Roger Spottiswoode, director of Shake Hands with the Devil (2007), James bond 007 Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and Under Fire (1983), on The Children of Huang Shi.

It's no surprise that Hua Mulan, Liu Hulan, Huang Feihung and Huo Yuanjia are considered heroes in China. But few foreigners have ever received the honor. George Hogg is an exception. During the late 30s and early 40s, this young Englishman single-handedly helped 60 Chinese children to safety during the War of Resistance against Japanese Agression. In recognition of his heroic efforts, the city of Shandan, a remote town on the Mongolian border, erected a statue to remember his deeds.

More recently, the life of this unconventional hero forms the basis for a new feature film, The Children of Huang Shi directed by Canadian-born, UK-raised director-writer-editor Roger Spottiswoode. It took the 63 year-old Spottiswoode eight years to bring Hogg's story to the screen in a tale adapted from a short newspaper story written by journalist James MacManus.

The newspaper account of Hogg's life and death presents a bold, somewhat reckless and youthful Oxford graduate, one with a strong thirst for adventure. In 1937, at age 23, Hogg arrived in Shanghai shortly after the Japanese had seized control of the city. He soon found employment as a stringer for the Associated Press, though his reporting led to his expulsion from China. Not at all discouraged, Hogg managed to return through Korea. Later, in Beijing, he met New Zealand nurse Kathleen Hall, who in addition to her medical duties was smuggling food and medicines to anti-Japanese guerrillas.

In 1938, as the situation in the capital became more dangerous, the pair fled to the liberated areas in northern China. There, Hogg contracted typhus and Hall nursed him back to health. To make a long story short, after a great many adventures, Hogg finally arrived in the Tsingling Mountains in east-central Shaanxi Province, where, in 1943, he was appointed headmaster of a school that had been deserted by its teachers. Hogg soon restored discipline to the remaining students by imposing the strict standards of English public schools. Meanwhile, the children's safety was threatened by approaching Japanese troops. Hogg formed a plan to relocate the school to the safety of Shandan in Gansu Province, 1,100 km away. He salvaged 15 tons of equipment and set off on foot with the children early in 1945. They arrived at their destination ten weeks later, totally exhausted and near starvation (one child died of a heart attack and another was lost on the way). Four months later, Hogg had rebuilt his school, though he later contracted tetanus – an infection he didn't survive.

Spottiswoode's film focuses on its protagonist's character, rather than the era's politics. Indeed, after numerous rewrites, what emerges is a moving tale of survival and compassion. The USD 40 million (RMB 300 million) Chinese-Australian-German co-production features a stellar cast: Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Match Point), Chow Yun-fat (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Radha Mitchell (Silent Hill) and Michelle Yeoh (also seen in Spottiswoode's Tomorrow Never Dies). The film premiered in Huangshi City, Hubei Province on March 31 and opens nationwide on April 3.

that's: This is your second film set in Asia, followingthe miniseries Hiroshima (1995), co-directed withKoreyoshi Kurahara. What convinced you to spend three months in China at some very tough locations shooting The Children of Huang Shi?
Roger Spottiswoode (RS): I came across the story of George Hogg about eight years ago when two friends, producers Davina Bellin and Clive Parsons, sent me an early draft of the script. We worked together with writers for another three or four years to get the script right. But it was the compelling story of Hogg and China during a pivotal moment of history that made me want to come to China. In fact, between casting and preparation and then the shoot, I must have spent about a year in China altogether.

that's: What impressed you most during that time?
RS: The huge distances. The vast size [of the country] is hard to take in from the map. What's more, there are cities whose names do not appear on Western maps, or perhaps we just couldn't pronounce their names and so we never learnt them. So it is a country full of surprises. We were also looking for the past and for some cities that were not too altered since the 1930s. Well that was almost impossible. The past is being destroyed and is disappearing so quickly in China; it is a tragedy.

