In the movie, The Emperor's Club, the base of the story declares a strong sense of character. When we see the boys at the academy, having a phenomenal teacher, everything seems perfect and right. But when Mr. Hundert gets a student who has absolutely no respect for authority, it turns their perfect world upside down. But the way in which the teacher handles the boy is what makes this movie so great and yet so wrong. Instead of judging the student right away, Mr. Hundert takes a step deeper into the boy's world and finds that all his pain is rooted in the relationship with his father. The student does not seem to be able to please his father and cannot find anything to validate who he is as a young man. Mr. Hundert does everything that he can for the student but ultimately he cannot change the boy's heart. This is where I found the movie to imply a false principle. It seems as though after the Mr. Julius Caesar contest, Mr. Hundert just gave up on him. Why did he not keep perusing him? I am a Christian and I guess this is why I have such a problem with the message the movie is sending. Mr. Hundert keeps saying, "I have failed him as a teacher," and then he finds his validations in his students who have had great success in life. It is all rather selfish. Why did he not try to not only help his student but show the student love? As a Christian we are called to love God and love others and to go out and make disciples. This student was basically asking for help in all the ways that he acted. He was starving for attention. We are not called to judge others because we do not know what kind of hurt or pain a person is carrying with them. The way that they are acting is not the issue; the issue is what caused the hurt or pain that they carry. Mr. Hundert attacked how the boy was acting out even though he knew what the root issue was. Instead he should have acted on the pain of the relationship between the boy and his father. Now I know this is just a movie, and I know it does not have a Christian view, but even with Christianity aside the message is wrong. Here we have a leader who cared about his students, who built relationships with them, who gained their trust, and respect, and as great as he was he did fail this student. I believe that when we have moments in life when we have the opportunity to truly care about someone who is hurting so much that no matter what happens we will not give up on them, we will fail every time. This is because we as humans, who are selfish and have a corrupt nature, cannot love someone unconditionally without Jesus Christ leading our lives and living in our hearts. When we make Christ the base for everything that we do and everything that we live for, he lives through us and is able to love people unconditionally. We have no power to change hearts, only God can do that through his son Jesus Christ. So all in all, the movie is good and portrays a message about integrity and character, but when it comes to impacting an individual's life and to mold and shape someone struggling into an individual with true character, the movie gets it wrong. If anything it shows how weak man is without Christ in his life, and how incapable we are to truly love, care, and pour into some ones heart without Christ reigning in our own hearts. But when Christ is in control of our hearts, he gives the power to make huge impacts on people's lives. It is just like the verse, "I can do all things, through Christ who strengthens me."

Kevin Kline is great as Mr William Hundert the History teacher at St Benedicts boys school in the mid 1970s. The film tells how he tries to help a new pupil Sedgewick Bell(Emile Hirsch)get used to the school life and help him improve his grades in class he messes around a lot and Hundert makes it his mission almost to help him change.However Mr Hundert focuses on Sedgewick and sort of neglects the other students.The ending is very moving as in the present day Hundert is invited to the older Sedgewick Bells country club to meet up with Bell and his other former students and learns a sad truth about Bell and finds out if he has changed or not.The scenes between Bell and Hundert are good but I love the scenes at the end with him and all the other students. This film doesn't bring anything new to the teacher student genre but is a well made and enjoyable film about history,success and failure.

This film is about a history teacher engraving his wisdom and virtues in his students' hearts.According to my vote history, I watched it in around April 2003 time, and I gave it a 6. I borrowed this DVD again a few days ago from the library, not remembering I have watched it. I thought it could not have been a good film if I could not remember watching it. It was so wrong! I really like the plot of this film. It is so touching and affecting. I felt so drawn to the characters of the film. Mr Hundert's dedication and enormous enthusiasm is infectiously touching. Even Mr Hundert has such high virtues, he still made a mistake. To think that Mr Hundert must have chided himself for 25 years about not letting Martin be in the competition is almost unbearable. This contrasts Sedgewick Bell, a non conformer. He breaks all the rules and never regrets it, maybe except at the end. The two characters create such an interesting parallel, and gives much room for thought. This film touched me a lot. It is captivating and thought provoking. It truly deserves more attention than it gets.

This was one the best movies I saw in a long time.I purchased on DVD and was surprised. I thought it was going to be a version of Goodbye Mister Chips or Dead Poets Society, but the movie has an unexpected twist at the end and lesson that we all can learn from. It almost reminded my of Shawshank Redemption when a new prisoner arrived at Shawshank, in Emerpors Club a new student arrives and nothing will ever be the same but the teacher Kevin Kline or his stufents. Now I have a reason why we learned about the Roman Enpire and why it is important learn. I will watch it again soon and recommend it to co-workers. Well done and great acting.