SoftInloveRox
Horrible, fascist and poorly acted
Tedfoldol
everything you have heard about this movie is true.
Asad Almond
A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.
Nicole
I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
MartinHafer
"Bombs Over Burma" is a cheap B-movie from PRC...a tiny production company that specialized in making cheap, crappy B-movies! Usually, when I see that a movie is from PRC, I significantly lower my expectations! This film, it turns out, is no exception.When the film begins, a teacher (Anna May Wong) is alarmed because the town is being attacked by Japanese planes. However, one of the children in the class is amazingly dim....and instead of seeking shelter, this terrible little actor dances about...enjoying the Japanese carnage! Soon, he's assuming room temperature...and his death scene is unintentionally funny. Soon, the teacher is recruited for a mission to help her people...and she ends up stuck on the Burma Road with several others. Soon, it becomes apparent that one of them is in league with the Japanese...and they need to figure it out quickly.Apart from the overuse of stock footage as well as the bad acting by the child, the film is amazingly dull considering it's all about war. Watchable but honestly I had a hard time sticking with this one.
delriosong
This review contains spoilersThis film is a propaganda piece to highlight China's efforts to fight the Japanese. It focuses on a small group of strange companions traveling by bus to Chung King (Chongqing) in Southwest China. Anna May Wong stars as Lin Ying, an agent for the Chinese government travel under the guise of a school inspector. The group arrive at a monastery that serves as a bed a breakfast. While there the driver discovers that someone has stole the distributor from the bus. When a shady passenger who witnessed the act ends up with a knife in his back while no one sees anything is a convenient plot hole.Now it's up to Lin Ying and the Head Monk with assistance from the bus driver to foil the Japanese spy among them save an important convoy coming into the interior of China from Burma.Let's just break this film down by the numbers and let the chips fall where they may: A) Plot -- At least one plot hole too large to ignore -- 3 B) Characters -- Stereotypical portrayals of Chinese and an Arab character, additionally the good guys are brave and bold while the bad guys prove craven in the end -- 3 C) Acting -- Anna May Wong is charming and Nedrick Young as Slim Jenkins, the bus driver seems like a character one might know -- 6 D) Script -- The dialog is just a little too pumped-up with propaganda 1942 style -- 4 E) Direction -- A conventional job -- 5 F) Cinematography -- Many of the faces seem over lit in a number of scenes (My copy is not restored) -- 3 G) Editing -- Conventional but interesting when the agent was revealed to be a coward, used footage from actual combat which is near Ed Wood like in its continuity failure -- 4 H) Production Design -- B reel quality and quantity -- 4 I) Costume Design -- a pretty good effort, convincing -- 6 J) Stunts -- N/A K) Special & Visual Effects -- N/A L) Music -- a good score which helped set and sustain mood very well -- 7 M) Sound -- The sound on my copy was fairly bad with a lot of obvious damage, seems like it would be fine in 1942 or restored -- 5 N) Entertainment Value -- 4 Average 4.500. Call it 5. Pop some corn and enjoy what it offers.This film features combat violence and three total killings and is not rated by the MPPA
mark.waltz
This starts quite promising lee, with school teacher Anna May Wong all of a sudden interrupted in her class when the Japanese begin to bomb the area where she is. It gains emotional support when a child is gunned down, pretending to shoot at the planes but unaware that he is about to become a target. That disturbing opening is followed by nearly 40 minutes of practically nothing else going on as Wong become surrounded by American and English visitors who suspect each other as possibly being a spy, and not for the right side. There are some long moment of silence for pretty much nothing happens, and it becomes almost impossibly tedious. Of course this all explodes for an action packed finale where locals rush to Wong's aid as the identity of who the villain truly leads to a grizzly conclusion. After the previous year's The Lady from Chungking, I had hopes that this PRC drama would be as exciting as its predecessor. Unfortunately that was not to be the case. Wong is still lovely and there are some interesting moments of photography. But this is like many other World War II propaganda films made during the time in which it takes place. All flag waving on the outside, but inside truly nothing but a shell of a plot and very little to keep the momentum of the film going.
Alex da Silva
Anna May Wong (Lin) is a schoolteacher assigned on a mission by the Chinese Resistance to discover who is tipping off the Japanese for bombing raids. Targets seem to be pinpointed with expert knowledge. On a bus journey, Wong and a cast of characters are held up at a monastery where it becomes obvious that the traitor is among them.This film has a couple of memorable sequences – the beginning section at the school and the end section at the head of the convoy – that make it a better film than I had expected. There is also some humour thrown in from the naughty schoolboy. My wife and I laughed out loud when he is left in the classroom alone to throw all the schoolwork everywhere. He also has a funny moment where he knows he is wrong and gets up and puts on the naughty hat without any prompting. Very funny.Unfortunately, the sound quality is poor and this does interfere with some of the dialogue but overall, given the different subject matter, it has to score for novelty value. It's a short film and it's OK entertainment while it lasts.