that's: Where did you shoot in Shanghai?
RS: Like so many others before us, we shot at Chedun town, the Shanghai film studio [the Songjiang studio backlot] where we used the Nanjing Road set. We also shot a few scenes in Nanjing itself at a building near Hunan Bridge. While we were shooting in Hengdian [China's largest backlot, in Zhejiang Province], every Saturday evening there would be a five-hour race up to Shanghai to enjoy the good restaurants before they closed.

that's: Many foreign filmmakers have come to China for co-productions, yet most have failed to make a film appealing to both local and international moviegoers. What does your film offer to both these audiences?
RS: Co-productions are designed to help filmmakers work in different countries and raise money internationally, since film finance is extraordinarily difficult. It is an added – and I think completely unexpected – bonus if a film happens to appeal to all members of the co-production partnership. In our case, it's possible that our cast of young actors will surprise audiences in many places.

that's: In the past, some of your work has dealt with politics, for instance, Under Fire and Shake Hands with the Devil, yet The Children of Huang Shi seems decidedly apolitical.
RS: The story of George Hogg in China is not one that demands to be political. What's more, the appeal for me was a character who at an early age was finding himself and his purpose in life. The war closing in around him, the children he was taking care of, all led to an unexpected journey – a new world for them all. It was this story and not the politics that drew me to the film. But at the same time, I have always felt that Europeans have been particularly ignorant of the horrors the Japanese inflicted on China. Just as the Japanese seem ignorant of the genocide their parents committed when they killed 10-15 million Chinese.

that's: You seem to prefer location work (eg., Rwanda for Shake Hands with the Devil) toshooting in a studio.
RS: It's one of the glorious benefits of making films that you travel the world.

that's:How did you convince the two Chinese stars Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun-fat to join the production?
RS: They loved the script and their characters. I went to them four years ago. They have waited patiently for me to get the money together.

that's: How has Yeoh evolved as an actress since your collaboration in Tomorrow Never Dies in 1997?
RS: She gets better and better.

that's: It's hard to work with children, be it in the US or in China. Here you had to handle 60 of them. Did that add to the complexities of the shoot?
RS: We expected it would be hard to take kids away from home for three months, to travel all over the country, to work in the winter in remote places. But it turned out to be great. The children (aged between 7 and 15) really were wonderful. The experience was amazing and rewarding. I had a second unit and a gifted second-unit director who shot 80 per cent of the scenes with the kids and she had a wonderful time with them and adored them all.

that's: Is theChinese approach to working with children in movies different from that of the West?
RS: Cannot tell you this, but kids are similar the world over.

that's: What visual style did you want to create with director of photography Zhao Xiaoding [Zhang Yimou's cinematographer on House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower]?
RS: We wanted to create a world of muted colors, where the color of people's skin was the most striking part of each frame. It was a completely different approach from the other two films [shot by Zhao for Zhang Yimou]. But what he loves and we shared, is creating a palette of interesting colors and shapes. My Chinese is non-existent, his English is developing and so without our valued intermediary and translator, Wang Xiaomeng, it would have been very difficult indeed.

that's: Peter Loehr has been one of the rare Western producers to help several independent Chinese filmmakers. How did he help you on The Children of Huang Shi?
RS: This was in every way a Chinese-Australia-German co-production. Our crew was more than 95 per cent Chinese; most of our department heads were Chinese. All but one day of shooting was done in China. So Peter and Er Yong [also known as Wang Zhang] were the producers. Post production was made in Germany and Australia and the remaining crew and facilities came from Australia.

that's: George Hogg's life in China was tumultuous and full of hardship. And apparently so was the shoot.
RS: The mountains in winter were a challenge to us every day. Sixty children, four mules and 30 handcarts are quite a handful to put onto a narrow, precipitous trail in the mountains, along with a big film crew. I don't quite know how we did it day after day. But on about the sixth day, when shooting on the most dangerous mountain, it snowed and froze. The next morning our generator was leading the way back to the location in the mountain, 50 trucks and busses behind it. The truck carrying the generator got caught on ice and drifted slowly backwards, plunging 60 feet into a chasm. Fortunately, the driver jumped to safety.

Special thanks to Peter Loehr.

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
April 2008 issue