This movie is based on J. G. Ballard's autobiographical novel, and I have heard that it follows the novel extremely well. (I have not read the novel.) In the movie Jim is an aristocratic British youth who is separated from his family in December of 1941 after the Japanese army invades the British controlled areas of China. He is eventually captured and taken to a prison camp with other British civilians. With no family to look after him the youth must learn to cope with the sickness and food shortages in the camp. In short, he must quickly mature from a privileged child with no understand of life outside the protection of his parents to a self reliant young adult willing to do whatever is necessary in order to survive, yet maintain his spirit and dignity. Christian Bale plays the part very well, making it quite believable.

 This is an excellent drama of the tragedy of war. I consider this to be Steven Spielberg's best drama. (I will not try to compare it to movies of other Genre.) I have seen this movie twice but unfortunately have not had opportunity to make captures of it myself. The following captures were downloaded from the web and are inconsistent in size and shape. I have made the thumbnails all appear the same size and shape below just to help with the overall look of the page, but does distort the pictures slightly.