bkoganbing
Some fine performances from stars Angie Dickinson, Gene Barry, and Nat King Cole are really wasted in this Sam Fuller film that really hasn't worn that well over
the years. History has made China Gate very obsolete, a real Cold War relic.It's 1954 and the French Foreign Legion symbol of French Colonialism has met
with humiliating defeat at Dienbienphu. Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Minh have
taken over the north with the 17th parallel dividing the country. But they still
threaten South Vietnam.A picked group of Legionaires among them Barry and Cole get a mission to
blow up a secret ammo dump with enough to start things really going in the
South. Angie Dickinson who is a character out of Terry And The Pirates , a mixed racial entertainer who has some history with another mixed racial Viet
Minh commander Lee Van Cleef gets to lead the troops. But Angie has more
history with Barry, she was married to him and bore him a son Warren Hsieh.
Because of racism rather brutally expressed by Barry he rejected her and the
kid. Still a misssion is a mission for these Legionaires soon to go to Algeria and try
to keep the French in control. Let's say things get interesting for all concerned.Racism is dealt with squarely, colonialism is not in China Gate. Nat King Cole
gives a strong performance as most definitely not a Stepin Fetchit character.
But it got a bit much when he says he joined the Foreign Legion because he
didn't get to kill enough Commies in Korea. Has this one not worn well.
christopher-underwood
Very unusual for me to watch a war movie, but anything directed by Sam Fuller deserves consideration and I was intrigued with the casting that included, Angie Dickinson, Nat King Cole and Lee Van Clef. As it tuned out this was not as bad as it might have been, helped very much by the performances, Fuller achieves from his cast. Set in Vietnam, then Indochina, it features the last days of the French rule, when the Americans were seemingly the good guys dropping food parcels to the indigenous population. Nat King Cole, sings the title track twice and puts in a really convincing performance as one of the French rag bag group who trek through the jungle to carry out their wondrous mission. Mostly filmed on back lots, Fuller has interspersed stock footage to give a reasonable approximation of the location. Angie Dickinson is a real trouper and plays this very wide with much non PC banter with the Chinese, who she seems to keep happy with promise of brandy and sex. Lee Van Clef is a real surprise here (I thought he had always had that weathered look!) and helps to make the last quarter a bit more fun.
MisterWhiplash
Samuel Fuller's China Gate isn't one to rush out to rent, but if you're already a fan of the director's it's a safe bet that most of his work will be at least brawny and entertaining, and even in the midst of heavy melodrama he can pack a bit of punch in the midst of the studio-set conventions. Make no mistake, this is a studio picture through and through, down to the studio locations (how much of it really is a jungle one might wonder, which isn't much), and the mix and match of real war-torn cityscapes ala Rossellini with stock footage of planes dropping supplies for the citizens. The only overall disappointing aspect is the slightly off ratio of powerful action and tough dialog- there's a little too much of the latter, and not as one of Fuller's most spot-on scripts in trying to wring out the unsentimental emotion, which backfires- as it's almost a minor work when compared to the real big guns, no pun intended, with respect to Fuller's war films. China Gate is simple melodrama, but when it does stick simply, and with Fuller's stylistic strengths and flashes of bravado, it works.One of the pleasantries of the picture is seeing the actors take to the roles, in typical Fullerian mode, as if it was all heart. Angie Dickinson, in one of her first performances, is a hot little number that has just the right, well, 'something' to keep her along with the other male parts, as she plays a hard-bitten mother named 'Lucky Legs' who is the only one who has the right contacts and repore with the Ho Chi-Mon that she can get a small military team through enemy lines. Her strengths are poised against Gene Barry, her once husband (still technically is, thanks to a lovey-dovey scene in the latter part of the movie), who is a bigot and seems to have had all sympathy for most people drained away. He does, however, gain it back by the time the big climax comes, which maybe isn't too far of a stretch considering the many scenes where he and Lucky Legs get a little more intimate (as close as possible during the 'code' anyway). The good news is Fuller cast them very well for their chemistry on screen, as they are totally opposed at first, and then gradually get closer and closer, her beauty with his scruffy face, each hard-bitten by times spent in war and communist locales.Meanwhile, Fuller's got a wild card with Nat King Cole, who not only wonderfully sings an unusually placed song (right before all the men head out on their mission through the Vietnam jungle) but is an unexpectedly touching actor. He goes through some subtle looks at times when asked too many questions from a fellow German soldier in the group, is cool and dead-pan when having to face Sgt. Brock, and plays it perfectly when he is in possible enemy fire range and steps on a spike in the ground, keeping himself mute with his face totally in horror. There's also a good scene with a man who gets wounded on a rocky ridge, with his last minutes not stepping into platitudes but simply allowing a sort of quietly sad cross-cutting between the others looking down at the poor solider seen in a painful close-up. Although there's a fairly bad scene with a French foreign legion guy (I think foreign legion) who tells a story accompanied by a sound effect of a whistle, and the dialog between the men in the less plot-dense scenes is just average Fuller, it's great to see a part for Lee Van Cleef as the heel with all the bombs and explosives in the cave, and the climax is a good, if not astounding, wallop.An obscure early dip into what would become the most insane debacle of Westerners fighting the 'other' halfway across the world (as of then), China Gate is usually exciting and tightly executed, and if it doesn't have the same pulp attitude that Fuller has when he's working full throttle, it never-the-less attains a quality that speaks of the BANG of a headline, telling the story all in one bold swoop, however easy to tell.
Peter Reiher
Everything that's wrong about Sam Fuller pictures pops up here, with little of what's right being present. The script is full of silly lines, and the two leads are several miles out of their depth. Nat King Cole is the best thing in the picture, giving a sensitive and believable performance in a supporting role. Not bad enough to be entertaining on that basis, just fairly stupid.
