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83It radiates intelligence. Of how many historical epics can that be said these days?
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67What Spottiswoode lacks in subtlety and restraint, he balances with a heartfelt passion for the material.
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67It's a polished, beautifully shot story, and it acknowledges the messiness of real life. But like real life, it's often baffling and frustrating.
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63Tells an engrossing story of a remarkable man, but nevertheless it's underwhelming. Dramatic and romantic tension never coil very tightly, as the film settles into a contented pace.
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63This formulaic adventure pays tribute to George Hogg, a true hero largely forgotten everywhere but China, where a statue of him now stands -- a rare honor for a westerner.
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63What ought to be the pinnacle of the story - the orphans' odds-defying 500-mile march over snow-covered mountains toward the relative safety of the Mongolian desert - is shunted toward the end of the film and compressed to a near-footnote.
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60Full of incident but nearly devoid of dramatic tension, The Children of Huang Shi is a based-on-fact saga that has lost much of its power on the long road to the screen.
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60Roger Spottiswoode directs with old-fashioned style, avoiding the saccharine with realistic depictions of a war-ravaged China (where he filmed) and a cast well versed in stiff-upper-lip.
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50Cinematographer Zhao Xiaoding manages some lovely images, and some of Spottiswoode's compositions remind you he's capable of fine work. But Hogg never comes to life, on the page or on the screen.
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50You can be 100 percent in favor of rescuing adorable orphans from war-torn zones and still find The Children of Huang Shi a tough haul.
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50Sometimes the most compelling real-life stories make better documentaries than dramas. Such would seem to be the case with The Children of Huang Shi.
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50One of those international co-productions full of good intentions and blandly polished results.
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A tale as ploddingly familiar as it is good-looking and worth telling.
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50If you can get past the Eurocentric focus, there are worse ways to pass the time than to see The Children of Huang Shi, if only because the glimpse into the time and place are captivating and the images are gorgeous.
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50Giving Jonathan Rhys Meyers the kind of manly yet paternal role Spencer Tracy once mastered, this carefully wrought international production relates the basic story of reporter George Hogg without any vibrancy, emotion or style.
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The best thing about "Children" is the cinematography by Zhao Xiaoding ("Hero," "House of Flying Daggers"), which is so distracting because it so out-classes the rest of the movie.
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50Director Roger Spottiswoode (Tomorrow Never Dies) uses the children and action sequences to good effect, but a lack of chemistry between Rhys Meyers and Mitchell makes the love story fizzle.
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42An old-fashioned story of courage and self-sacrifice in the face of war and deprivation. It's also sappy, boring and obvious.
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40Never achieves the David Lean style of epic it aims for - exterior vistas and interior dramas - but it has two charismatic performances, beautiful Chinese locations and an admirable lack of sentimentality.
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Unfortunately, like so many movies that celebrate a historical hero, Children is plagued by an overblown sense of its own importance.
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38Beautiful but boring.
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25It's like "Schindler's List" crossed with "The Sound of Music," and Roger Spottiswoode directs it in a stiff, lifeless, utterly dated style of international squareness.
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