CAST:
George
Hogg .... Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Jake
Chen/Chen Hansheng .... Chow
Yun-Fat
Lee
Pearson .... Radha Mitchell
Madam
Wang .... Michelle Yeoh
Synopsis: [Spoiler Warning] The story of CHILDREN OF THE HUANG
SHI is set
in war-ravaged China during the
late 1930's. It is a story of how a young Englishman,
George
Hogg (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), came to lead sixty orphaned
children
on an extraordinary and
perilous journey of almost a thousand 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
grew to
learn the true meaning of courage. When
George
Hogg graduated from Oxford, he wanted
to be a writer/journalist. He arrived in Shanghai during his world
tour and became a
wartime
journalist. He did not realize the cruelty of the war until he
witnessed the infamous Nanking
Massacre (during which an
estimated 300,000 Chinese civilians were killed). He wanted
to
report the horrible truth to the world but the pictures he took
were
discovered by Japanese
soldiers and he was arrested. Jack Chen (Chow Yun-Fat), a West
Point graduate and a
military officer of
a communist guerrilla force, rescued him from under the Japanese's
gun.
Hogg and Chen became friends. When the injured
Hogg needed a place to nurse his
wounds, Chen was looking for a place where the English speaker
could safely stay. An
Australian nurse, Lee Pearson (Radha Mitchell), suggested Huang Shi
in Hubei province.
In the beautiful mountains of
Huang Shi lived some missionaries and they hosted a
home
for some war orphans. When George Hogg arrived in Huang
Shi,
the last missionary had just
died of illness and he found 60 unruly orphaned boys running
around. The horrible experience
in
their lives made them disobedient. Hogg did not like this place and
he wanted to return to
the real war frontier. Lee Pearson
suddenly left and he was left to take care of the children
by
himself. A widowed aristocrat and local retail merchant, Madam
Wang
(Michelle Yeoh),
became his only help. Hogg's effort had gained him love from the
children by the time
Chen and Pearson
returned. The war did not spare them. The Japanese army
was
approaching and the Nationalist Party wanted the older boys
to
join the Chinese army to fight
the Japanese. Hogg decided the only escape for the boys was to
travel to a safe haven in the
inner
Mongolian desert. George Hogg, Jack Chen, Lee Pearson, and the
60 children went
on the arduous 1,000 mile journey. They
experienced the dangerous conditions such as
snowstorms and sandstorms and once they barely missed running
into
Japanese soldiers
face to face. Three adults, two men and one woman, developed some
relationships among
each other.
They finally arrived in Shandan, Gansu province. There they had
planned to
build a new home and new school for the boys.
(Major spoiler warning - highlight the text in
the brackets to read)[ George Hogg caught tetanus from a minor
injury he sustained
from the
journey. They tried but failed to find blood serum to save him. He
died at the age of 30. ]
taken from http://thechildrenofhuangshi.blogspot.com/
Official Websites:
www.childrenofhuangshi.com
http://huangshidehaizi.ent.sina.com.cn/