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.

JohnHowardReid A Globe Enterprises Production released by Twentieth Century-Fox. Copyright 1957 by Globe Enterprises Productions. New York opening at the Paramount: 22 May 1957. U.S. release: May 1957. U.K. release: 7 July 1957. Australian release: 1 August 1957. 97 minutes. (Censored to 95 minutes in Australia, cut to 90 minutes in the U.K.)COMMENT: Inserts of newsreel footage tend to lift the believable elements in the plot of this Samuel Fuller production set in Indo- China in 1954, but the plot and its enactment does start to wear somewhat thin as the footage wends its way towards its bitter-sweet climax. Written and directed by Samuel Fuller, this flick lacks the punch necessary to qualify it as exceptional material, but should hold some interest for most viewers. Aside from its unique locale, its most diverting ingredient is Nat "King" Cole, who plays a top role and who also sings the title song.Set as it is in war-ridden Indo-China, the theme is down-beat most of the way. Locations are either war-ravaged villages or jungle outposts through which a Foreign Legion party, guided by a Eurasian saloon owner, makes its way to the China Gate, where it hopes to destroy the main enemy arsenal. Deserted by her husband, Barry, when their baby was born, Miss Dickinson, has become famous throughout Indo-China as "Lucky Legs", the saloon proprietor, and is trusted and popular with both the Reds and the French. In fact, the Foreign Legion commander asks her to guide a party of volunteers through Red lines to the China Gates, where the main bomb and shell dump has been kept carefully hidden in a labyrinth of tunnels that cannot be detected from the air. Miss Dickinson refuses when she learns Barry is among the volunteers, but consents when Marsac promises passage to America for the boy in return for her services. Needless to say, the trek from Son Toy through the lines is dangerous and tedious.Thanks to the involvement offered by the wide CinemaScope screen, this otherwise rather routine war picture, is made reasonably exciting. The players try hard against an often sticky script. The principals are further hampered by their somewhat colorless on- screen personalities. Nonetheless, Angie Dickinson manages to overcome most of the obstacles thrown her way by writer/director Samuel Fuller (whose once really enormous cult following, seems to have diminished somewhat in recent years).

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.

chrisdfilm This movie is wildly underrated and, contrary to the usual, often numbskull IMDb opinions here, one of Sam Fuller's most satisfying pictures from the 1950s. Angie Dickinson is very convincing as Eurasian Lucky Legs, an independent woman cast adrift and on her own trying to survive in French-controlled Viet-Nam. She is constantly judged and used by former lover, racist mercenary Gene Barry (who is also the father of her bastard son)for his own ends. Nat King Cole is fine as Barry's right-hand man, Goldie. One of the great things about the film is showing the irrationality of racism, a prime example being that racist Barry has nothing but warm feelings (if memory serves) for longtime comrade, Cole. Full of great insights (no matter how broadly painted) as well as super hardboiled bits (watch for Cole stepping on a spike at night in the jungle but unable to cry out due to proximity of enemy soldiers -- as well as what happens to self-sacrificing Angie at the end). Show me another war film as gutsy and as uncompromising from this time period (outside of Don Siegel's HELL IS FOR HEROES or Anthony Mann's MEN IN WAR). Plus - how can one not warm to a movie where Lee Van Cleef (!) plays the Viet Cong commander in charge of the ammo dump that Barry and cohorts must destroy?