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Children of the Silk Road

Movie details

Inspired by true events, "The Children of the Silk Road" tells how a young Englishman, George Hogg 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 edge of the Mongolian desert. And of how, in doing so, he came to understand the true meaning of courage.

Director Roger Spottiswoode

Stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Radha Mitchell, Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Guang Li, David Wenham

Violence and mature themes

Our review

Set in wartorn China during the 1930s, "Children of the Silk Road" is based on real events.

Young English journalist George Hogg (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) enters the country during a time of deep turmoil. George comes from a family famed for their pacifist values but his longstanding principles are quickly tested when he witnesses the horrific massacre of 200 Chinese men, women and children, shot to death by Japanese soldiers in the occupied city of Nanjing.

Soon afterwards, George meets Jack Chen (Chow Yun Fat), the leader of a Chinese partisan group, and an American nurse called Lee (Australian actress Radha Mitchell). He is tasked with managing a group of 60 orphan boys and despite his wish to join the action in bigger cities, he is convinced to stay in the orphanage. Over the course of a few months he transforms from unwilling humanitarian to the children's much-loved guardian.

Also making an appearance in the film is a local merchant called Madame Wang, played with supreme grace by Michelle Yeoh. Two other Australians also feature: David Wenham in a small role as a journalist; and newcomer Guang Li. In this, his first major feature role, Li plays an aggressive teenage orphan called Shi-Kai who is initially resistant to George's presence.

Although a fascinating story, "Children of the Silk Road" fails to build enough tension to pull us through, even when the children and their guardians become refugees and must make a perilous journey through the mountains.

Perhaps key to this is that most of the characters are too undeveloped for viewers to form any emotional attachment to them. Jonathan Rhys Meyers, with his blazing blue eyes, has a strange and enigmatic quality that is distracting - his character should have been hardier and more approachable. Chow Yun Fat, meanwhile, is unendingly smug.

The only character with real complexity is Lee, played with perfect tenor by Mitchell. Abandoning her future as an army wife in America, Lee has fled to China and become a self-trained nurse. Mitchell delivers Lee as a mix of pragmatism and total fearlessness, but someone who also harbours dark shadows.

Really, the mutual devotion between George and the children should have been at the heart of "Children of the Silk Road" but is probably the film's biggest missing piece.

5/10

Monica Tan