The latest in a recent series of Chinese co-productions featuring mid-list international stars performing acts of derring-do in period dress (e.g., The White Countess, The Painted Veil), this well-intentioned but inelegant drama is based on the story of George Hogg, a British journalist who became a hero in China for his efforts during the Sino-Japanese war of the early ’40s. While the tale itself is compelling, director Roger Spottiswoode’s treatment is too ridden with hoary clichés, thin characterizations and easy sentimentality to feel true.

Children opens with George (an unconvincing Jonathan Rhys Meyers) scheming his way into the besieged Chinese capital of Nanking, where he bears witness to atrocities by Japanese soldiers. He’s then enlisted by nurse Lee Pearson (Radha Mitchell) to take charge of a school populated by orphans. To no one’s surprise, the initially selfish scribe becomes a committed papa bear — Rhys Meyers’ Asian co-stars Chow Yun-Fat (as a communist fighter) and Michelle Yeoh (as an opium dealer) gaze on with admiration.

When Japanese forces advance upon the school, George and his young charges mount a dangerous journey, but by then, Spottiswoode has done too little to interest viewers in Hogg’s heroics. Instead, the film plays out like yet another hokey and more than faintly patronizing saga of noble white folks who come to an exotic foreign locale to rescue the wretched of the earth.