Spielberg's Role: Director, Producer
US Release Date: 1987

"I learned a new word today. Atom bomb."

Said to a flop, by box office standards, The Empire of the Sun, was an amazing drama which was extremely under-rated.. A wonderful film of the life of a young British boy in China during World War II, is an excellent preview of what is to come in Schindler's List.

The movie starts with Jim (Christian Bale), a young boy, who becomes separated from his parents. He ends up in a concentration camp near a Japanese occupied air base in China. The movie shows the how the war effects the development of the child. The movie is based on the autobiographical novel by J. G. Ballard. The standard 2 hour format was not long enough for such a story and much of the character development was edited out.

Christian Bale played Jim Graham, the main character very well. Spielberg was said to have picked the movie's theme (the Welsh nursery rhyme ,``Suo Gan'' ) because Graham was born Welsh.