Empire Of The Sun (DVD 2002)

Empire of the Sun tells the moving story of a young British boy living in Shanghai in the early 1940s. Young Jim leads an idyllic lifestyle in an area of China under heavy British influence and control. However in 1941 after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour, the mother country goes to war with the Japanese, the country which has been developing its influence over China since the 30s. At that point Jim's world is turned upside down. He is soon separated from his parents and ends up in the company of an American (John Malkovich from Johnny English & The Man in the Iron Mask). Before long they are placed in a Japanese PoW camp, where Jim's love of both planes and the USA develops. It is a great story of danger, tragedy and in the end some sort of happiness. Jim manages to survive the war in the camp, despite his friends (including Miranda Richardson from the Blackadders & The Lost Prince) dying and suffering around him. It is a happy and moving ending as after America's liberation of the camp, Jim is re-united with his parents. A joy to watch, Steven Spielberg at his best with music by John Williams (Harry Potter, Star Wars & Indiana Jones).

Spielberg's most underrated movie pairs him with his most unlikely source material: a semi-autobiographical novel from the master of chilly psychological exegesis, JG Ballard. It's an unusual but surprisingly effective marriage, with cinema's arch sentimentalist unable to soften Ballard's look at his time in a Japanese internment camp. The result is the director's most effective, desperate exploration of the death of childhood.

The disappointment here, as ever with Spielberg DVDs, is the lack of a commentary, but single extra The China Odyssey is excellent. A 49-minute Making Of, it includes snippets with Ballard, but is most fascinating because it shows Spielberg at work, equally at home staging the "Cadillac of the sky" bombing sequence or coaxing the right expression out of a then 13-year-old Christian Bale, whose performance must rank as one of the best ever by a child. As Spielberg observes: "Veritable Steve McQueen, this kid!"