Emperor's Club

This topic contains:

• details about Emperor's Club's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of Emperor's Club completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 3rd of April, 2003.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

YMA review

This review of the movie Emperor's Club contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• use of violence and material that may scare children
• sexual references, nudity and sexual activity
• use of alcohol and other drugs
• coarse language
• the movie's message
• overall comments

A synopsis of the story

The first part of the story is set in the 1970s. William Hundert is a teacher at an exclusive boys school and is passionate about ancient history. Every year a quiz is conducted to determine the top history student at the school. This student will have the honour of being named 'Mr Julius Caesar' and becoming that year's member of The Emperor's Club.

Most of Hundert's students are keen and eager to learn until Sedgewick Bell comes along. Sedgewick is a Senator's son who has plenty of attitude and no respect for authority. Hundert thinks he can help change this student and to this end he sets out to help him as much as he can.

Sedgewick's grades improve over time and he is in the running for the final quiz which involves the top three students. The final test puts Sedgewick in fourth place, but Hundert changes his mark so that he can come third. During the final quiz, which takes place in front of the whole school, Sedgewick cheats by writing the answers on his sleeve. However he still loses to another student.

The story then moves on twenty years. Hundert has been school principal for the previous seventeen years but is now being replaced by a younger person. The boys have a reunion and request Hundert to come and be quiz master again to the same three students. All the boys have grown into successful men, particularly Sedgewick who is now the owner of a large corporate firm. The quiz conducted at the reunion raises the same issues as the quiz conducted twenty years earlier with consequences that are felt by players and quizmaster.

Use of violence and material that may scare children

There is no violence or scary material in this film.

Sexual references, nudity and sexual activity

There are some sexual references as the boys are pubescent and discovering sex.

• Sedgewick encourages the other boys to read his Playboy magazines.
• The boys row across the lake to the other side where there are some girls sitting on a wharf, from the nearby girls' school. The girls suggest going skinny dipping and they all start to undress, getting down to underwear before they are found out by a nun.
• The Playboy magazines briefly show nude girls.

Use of alcohol and other drugs

• The girls in the scene by the lake are all smoking cigarettes.
• Sedgewick's father smokes a cigar.

Coarse language

There is infrequent use of the following words: God, Christ, Jesus, arse, arsehole and shit.

The movie's message

This film is concerned with values and morals and although it draws no conclusions it does show that even though a person may appear popular and successful, that doesn't necessarily mean that he or she is a good and / or decent person.

Values that parents may wish to encourage include:

• the ability to seek out good in a person
• integrity
• responsibility.

Values that parents might wish to discourage include:

• lying and cheating and the ability to succeed by doing this
• disrespect
• manipulating situations for own benefit

Overall comments

From an adult's viewpoint this is quite a 'watchable' film. It questions morals, ethics and values but it leaves a lot of unanswered questions. While there is nothing scary or violent for parents of young children
to be concerned about, the film offers little in terms of entertainment and enjoyment for children under the age of twelve years.