Empire of the Sun: A Novel To Film Comparison (Spoilers).

Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun is an often overlooked, underrated film in a career of culture defining highs (Harrison Ford murdering a sword wielding assassin in a Cairo marketplace) and groan inducing, eye rolling lows (Eric Bana's sweaty orgasm in Munich). Made between Indiana Jones sequels, Empire of the Sun is a tonally difficult film - its Boy's Own high adventure jarring with scenes of pubescent sexuality and wartime atrocity. 

Jim is writing a book on contract bridge and designing a man flying kite.
He can recognise and name every WWII era aeroplane and would be on
ADHD medication or diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome if he was a
student at your kid's school.

J.G. Ballard's semi-autobiographical novel of the same name has sat unread on my bookshelf for many years. After a recent trip to Japan and resurgence of interest in the period, I decided it was high time I read the book. Having read Schindler's Ark, I assumed Spielberg would have stuck reasonably close to the source material. I expected the film to have merged characters and the story to be streamlined. What I didn't expect was just how dark and 'post-apocalyptic' the novel was. Like the film, the novel is a fictional account of the author's childhood experience, detailing the events of the Japanese occupation of Shanghai and subsequent internment of its ex-pat population. Unsurprisingly, the novel tends to have a lot less Spielbergian kid friendly hijinks than the film, and a lot more detailed observations of starvation and pus dripping facial sores. 

From the outset of the novel we are exposed to the death and violence that surrounds the European enclave. Even prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbour and Japanese declaration of war, there are dead bodies in the fields, streets and rivers, public executions and casual brutality. For instance, the beggar outside of Jim's home at the beginning of the film is already dead in the novel. The family Packard crushes the beggar's foot on their way to the fancy dress party, leaving a tyre print that Jim observes is unique to their brand of tyre:

Jim felt sorry for the old beggar, but for some reason he could think only of the tyre patterns in his foot. If they had been driving in Mr Maxted's Studebaker the pattern would have been different: the old man would have been stamped with the imprint of the Goodyear company...

Spielberg's beggar - much less dead than in the book.

When Jim enters the abandoned aerodrome behind Dr Lockwood's estate to play with his balsa wood plane, he peers inside rotting coffins that 'projected from the loose earth like a chest of drawers'. He even remarks on how intriguing the yellowing skeletons are in comparison to the freshly dead he saw each day in Shanghai. Although we do see one brief image of coffins floating along the Bund, we really don't get this pervasive sense of death in the film. 

Spielberg clearly wanted to keep his PG rating and marketed his film to the broadest possible audience. In hindsight, that may have hindered its popular appeal more than helped it. Schlindler's List received an M rating in Australia for its graphic depictions of violence, and is considered one of Spielberg's greatest achievements. Downplaying the violence in Schindler's List would have been considered insulting to the memory of those who experienced the holocaust. And he certainly wouldn't have included a scene in which the girl in the red jacket comically jumped from rickshaw to rickshaw while being pursued by Nazis.

It's funny because it's entirely implausible.

Speaking of which, the novel's version of this scene is obviously much darker than the film. In the book, the Chinese youth attempts to saw Jim's hand off with a pocket knife to steal his watch rather than just steal his shoes. Jim takes this in his stride though, as he is relatively accustomed to this world. When his servants fail to do as he asks, instead of saying “you have to do as I tell you” like he does in the film, he shouts “I'll kill you!”

Christian Bale channelling Patrick Bateman with relative success.

A number of scenes that take place between Nantao Stadium and Jim's final liberation from Lunghua internment camp are also omitted from the film. Many pages of the book describe the time after the war has ended, and in Jim's mind, before the next war ('WWIII') begins. The only filmed scene from this period involves Basie's return to camp and the murder of Jim's young kamikaze pilot friend. In the book, Jim encounters and allies himself with a variety of despicable characters who would feel right at home in a zombie apocalypse. They fight and kill for ownership of Nantao Stadium and the deserted internment camp, as well as the refrigerated containers full of food that are parachuted into the surrounding countryside.

This is the only part of the novel that felt superfluous and drawn out. Spielberg's version tightens the drama in the lead up to the story's climax, and in many ways surpasses the novel in creating a satisfying conclusion. It also diverges in other small yet significant ways in order to achieve moments of pure cinema. The worst film adaptations forget to do this, worrying too much about fan service and sticking rigidly to the novel. Spielberg mirrors actions and scenes throughout the film, to illustrate character details and development:

• Jim sings apathetically in the cathedral at the beginning of the film, then later sings the same song as the kamikaze pilots prepare to depart, reducing the camp sergeant to tears
• Jim watches as his father absent mindedly strokes his upper lip, then recognises the same gesture performed by Dr Ransome
• Jim's parents stand beside his bed, foreshadowing and recreating the magazine advert that Jim substitutes for his fading memory of his parents
• Jim enjoys the freedom of being 'home alone' by cycling around his kitchen and living room, then performs the same act of rebellion when cycling around the empty internment camp

Spielberg and his script writers also do a good job of filling in some information that is only alluded to in the novel. In both stories, Jim covets a pair of oversized golf shoes. In the novel, when we jump ahead three years to the imminent downfall of the internment camp, Jim already owns the shoes. Conversely, the movie details the acquisition of the shoes in a linear fashion:

• The prisoner brings his golf shoes to camp
• The prisoner with the golf shoes is dying in Dr Ransome's hospital
• Dr Ransome rewards Jim for intervening in his beating by giving him the golf shoes of the dead prisoner

In the film, Jim is liberated by a group of American soldiers.

Possibly the same regiment who appear at the end of Lord of the Flies
and Apocalypto, always on hand to put an end to barbarism and the
squabbles of children.

He is shipped off to an orphanage which is visited by parents looking for their lost children. Jim's parents arrive, and as recognition dawns on his face, they are reunited. The film ends as he closes his eyes, finally allowed to rest.

In the book it is Dr Ransome who tracks down Jim's parents, informing him of this when he finds Jim living back at the camp. His parents appear highly traumatised from their own experience of the war, and spend the final pages of the book recuperating in their family home. Jim, meanwhile, co-opts their driver to take him on tours of Shanghai and Lungzen camp (now being used as a military base by the British and Chinese). The book ends with Jim and his mother boarding a ship to England, leaving Shanghai forever.

J.G. Ballard wrote a sequel called The Kindness of Women in 1991, seven years after the release of his novel, and only four years after Empire of the Sun premiered. It's plausible that the release of the film may have spurred him on to create a sequel, just as Trainspotting's success kickstarted a slew of written sequels and prequels by Irvine Welsh. As yet there has been no news of its adaptation.