It was a beautiful sunny afternoon yesterday when our professional development day for work ended.  I decided, since it was a nice day, to walk home.  

When walking to and from downtown Victoria, I usually try to think of alternate routes to take so as to avoid Shelbourne because that street is quite busy and boring.  I ended up detouring up Richmond then Henderson to go to UVic because I vaguely remembered that Cinecenta, the UVic theatre was playing a movie I thought looked interesting.  I ended up arriving half an hour before showtime and was able to get a student discount, so in I went.

It turned out to be one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time.  Set in China in 1937 (Massacre at Nanjing), the movie is based on the true story of British journalist George Hogg.  Hogg ends up taking care of about 50 chinese orphans at a camp north of Nanjing and eventually decides to move them all as the Japanese army draws closer.  These kids, with only push carts, walk 1000 miles to the desert in western China (200 miles past Lanzhou) to escape the approaching war.  While the story of Hogg is the main focus, one gets and idea of the three-way tensions that existed between the Communists, the Nationalists, and the Japanese.  

I thought the movie was really well done.  I found the story of this guy and the kids profoundly moving.  Shot on location in China for much of it, the scenery is absolutely spectacular.  It tugged at my heart and made me want to go back to China again.