Visible crew/equipment: When Jim returns to the party with his father after he met the Japanese soldiers, you can see the microphone at the bottom of the screen. (More recent transfers address this and make sure it is not seen).
Empire of the Sun (1987)
Plot summary
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: John Malkovich, Christian Bale, Joe Pantoliano, Miranda Richardson, Leslie Phillips, Nigel Havers
A small boy is separated from his parents in Hong Kong as the Japanese army begins to overrun it in the early stages of their war against China. He finds new friends on the street, but they are captured and sent to a Japanese prison camp. He lives out the rest of his adolescence, forced to be an adult among adults.
More mistakes in Empire of the SunMore quotes from Empire of the Sun
Trivia: When Jim returns home after losing his parents, his nanny slaps him. The actors had practiced a fake slap and fake reaction, but Spielberg and the actress playing the nanny conspired to make the slap real when the cameras were rolling, so Christian Bale's reaction would be genuine. Therefore, Bale is really being slapped, and his shocked reaction is no act.
Question: Most adults in Empire of the Sun either dislike Jim or are openly mean to him. Why?
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Answer: I don't think anyone disliked Jim or was mean to him. Basically, he's a somewhat annoying, overly-active kid that the adults, who are in a very dire situation, simply didn't have much patience or the inclination to deal with. Also, the adults are mostly upper-class British, and in that era and before, they tended to be stricter with and more dismissive of children.
raywest ★