This article is about the 1984 novel and its 1987 film adaptation. Empire of the Sun is also another name used for the Empire Of Japan .
'' is a
1984 novel by
J. G. Ballard . Though it is essentially fiction, it draws extensively on Ballard's experiences in
World War II , recounting the story of a young English boy, Jim Graham, who is living with his parents in
Shanghai just before its capture by the Japanese. Ballard later wrote a sequel to the book, called ''
The Kindness Of Women ''.
The book was adapted for the big screen by
Tom Stoppard and Menno Meyjes in
1987 . Their screenplay was filmed by
Steven Spielberg , to critical acclaim, being nominated for six
Oscar s and winning three
British Academy Awards (for Cinematography, Music and Sound). It starred a 13-year-old
Christian Bale ,
John Malkovich , and
Miranda Richardson .
Bale received a special citation for Best Performance by a Juvenile Actor from the
National Board Of Review — an award specially created for his performance in ''Empire of the Sun''.
Bale's
Welsh heritage reportedly inspired the director to use the Welsh song "
Suo Gan ," sung by James Rainbird and the Richard Williams Singers, as part of the music in the film.
In
Shanghai ,
China ,
1941 , on the eve of the Japanese invasion of the foreign quarters of Shanghai (the city itself fell in
December 1937 ), a young boy, Jim “Jamie” Graham, lives a privileged life. His father is a rich British businessman who owns a large house on the outskirts of Shanghai. Jamie attends an exclusive prep school where he sings lead in the choir and is generally sheltered from the Chinese culture and people that surround him daily. Jamie is also particularly rude to the servants his father employs in their house.
Jamie, his mother and his father all attend a Christmas costume ball at the estate of friends. While playing with a toy glider, Jamie encounters a unit of Japanese soldiers near the estate. Jamie comments that the soldiers all appear to be “waiting for something to happen.” The “something” they await is the
Attack On Pearl Harbor .
The invasion of Shanghai occurs within a few days of the party, while Jamie’s father has his family housed in a downtown hotel. The evacuation of the city begins instantly. Forced from their limousine, the Graham family finds themselves crushed in amongst the crowds fleeing the Japanese Army. Jamie and his mother are forcibly separated from his father and within moments Jamie and his mother are forced apart by the crowds. His mother yells for him to run home.
Jamie walks home and finds his house deserted. He also discovers signs of a struggle in his mother’s room. Jamie also finds two of his parent’s servants taking furniture from the house. Asking what they are doing, he is astonished when one of them does not answer but instead slaps him with impunity.
Jamie lives in the house for an undetermined length of time, waiting his parent’s return. After what must be several months (indicated by the dropping level of water in the swimming pool) he ventures into Shanghai to find it entirely controlled by the Japanese. Wishing to surrender to a group of soldiers for some food, he is laughed at. He is chased through the city’s back alleys by an orphaned Chinese boy trying to loot him for his clothes. As he tries to escape, he is nearly run over by a truck driven by an American, Frank. Frank takes Jamie to his partner, Basie, a self-centered American hiding out in an abandoned freighter in the harbor. He deftly steals several of Jamie’s personal belongings and assumes that the boy’s parents were captured with the other British who were unable to flee Shanghai. Basie gives Jamie a new nickname, “Jim.”
Basie and Frank try to rid themselves of Jim, seemingly by selling him off to those who would use him for manual labor. When Basie and Frank are about to abandon Jim to the streets, Jim tells them that he’ll show them houses in his former neighborhood with the promise of “rich pickings.” They travel to Jim’s old house and are captured by the Japanese who are now living there. The trio are placed in a temporary detention center where living conditions are horrible. Food is scarce, the dead are rarely removed, and stealing is the only way to survive. After a few days a selection takes place; those who are chosen will be sent to a prisoner-of-war camp outside Shanghai. Basie is selected but Jim is not. Jim pleads with Basie to take him along but Basie ignores him. Jim’s tenacity pays off; he is able to convince the Japanese sergeant and the truck driver that he knows where the location of the camp is. He is allowed to guide the driver to
Suzhou Creek .
The passengers arrive at the Soochow Creek Internment camp and are quickly put to work constructing a runway for the Japanese air force. Jim wanders away from the group and finds several
Japanese Zeros being worked on. Overcome by his lifelong dream to be a pilot, Jim touches one of the planes, drawing a threat from a nearby soldier. The soldier is about to shoot Jim when three pilots walk up to Jim. Jim salutes them and they return the salute. The soldier decides not to shoot the boy.
The story then jumps ahead to 1945, a few months before the end of World War II. Jim is now about 13 or 14 years old and has etched out a good living in the camp, despite the poor living conditions. He has an extensive trading network, involving even the camp’s commanding officer, Sergeant Nagata. He is being schooled by the camp’s British doctor, Rawlins, who has a difficult time teaching Jim humility. Rawlins has Jim help him with a dying patient; Jim administers
CPR (which was not in practice until the 1950s, this is possibly a deliberate error in the film) and the patient shows signs of life despite having obviously died. Jim is overly excited at his prowess and frantically continues CPR despite the patient’s passing.
Jim visits Basie daily in the American men’s section of the camp. The Americans have a broad appeal for Jim; their lifestyle is considerably more relaxed and obviously more fun than their dull British counterparts. Jim’s goal is to impress Basie enough so that he can move into the American men’s barracks.
