States	Jeannette Catsoulis The New York Times	"Roger Spottiswoode directs with old-fashioned style, avoiding the saccharine with realistic depictions of a war-ravaged China (where he filmed) and a cast well versed in stiff-upper-lip."	POS
United States	Robert Koehler Variety	"[It] is intense in its depiction of what a journalist might encounter trying to report and shoot photos of atrocities (...) [It] underlines the general rule that humanitarians frequently don’t make for the most vivid film characters"	NEU
United States	Ruthe Stein SFGATE	"Spottiswoode has taken an inherently dramatic humanitarian story on the order of 'Schindler's List' and 'Hotel Rwanda' and made it inert (...) [It] feels at least a half hour too long"	NEG
United States	Tasha Robinson AV Club	"The sudden switch from national problems to small but intense local ones isn't always satisfying, but it seems briefly, touchingly true-to-life."	NEU
United States	Fernando F. Croce Slant	"'The Children of Huang Shi' takes the good intentions and terrible methods of 'The Constant Gardener' and 'Blood Diamond' and takes them to China (…) Rating: ★½ (out of 4)"	NEU

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