Jess’ parents are conservative and doesn’t approve of her playing with the boys or show her legs in public.  They want her to learn how to cook a full meal and to find a guy that she could marry, preferably someone of the same religion as them.

All that changed when she met Jules (Keira Knightley), a member of an all-girls squad.  She invited Jess to try out for the team and Jess eventually become part of it.  She must hide this fact from her parents and this led to difficult yet funny moments.

Things get more complicated when Jules and Jess falls for their coach Joe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers).  It tested their friendship but the love for football is much greater than anything else.  In the end, both Jules and Jess are recruited for a women’s team in the U.S.

Jess (Parminder Nagra): I didn’t ask to be good at football, Gura Nanak must have blessed me.

When I first saw Bend It Like Beckham, I didn’t realize that Shaznay Lewis of All Saints was in it.  She played the captain of the Harriers.  The other supporting characters add to the overall entertainment value of the movie.  It is an uplifting and relaxing movie for everyone.  You don’t need to like football or know how to bend it to enjoy the movie.

Then George Hogg (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) came. He came to Nanking to expose the brutality of the Japanese. He was shocked with what he saw. After a chain of events, he found himself in an orphanage. The children are all victims of the war. We see how Hogg is transferred from an unsympathetic reporter into a compassionate teacher.

Then the time comes when the Japanese invaders are getting near the orphanage. Hogg had no choice but to travel around 600 to 700 miles in the middle of the winter with the 60 children in tow. Along the way he had help from a nurse Lee Pearson (Radha Mitchell), military man Chen (Chow Yun Fat), and a opium dealer Mrs. Wang (Michelle Yeoh).

I like Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh’s performance in Children of Huang Shi. When I learned that the two are in this movie, I was expecting another Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Although I was disappointed that it was not an action movie, I still enjoyed their performance. But I was also disappointed that the two didn’t have any scene together.

Radha Mitchell played the role of the emotionally drained nurse who has seen what the war has done. Then we learn how she coped with all the atrocities she has faced.

It’s interesting to see Jonathan Rhys Meyers in a non-sports oriented film. I saw Meyers in Bend it Like Beckham and Match Point. Children of Huang Shi is far from those movies and it just shows how flexible an actor he is. He did a remarkable job in this one.

Children of Huang Shi is a movie based on the lives of George Hogg and the children he saved. It was successful in showing the world of the hardships the Chinese had to endure during that period. Although I read that there are historical errors within the movie regarding the Rape of Nanking, it captured the essence of Hogg’s heroism.