Set near the end of the French rule of IndoChina (later Vietnam) a mixed group of French Legionnaires, led by an US demolition expert, must blow up an important Chinese ammunition depot. They also get assistance from a "madam"r of mixed blood. Some of director Sam Fuller's movies tend to be a bit over the top and this one sure belongs in that category. It's a crazy story with crazy characters : there is the US demolition man (Gene Barry) , a competent but unsympathetic bully and racist, the brothel owner (Angie Dickinson) who is the former wife of the US guy (they have a son) and there is the French ragtag legionnaire team (including singer Nat King Cole). As with most of these "menonamission" movies some of the team get bumped of during the journey but they get there ofcourse in the end, no less thanks to the fact that Angie Dickinson seems to have slept with half of the Chinese army stationed in Vietnam.It does move along at fairly brisk pace and Fuller knows how to work with the Cinemascope format but the story, and especially the ending is completely ludicrous and unbelievable (you 'll have to find out for yourselves).Somehow Fuller felt this wasn't exactly a winner so he followed this up (in the same year) with "Run of the Arrow" a though and excellent western starring Rod Steiger, which has become a real classic.

The action is set in Viet Nam. The French had been waging an impossible war against the communist Chinese and Vietnamese in a conflict that ended in defeat for France. This is before the American involvement in one of the most hated wars in recent history. Samuel Fuller, who started out as a reporter, saw firsthand what war was really like early in his life during WWII. After that, he became a writer for the movies and a director who, to this day, has inspired many of the current crop of creators with his sharp take on the world he lived. "China Gate", alas, does not add anything to his illustrious career, although no serious fan of Mr. Fuller will pass the opportunity to take a look at this 1957 film. The story centers around a conflict between a Eurasian born woman, Lucky Legs, the owner of a saloon that had married Johnny Brock, an American mercenary who is helping the French in their fight against their enemy as the story begins. Brock was a bigot, to put it mildly, and a man that obviously was not playing with a full deck. He abandoned Lucky after their son is born. He rejected the infant based on his Chinese looks. Lucky is recruited to guide a small team of men to the China Gate, where the communists have amassed war material that will help them fight the war. Lucky, being well known to her countrymen, had no trouble taking the patrol to their destination, leaving at each post bottles of her prized stash of French cognac, much appreciated by the fighting enemy.Unfortunately, the story does not ring true; it is sadly dated as it does not make much sense. The mere idea of outsmarting the guerrillas, by a small group of men just does not seem possible, but then again, this is the basis of many pictures where common sense does not count into the story, what matters is the action, the dead, the fabulous explosions and the heroism of a few.Gene Barry playing Brock shows no chemistry whatsoever with his co-star, Angie Dickinson, at the height of her youth and beauty. Nat King Cole, the inimitable singer makes a dramatic appearance and he steals the movie from more experienced actors. Lee Van Cleef shows up as Cham, the man who was also in love with Lucky. For Samuel Fuller fans only!

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.

Samuel Fuller's China Gate isn't one to rush out to rent, but if you're already a fan of the director's it's a safe bet that most of his work will be at least brawny and entertaining, and even in the midst of heavy melodrama he can pack a bit of punch in the midst of the studio-set conventions. Make no mistake, this is a studio picture through and through, down to the studio locations (how much of it really is a jungle one might wonder, which isn't much), and the mix and match of real war-torn cityscapes ala Rossellini with stock footage of planes dropping supplies for the citizens. The only overall disappointing aspect is the slightly off ratio of powerful action and tough dialog- there's a little too much of the latter, and not as one of Fuller's most spot-on scripts in trying to wring out the unsentimental emotion, which backfires- as it's almost a minor work when compared to the real big guns, no pun intended, with respect to Fuller's war films. China Gate is simple melodrama, but when it does stick simply, and with Fuller's stylistic strengths and flashes of bravado, it works.One of the pleasantries of the picture is seeing the actors take to the roles, in typical Fullerian mode, as if it was all heart. Angie Dickinson, in one of her first performances, is a hot little number that has just the right, well, 'something' to keep her along with the other male parts, as she plays a hard-bitten mother named 'Lucky Legs' who is the only one who has the right contacts and repore with the Ho Chi-Mon that she can get a small military team through enemy lines. Her strengths are poised against Gene Barry, her once husband (still technically is, thanks to a lovey-dovey scene in the latter part of the movie), who is a bigot and seems to have had all sympathy for most people drained away. He does, however, gain it back by the time the big climax comes, which maybe isn't too far of a stretch considering the many scenes where he and Lucky Legs get a little more intimate (as close as possible during the 'code' anyway). The good news is Fuller cast them very well for their chemistry on screen, as they are totally opposed at first, and then gradually get closer and closer, her beauty with his scruffy face, each hard-bitten by times spent in war and communist locales.Meanwhile, Fuller's got a wild card with Nat King Cole, who not only wonderfully sings an unusually placed song (right before all the men head out on their mission through the Vietnam jungle) but is an unexpectedly touching actor. He goes through some subtle looks at times when asked too many questions from a fellow German soldier in the group, is cool and dead-pan when having to face Sgt. Brock, and plays it perfectly when he is in possible enemy fire range and steps on a spike in the ground, keeping himself mute with his face totally in horror. There's also a good scene with a man who gets wounded on a rocky ridge, with his last minutes not stepping into platitudes but simply allowing a sort of quietly sad cross-cutting between the others looking down at the poor solider seen in a painful close-up. Although there's a fairly bad scene with a French foreign legion guy (I think foreign legion) who tells a story accompanied by a sound effect of a whistle, and the dialog between the men in the less plot-dense scenes is just average Fuller, it's great to see a part for Lee Van Cleef as the heel with all the bombs and explosives in the cave, and the climax is a good, if not astounding, wallop.An obscure early dip into what would become the most insane debacle of Westerners fighting the 'other' halfway across the world (as of then), China Gate is usually exciting and tightly executed, and if it doesn't have the same pulp attitude that Fuller has when he's working full throttle, it never-the-less attains a quality that speaks of the BANG of a headline, telling the story all in one bold swoop, however easy to tell.