arthur_tafero This is about the most boring war film I've ever seen. Samuel Fuller was really bad; how he got a reputation for being a good filmmaker is beyond me. Ed Wood was better than this. This is the worst role Angie Dickinson ever had, and my mother is tougher than the Gene Barry character. Nat King Cole was believable. The story is ridiculous, just like the French who spent their money and lives trying to keep their colonial possession. I was rooting for everyone to get killed except Cole. Only the first five minutes of the film (background propaganda on Vietnam) was historically interesting (despite being distorted). Strictly for Americans who thought we belonged in Vietnam. However, it did put me to sleep on the couch for a nice nap.

rcj5365 Sam Fuller's worst war film is worth watching-or at least scanning-for several reasons. The most obvious is the bizarre casting. Then there is the unpersuasive attempt to recreate Vietnam on a studio backlot,which would be duplicated with not much more success years later by Stanley Kubrick in Full Metal Jacket(1987). Finally,both the screw loose plotting and the rabid Red-baiting have become unintentionally comic with the passage of time. This was in fact Sam Fuller's first-ever film for a major Hollywood studio(Twentieth Century-Fox)and his first to be presented in full widescreen Cinemascope.A voice-over introduction sets a hyperbolic tone: "With the end of the Korean War,France was left alone to hold the hottest front in the world and became the barrier between Communism and the rape of Asia." Moments later,we learn that because the dirty Reds have put the Vietnamese town of Sun Toy under siege,a little boy's(Warren Hsieh)pet puppy is about to be eaten! Presumably because 1957,American audiences did not know much about the country or the war,Fuller spends most of the first act spinning out a fanciful interpretation of the situation,blaming many of the country's problems on the Chinese Communists and their massive underground ammunition bunker at China Gate. The French Legionaires decide it to blow it up,and call in explosives expert Sgt. Brock(Gene Barry). The only person who can lead them from Sun Toy to China Gate is Lucky Legs(Angie Dickinson in one of her first major roles),who is allegedly half-Chinese. She's also Brock's ex,and if that weren't enough,the kid with the puppy is their son! That's doubly hard to believe because the stars generate all the sexual chemistry of two wet paper towels. Not to mention in 1957,white actors or actresses were playing roles of minorities,whether Latino or Asian or Arabian were stereotypical then.After that's been established,the already pokey action stops cold for Goldie(Nat "King" Cole) to not only demonstrate his acting abilities but also sings the theme song. Then off they go,with a half dozen or so more Legionaires and a couple of boxes of highly explosive detonators. At every opportunity.one or more of these guys bears his tortured soul,and as they get closer to the Chicorns,it becomes apparent that our girl Lucky has been a sort of one-woman welcoming committee whose mission is to boost morale in every way that she can. All the guys know her because she makes regular visits to the Chinese to deliver cognac and sex,even though her main squeeze is the commander of China Gate,Maj. Cham(Lee Van Cleef),yet another half-Chinese who is in line for a promotion to Moscow.With only a few exceptions,the combat scenes are as phony as the rest. They were filmed on cheap-looking sets with little originality or energy. Nothing on screen comes as close to Fuller's better work in "The Steel Helmet",and "The Big Red One". Still,"China Gate" is instructive. It's a perfect example of Hollywood's attempt to turn every post-war conflict into another World War II. When the film does try to draw any distinctions,it still reduces the action to good guys versus bad guys. If a few Americans will just go over there and blow up stuff and shoot some guys,those benighted foreigners will see the error of their ways and everything will straighten itself out. That's a bit of oversimplification,but given the loopy politics of China Gate,it's not too far off the mark. It misses it.

jonathan-577 On this evidence, Fuller is a strident and uncompromising anti-Communist anti-racist. You heard me. This is a late-50s movie about 'Indochina' - a little ahead of the curve there! - which takes the USA to task for not leaping right in there with their French pals; the enemy has Stalin all over the wall of their lookout posts. So it's more than a little silly, to put it nicely. But given this, the racial issues it confronts are above and beyond the call of duty - the espionage tour our heroes embark on is really an opportunity for dynamite expert Gene Barry to smarten up after abandoning his distinctly Asian-featured kid from his liaison with half-white Lucky Legs (Angie Dickinson). Along the way there are exciting scenes, surprisingly well-modulated performances, and a budget-conscious stylistic trick I've never seen before: shot almost entirely in wide master shot, Fuller constantly pans-and-scans the black-and-white Scope image to approximate camera movement. Here's a guy who's smart enough to know that grainy (not to mention silly) won't matter if the damn thing MOVES.

Steve Tarter Nat King Cole acts and sings in this one and that just might be the only item of interest in a very bad movie with one distinction: it has Americans fighting in Vietnam in 1957.We're talking about a few mercenaries (like Gene Barry) who just can't get enough military action and just love killing Commies. Ah, the good old days...Angie Dickinson is your typical half-Chinese, half-American loving mother/double agent/saboteur who drinks heavily but never shows it. Her cute little Chinese son has been spurned by father Barry, whose racist tendencies keep erupting throughout the movie.It's violent, stiff and dumb. There's something about movies that use "gate" in the title--"Heaven's Gate," for example.