Children Of Huang Shi

Gak sengaja gue nonton nih film di Celestial Movies. Udah cukup lama tertarik dengan nih film. Meskipun waktu kemaren nongol di bioskop gak tertarik untuk liat, tapi begitu tau kalo di Celestial Movies bakal main, yah penasaran juga. Dan tadi, gak sengaja nonton. Meskipun gak nonton dari awal, tapi cukup lah untuk bikin gue nonton sampai akhir.

Dari segi cerita, sebenernya tidak sederhana, apalagi dibilang based on true story. Tapi, entah mengapa, film ini kesannya jadi sederhana, dari sisi plot. Tidak ada konflik/ketegangan yang memuncak, tidak ada adegan yang membuat jantung penonton deg-degan setengah mati. Ketegangan ada, tapi tidak yang sampai yang bikin deg-degan abis.

George Hogg (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) is a young British journalist, who comes from St. George's School, Harpenden. In 1938, during the Japanese occupation of China, he sneaks into China by pretending to be a Red Cross aid worker and photographs Japanese atrocities. The Japanese discover this and decide to kill him, but Hogg is saved by Chen Hansheng (Chow Yun-Fat), a Chinese communist resistance fighter. While in the company of communists Hogg sees from a hidden position the execution by the Japanese of two of his colleagues. Shocked by this he exposes himself. In a gun fight that follows Hogg is wounded. To make himself useful while recovering he is sent to an orphanage with 60 boys in Huangshi to help Lee Pearson (Radha Mitchell), the American nurse who runs it. Soon after arrival the boys savagely attack him with sticks; he is saved by Lee, who threatens the boys with leaving.

Instructed to do so by Lee, Hoggs helps to overcome the boys' shyness to be treated nakedly against lice by allowing Lee to demonstrate the treatment on him. Lee leaves for two months, and Hoggs reluctantly stays to avoid that the boys are abandoned by everybody. Hoggs gains the boys' respect by repairing the lighting, being their teacher, etc.

Fleeing from the nationalists who want to make the boys soldiers fighting with them against the Japanese, they make a three-month journey across the snow-bound Liu Pan Shan mountains to safety on the edge of the Mongolian desert, the first 900 km on foot. To their relief, for the last part of the journey they are supplied with four trucks.

At the destination they are supplied with a building that they turn into a new orphanage. In 1945 Hogg dies of tetanus.

Waktu Hogg akhirnya meninggal, as usual, gue nangis. Karena yah...sedih aja gitu, ngeliat bagaimana dia mau menyelamatkan tuh anak-anak dan ngeliat para anak-anak itu juga pada ikut nungguin Hogg. Sedih lah.

Buat gue sih...yah dapet nilai C lah.

Soalnya, dari segi cerita buat gue kurang aja. Bukan karena gue gak nonton dari awal, tapi buat gue kurang di elaborate. Gak dijelasin, bagaimana dia kemudian bisa speak mandarin lancar meskipun (menurut gue) aksen nya masih aksen barat. Atau kenapa tiba-tiba ngasih pinjem mereka truk. Dan perjuangan anak-anak itu melalui silk road juga kurang. Maksudnya, perjalanan itu 'kan bukan perjalanan yang mudah, masak sih enggak ada masalah? Atau kesulitan apa kek? Gak keliatan gitu lho.

Buat gue sih, jujur, sayang aja kalo hal-hal seperti itu gak di elaborate lebih jauh.

Tapi, karena nih cerita buat gue menarik, yah gue kasih C lah :)

Lumayan juga untuk mengisi waktu luang, di saat tv lagi gak ada acara yang menarik.