It's hard to believe that this cliched, relentlessly melodramatic triangle hospital soaper had its genesis in a novel by Nobel-prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck. True, it is set against a rather realistic WW2 background. The RKO miniatures specialists and the stock footage department work overtime to blow up buildings and wreak destruction. But few people will swallow either the main plot or its two equally hackneyed sub-plots, one involving a ridiculously caricatured Japanese colonel (played with heavily theatrical over-emphasis by Richard Loo), the other featuring Anthony Quinn under Oriental make-up as a loyalist resistance fighter. Poor Philip Ahn is caught in the middle of both sub-plots, but even he can do little with his radio-serial lines and weak-kneed characterization. Ellen Drew has the thankless role of the unsympathetic wife, while Ruth Warrick dispenses blank goody-goodiness, and Randolph Scott doctors on doggedly. As for Ducky Louie, Carol Thurston and the rest of the mainly Chinese players, we will pass over their efforts in silence. By some quirk that is difficult to understand from today's perspective, China Sky was quite successful at the box-office. I would have thought it fell between two stools - too much action for the girls, far too much soppy romance for the boys.The Director: Known as a reliable work-horse, Ray Enright was under contract to Warner Bros. from 1929 to 1941. Enright commenced freelancing in 1942 with his best-known film The Spoilers, starring John Wayne and Randolph Scott. In fact he seems to have reached his stride with westerns such as Trail Street, Albuquerque, Coroner Creek, South of St Louis, Montana, Kansas Raiders and Flaming Feather.

This film is an interesting mix of what you'd expect, but then what you do not. We not only have Anthony Quinn playing an Asian, we have Korean actors playing Japanese. Scott is playing a hero, and actually brings his role as a Doctor over so much that it is convincing. Rather than list the cast, let's just say everyone is quite effective from Scott and Warrick to the young boy playing the Goat. The story is based on a novel about the war in Asia and this film is one of the earlier ones about that part of the war.. Scott, the American Doctor who is coming back a hero, from the US raising money for his Hospital, near the front with the Japanese in China. He brings a new wife who is not quite ready for the facing pf air raids, and wants to take her huband away from there back to the US. The plot gets a bit more twisted bacause of the beautiful woman doctor he works with, the Chinese Doctor and the Japanese War Prisoner. Couple those with the Chinese Undergound and there are a few twists.The best thing about the film is the fighting sequences look better here than in other war films made this decade. The diverse cast brings off a good film despite the fact they are playing roles other than the expected ones. The love and tragic story is done pretty well. One major flaw though, late in the film Scott gets shot, and then in the next scene and the rest of the film, there is no sign he was ever wounded.

"China Sky" is a film set in China and it does feature some Asian-American actors. However, oddly, the film also features Anthony Quinn in one of the leading roles and he, too, plays someone who is Chinese! Other than Mantan Moreland or Willie Best, I can't think of an actor who looked LESS Chinese than Quinn! I know he did have a reputation as a man who could play many, many different nationalities, but this is ridiculous. However, such bizarre casting is not very unusual. During this same era in Hollywood, such obviously non-Asian actors as Walter Huston and even Kathrine Hepburn were picked to play these sort of roles! Plus, Carol Thurston also plays one of natives in "China Sky" and is pretty clearly not Asian.This film was made near the end of WWII and is set in a hospital in China during their war with Japan. Ruth Warrick plays Dr. Sara--a single and pretty lady working in China during the war. Considering she's pretty much on her own there, it seems a bit ridiculous. As the film begins, Dr. Gray (Randolph Scott) returns--and Dr. Sara is excited...until she sees that Gray has brought along his new wife (Ellen Drew). This is a problem, as it's obvious that the good Dr. Sara wanted him for herself and the new wife is quite a surprise! Soon the new wife is revealed to be a shallow shrew--and unsheathes her claws on Dr. Sara! At this point it's obvious that by the end of the film the wife will be history and Dr. Sara will have her good Doctor for herself. In fact, it was downright silly as the dumb wife inexplicably ran through the middle of a gunfight (with machine guns even) only to die--thus freeing up the doctors to fall in love!! Oooo, this really pained me it was so clichéd!At the same time there is a parallel story involving a stereotypically evil Japanese commander who is being held prisoner. He somehow manages to get a Korean doctor to help him--though this makes absolutely no sense at all considering what the Japanese had done to Korea as well as the guy being a doctor.This film suffers from some of the worst mock Chinese dialog I have ever heard. All the Chinese people seem quaintly inscrutable and a bit like happy savages--and I am sure any Asian watching the film would be pretty ticked off by these portrayals. Never do they really seem like people! And, aside from the new wife, all the white folks in the film are noble--too noble. In fact, no one at all in the film seems real in the least.Overall, there really isn't a whole lot to recommend the film. The romantic triangle could have been pretty interesting---but none of the rest of the film was believable or worthwhile. The only reason I watched is because I would watch Randolph Scott in anything--and as usual he did a nice job, though the film was clearly beneath his talents. Not a good film by any stretch of the imagination.

China Sky is interesting as it shows a side of WWII that is seldom seen, the war in China. Few realize the enormity of what the Japanese did to China and it is seldom seen on television or in the movies. This gives at least a glimpse into that world.The story was written by Pearl S. Buck. It has some of the worst dialog I've seen in a movie in many years. The story is predictable, and there is not one thing in the plot that comes as a surprise. The acting is a bit better than the dialog, but that really isn't saying much.This movie is worth watching if for nothing else but the subject matter, but if one is expecting to be entertained please watch something else.