Drama · History · War
American
1987 · Directed by Steven Spielberg · 153 min
Shanghai, 1941: Jim Graham, a young English boy, lives in comfortable privilege in the International Settlement and dreams of aeroplanes. As war reaches the city, his sheltered world is tested, and the film follows what a child makes of a catastrophe he is too young to understand.
Why it matters in cinema history
A key film in the late 1980s revival of the large-scale historical drama, and the work in which Spielberg first stepped away from pure entertainment into adult war and history, a path that led to his later historical films.
Watch with intention
Watch the war as Jim sees it: through a child's wonder, appetite and denial, not through the moral framework an adult would use.
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