Review of The Children of Huang Shi (2008) by Robert F — 27 Sep 2008

I'm awarding this film high marks mainly for its technical achievements. The cinematography was excellent, and the locations used were majestic. The music was also beautiful, and if there were a soundtrack ever released, I'd definitely buy it.

It's a shame that this technical brilliance was undercut somewhat by stilted performances and heavy-handed direction. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers was miscast in the lead role, but hell, it's not like he's an eye-sore or anything, so I got over that.

But the accents were pretty bad - Rahda Mitchell's in particular, who spoke with a scattered mix of American, British, and Australian all at once. Some of the delivery was cringe-worthy also - it was like listening to the voice acting done for a cartoon show: all the meaning and emotion was put into the words and little attention was given to facial expression or body language.

Having said this, the film did become overly saccharine at times, so maybe any actor would have found the dialogue undeliverable. Still, it seems unfair to harshly penalise the film for all this when it succeeded so well in other areas, so I'm giving it four stars.