Jim later rescues Dr. Rawlins from the wrath of Sgt. Nagata, who beats the doctor for defiance. As the doctor lays bleeding on the porch of the camp hospital, Jim delivers a humbling speech to the sergeant, who stops the beating and storms off. As a reward the doctor gives Jim a pair of golf shoes that belonged to a deceased patient.
Jim gets his chance to impress Basie when Basie charges him with setting snare traps outside the wire of the camp to catch wild pheasants that Basie claims have been roosting there. Jim creeps into the marsh undetected, but the golf shoes he left behind are discovered by Nagata, who tromps into the marsh to find the owner. Just as Nagata is about to find Jim he is distracted by a Japanese boy from the air base on the other side of the wire, whom Jim has “befriended” despite their separation. Jim is able to escape undetected. He is also allowed to move into the American barracks next to Basie. He is also given an angry Frank’s bed.
In the meantime, Basie has been plotting to escape the camp. Though not explicitly revealed, Basie’s reason for sending Jim into the marsh was to test the area for mines. While they use a makeshift compass to plot direction, Nagata unexpectedly visits Basie’s corner of the barracks. He becomes enraged when he finds a bar of soap that was discreetly stolen by Jim earlier. He severely beats Basie, enough to send him to the infirmary. While being beaten, Basie had charged Jim with watching his possessions. Jim proves to be an inadequate supervisor and Basie’s things are stolen by his barracks-mates. Jim leaves the American barracks in shame.
One morning at dawn, Jim witnesses a
Kamikaze pilot’s ritual at the air base. Overcome with emotion at the solemnity of the ceremony, he begins to sing the same song he did as a choir boy in Shanghai. As the pilots take off on their suicide mission the base is attacked by a squadron of
P-51 Mustang s. Jim runs to the roof of a building and cheers them on. The base is destroyed in a matter of minutes, Dr. Rawlins finds Jim on the roof and brings Jim back to reality by telling him “not to think so much.”
The Japanese decide to evacuate the camp. Jim returns excitedly to the American barracks to tell Basie and finds out his friend escaped during the air force raid. Jim is devastated that Basie would abandon him for another American prisoner, Dainty, especially when Basie led Jim to believe he'd take the boy with him.
The camp’s population begins a grueling march to Nantow where they are told there will be food. Many die along the way, including Mrs. Victor, a British woman who was Jim's "neighbor" at Soochow. As Jim sits with her body among the war spoils stored in Nantow Stadium by the Japanese, Jim sees a bright light in the sky to the East. He believes it to be Mrs. Victor's soul floating to Heaven but finds out later, through a radio broadcast, that it was the flash from the
Atomic Bomb dropped on
Nagasaki , hundreds of miles away.
Starving and weak, Jim trudges back to the camp at Soochow. Making his way through rice paddies, he notices cylindrical objects attached to parachutes falling from the sky. They contain
Red Cross relief packages and food items. Jim fills a parachute with supplies and arrives at the camp. He finds the same young Japanese boy he new from his interrment angrily slashing at the plants in the marsh with his
Samurai Sword . (Earlier the boy, now a pilot, had failed to start his plane as Jim and the other prisoners were leaving the camp.) The boy offers Jim a
Mango and begins to cut it with his sword. A moment later he is shot dead by one of Basie’s companions, who have rushed into the camp, looting supply canisters. Jim is furious and throws the man who shot his friend into the marsh and begins to punch him. Basie drags him off and promises to take him back to Shanghai and find his parents. Jim refuses the offer and stays behind.
Jim is found by a unit of American soldiers. He is sent back to Shanghai and housed with other children who have lost their parents. Jim is obviously more scarred by his experiences during the war than the other kids, so much so, that he doesn’t recognize his parents when they arrive at the home and they scarcely recognize him. The paralysis is broken when his mother finds him in the crowd. Jim collapses into his mother’s arms.
The loss of innocence and the onset of adolescence are the themes that dominate the story. What makes Jim's situation unique is that the adolescent phase of his life develops against the backdrop of international war. Jim grows up rich and spoiled and is destined to be a foreign businessman, a tai-pan, like his father. This lifestyle is wholly shattered when World War II, which actually had been underway for several years since the Japanese had invaded
Manchuria in
1932 and the Nazi Army had invaded
Poland in September of
1939 , finally reaches the British concessions in Shanghai. Jim is forced into pure survival when he is separated from his parents. He must also enter the seedy underworld of Shanghai that he had been previously (and deliberately) sheltered from his entire life.
The second half of the film shows how Jim is forced to deal with his impending transition into adulthood. Although a young teenager, Jim show signs of the entrepreneurship that his father must have possessed in Shanghai. However, Jim does, as most teenagers do, experience a crisis of identity while interred at Soochow Creek: the lifestyle he is expected to assume as a Brit is one that bores him. The carefree life of Americans is much more appealing, especially since one of his closest friends is Basie. What Jim does not (or cannot) surmise because of his young age is Basie's willingness to use Jim for his own selfish plans. Hence, Basie feels little or no guilt about sending a child into the marsh to see if it has been booby-trapped.
The question of whether or not Jim matures into a young adult is left open at the end of the film. When he is left alone in the prison camp he reverts to his childish ways; riding a bicycle indoors, laughing, horseplay and childishly "surrendering" to the American officer that finds him. When he is reunited with his parents, he has the haggard stare and physical look of a wartime survivor, one that has seen more horrors of war than most children normally would. This illusion is somewhat dispelled when he sees his mother for the first time in four years and touches her face as a younger child would.
