SoftInloveRox Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Teringer An Exercise In Nonsense

Helloturia I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

ptb-8 This is a disgusting film, vicious and stupid. It contains scenes of beatings so furious and so pointlessly vicious it was enough to see it flung from theaters in 1987 and the DVD from your living room window today. Apparently it is supposed to be Romeo and Juliet or East meets West side story or some blather but really it is Abel Ferrara's talentless take on previously celebrated material amped up to 11 on the kick-o-meter. I just despised this production; it is a complete waste of resources and talent. Even 21 years later with cretinous violence infecting suburban multiplexes, this film stands out as a complete failure as a depiction of humanity. There is just scene after scene of moronic characters and hideous beatings. What a complete waste of your time and the actor's careers. Awful in the extreme. You can always quickly figure a film maker without talent when the violence gimmick is the reason for making the film in the first place. (The Eli and Quentin school of no-ideas).

bkoganbing William Shakespeare's eternal tale of young love gets yet another version in China Girl. Despite the racial tensions between the Chinese of Chinatown and the shrinking Italian population of Little Italy, Sari Chang and Richard Panebianco find each other and find love. Now if only those who might become their prospective in-laws will stop the hate.China Girl was filmed completely on location in New York's neighborhoods of Little Italy and Chinatown. As the film says Little Italy where the fabled fictional Godfather had the Genco Olive Oil company is shrinking block by block as the Italians move out and a huge influx of Orientals move in and expand Chinatown. China Girl was done in 1987 so in twenty years the trend is exacerbated.Players like James Russo, Russell Wong, and David Caruso have all gone on to bigger and better things, they're certainly more known than the leads are now. Still Panebianco and Chang are an attractive pair of kids.The soundtrack is typical music from the Eighties in keeping with the times. Don't expect any songs for the ages like there were in West Side Story.China Girl is a nice retelling of Romeo and Juliet a story that as long as there's life on planet Earth will never go out of style.

Pepper Anne China Girl presents a theme prevalent in cheap 80s action movies -- the Chinatown gangs, often with showdowns between the Chinese and the Italians via gang wars. You'll see a lot of this with 80s American martial arts movies, in particular.China Girl also seems to prevent a tone from director Abel Ferrer which becomes much more evident and much more forceful in his 1996 film, The Funeral, which is a sadly underrated movie about the perpetration of gang life through three mafioso brothers. The dismaying realities of gang life are expressed here, though less sophisticatedly through a Romeo and Juliet gangland story. Though entertaining (for the most part, aside from much of the repetition throughout the movie), you cannot help but remain unconvinced about the tale as one viewer has already commented, because of the extreme lack of chemistry between the two main characters. Yes, the sex scene does seem ridiculous.Nonetheless, the story is about a teenage Italian-American boy who refuses to participate in the turf wars with his relatives against the Chinese-Americans in Chinatown. Like Vincent Gallo's character realizes in 'The Funeral,' the young man, Tony, likewise cannot see the logic in the continuous fighting, especially once he has fallen in love with the Chinese gang's sister. Things do tend to get sappy in this movie, and aside from the point about senseless gang violence, there is not much else going on. The writers go slightly overboard in bogging down the audience with this point, that they forgot to put in some filler (unless you're one hundred percent entertained by the fight sequences). It is not a bad movie, and certainly one of the better movies I have seen by Abel Ferrer ('Fear City' in my opinion was his worst, 'The Funeral' was his best). If you're in the mood for 80s action nostalgia, it's a good vice.

mamamiasweetpeaches ROMEO AND JULIET begat WEST SIDE STORY which begat CHINA GIRL. To say the plot of CHINA GIRL is good is stating the obvious: how are you going to improve on Shakespear? Story old as time there are two young lovers who meet at a party and fall in love while dancing together. They come from feauding families. The boy is Italian and the girl is Chinese in this case. They both have friends and family who are hoodlums. They are continually told to stay in thier own neighborhoods, but of course this leads to them sneaking around to meet. Both leads are attractive but not great actors. The thing that annoyed me about this film was the lack of chemistry. Watch the sex scene. Look at the girls face. She does not even seem to be enjoying herself, let alone in passionate rapture. This is the sort of sex scene usually seen in movies about sad, poor, or even drug hazed people. The storyline needs to capitalize on these two being so in love they cant bare to be apart, and thier lack of chemistry muddles this.