This is an interesting but not riveting film, best described as a clash of cultures movie. It's a glimpse of two civilisations, both very different and both of them now just distant memories.
There's some similarities with that 1950s sci-fi classic, FORBIDDEN PLANET inasmuch that a group of straight-laced and blinkered American missionaries, wilfully oblivious to their surroundings and the culture they are in, appear to have been teleported into a completely alien world but they haven't noticed. Just because they are living right in the middle of the vicious and savage Chinese civil war is not going to make these Ned Flanders-types alter their routines, their quaint little New England activities or indeed their attitudes.
Then there arrives Barbara Stanwyck - another strait-laced missionary but with a repressed sense of adventure and mischief albeit hidden, dormant, chained-up and locked in a safe underneath ten metres of reinforced concrete. She gives an authentic and believable performance, understated yet somehow managing to show the droplets of emotion starting to bubble up inside, getting closer to the surface but never, ever emerging.
Nils Asther's warlord, General Yen, conveys just enough sinister charm, mysterious excitement and a ray of sunlight from a totally different culture and society to what Barbara Stanwycks's character has ever known to captivate her. That's what this film is about - how these two people from totally opposite worlds are both fascinated and repulsed by each other and Frank Capra does it pretty well. It didn't win his boss Harry Cohn the Oscar as he'd been instructed to do (Cohn: "Make some arty crap and win us the Oscar") but it looks very impressive and keeps your attention.....but falls down inasmuch that it doesn't engage too much emotionally. That's somewhat ironic because all Frank Capra's films, even his poorer efforts are usually all about emotion.
The eponymous General Yen is played by a Swedish actor called Nils Asther. Because of the American racist laws, they couldn't have an actual Chinese actor kissing Barbara Stanwyck but even someone pretending to be Chinese was enough to get this film banned in parts of America! Since that old China, that hidden world of the Orient no longer exists, it is difficult to judge how authentic Asther's portrayal was - it was based on a contemporary book written by someone who lived through this conflict and for the time, a lot of research was done into how these warlords was carried out so although he seems stereotyped at times, he is probably a lot more true to life than we think. If this film were made now, his character would probably be quite 21st century which to us that might look authentic but in fifty years' time would look ridiculous. His make-up however is unforgivable. It seems to be the template for Emperor Ming in FLASH GORDON and then for the Klingons in the original STAR TREK series: that is a little bit distracting!
There's some similarities with that 1950s sci-fi classic, FORBIDDEN PLANET inasmuch that a group of straight-laced and blinkered American missionaries, wilfully oblivious to their surroundings and the culture they are in, appear to have been teleported into a completely alien world but they haven't noticed. Just because they are living right in the middle of the vicious and savage Chinese civil war is not going to make these Ned Flanders-types alter their routines, their quaint little New England activities or indeed their attitudes.
Then there arrives Barbara Stanwyck - another strait-laced missionary but with a repressed sense of adventure and mischief albeit hidden, dormant, chained-up and locked in a safe underneath ten metres of reinforced concrete. She gives an authentic and believable performance, understated yet somehow managing to show the droplets of emotion starting to bubble up inside, getting closer to the surface but never, ever emerging.
Nils Asther's warlord, General Yen, conveys just enough sinister charm, mysterious excitement and a ray of sunlight from a totally different culture and society to what Barbara Stanwycks's character has ever known to captivate her. That's what this film is about - how these two people from totally opposite worlds are both fascinated and repulsed by each other and Frank Capra does it pretty well. It didn't win his boss Harry Cohn the Oscar as he'd been instructed to do (Cohn: "Make some arty crap and win us the Oscar") but it looks very impressive and keeps your attention.....but falls down inasmuch that it doesn't engage too much emotionally. That's somewhat ironic because all Frank Capra's films, even his poorer efforts are usually all about emotion.
The eponymous General Yen is played by a Swedish actor called Nils Asther. Because of the American racist laws, they couldn't have an actual Chinese actor kissing Barbara Stanwyck but even someone pretending to be Chinese was enough to get this film banned in parts of America! Since that old China, that hidden world of the Orient no longer exists, it is difficult to judge how authentic Asther's portrayal was - it was based on a contemporary book written by someone who lived through this conflict and for the time, a lot of research was done into how these warlords was carried out so although he seems stereotyped at times, he is probably a lot more true to life than we think. If this film were made now, his character would probably be quite 21st century which to us that might look authentic but in fifty years' time would look ridiculous. His make-up however is unforgivable. It seems to be the template for Emperor Ming in FLASH GORDON and then for the Klingons in the original STAR TREK series: that is a little bit distracting!