Gary Cooper plays Mr. O'Hara--a mercenary with a heart of gold. It seems that he's carrying money to help fund a revolt against a Chinese warlord, General Yang (Akim Tamirof). However, due to the work of an indifferently written woman (Madeleine Carrol), O'Hara is captured by Yang and the revolution is doomed to fail. It's up to O'Hara to somehow escape, find the money and then pay the arms merchant (William Frawley) so the revolution can commence.
In general (bad pun, I know), the film is pretty good. However, Ms. Carroll's character simply made no sense. While she constantly professed that she was a good person, at every turn she behaved otherwise--making her confusing and quite stupid. How she could supposedly care for O'Hara AND betray him to be killed makes no sense at all nor do any of her actions. She is THE big problem with the film--otherwise it's mostly very good. Another problem, though much smaller, is that Dudley Diggs is perhaps the worst cast Chinese character in history. Despite decent makeup, his very, very strong English accent made him laughable--as much as Katharine Hepburn playing a Chinese lady in "Dragon Seed"! As for Cooper, he was cool--playing his heroic macho role extremely well. While it was rare to see a heroic man slap a woman, here it was quite fitting and he carried it off well in macho heroic fashion, he slugged a lot of folks in the movie! Because of this, his professing his love for Carroll at the end really made no sense. And, And, although Akim Tamirof wasn't the least bit Chinese, his General Yang was also quite good--and menacing. In fact, all the production aside from Carroll and Diggs was pretty good and I can see why the film was a success. Of particular note was the very good fake Chinese makeup. Although lots of Anglos had these roles, at least they LOOKED pretty Asian--unlike many other films of the period (such as the Charlie Chan pictures). Reasonably well made and interesting, though far from Cooper's best from this era.
By the way, from what I have read about William Frawley in real life, he pretty much played himself in the movie.
In general (bad pun, I know), the film is pretty good. However, Ms. Carroll's character simply made no sense. While she constantly professed that she was a good person, at every turn she behaved otherwise--making her confusing and quite stupid. How she could supposedly care for O'Hara AND betray him to be killed makes no sense at all nor do any of her actions. She is THE big problem with the film--otherwise it's mostly very good. Another problem, though much smaller, is that Dudley Diggs is perhaps the worst cast Chinese character in history. Despite decent makeup, his very, very strong English accent made him laughable--as much as Katharine Hepburn playing a Chinese lady in "Dragon Seed"! As for Cooper, he was cool--playing his heroic macho role extremely well. While it was rare to see a heroic man slap a woman, here it was quite fitting and he carried it off well in macho heroic fashion, he slugged a lot of folks in the movie! Because of this, his professing his love for Carroll at the end really made no sense. And, And, although Akim Tamirof wasn't the least bit Chinese, his General Yang was also quite good--and menacing. In fact, all the production aside from Carroll and Diggs was pretty good and I can see why the film was a success. Of particular note was the very good fake Chinese makeup. Although lots of Anglos had these roles, at least they LOOKED pretty Asian--unlike many other films of the period (such as the Charlie Chan pictures). Reasonably well made and interesting, though far from Cooper's best from this era.
By the way, from what I have read about William Frawley in real life, he pretty much played himself in the movie.