High Road to China (1983)

Masterful Movie

Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Excellent, smart action film.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

From the novel by Jon Cleary, this high adventure (ala Indiana Jones) flick is a sight better than most. An enjoyable cast and a reasonable plot do help a lot.The interaction between Tom Selleck and Bess Armstrong is a lot of fun. Brian Blessed's nasty Khan is a hoot, as is "Heinz" man Robert Morley. Brian G. Hutton directs it all at a pace.The whole affair of "High Road to China" is capped by John Barry's heroic theme and fantastic cinematography from Sandra Weintraub Roland and S. Lee Pogostin.Saturday, April 10, 1999 - Video

The last of a great breed. This is truly one of the last of the great classic films, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Simply put, films like this are a thing of the past, as has been shown in the last twenty years. They appeal to too narrow an audience by today's corporate marketing genius's standards (heavy sarcasm), and because of the cross market appeal this film has, it's guaranteed to be a box-office bust (again, buy today's standards).Technically; the Kahn sequence seemed a touch slow and contrived, as well as the British army sequence and some of the other character oriented scenes, but still necessary. Regardless, the camera work, locations and art direction are top notch. Good stunts, excellent flying sequences, and, most importantly of all, there's no CGI to ruin the movie. Heck, there aren't even miniatures in this film! Everything you see in this film IS REAL. Aeroplanes, explosions, sets, locations, the whole shootin-match. :-) (so to speak).No awards will be won by any single actor, actress or crew member. But, as a whole, this is a spectacular film that I really want for my DVD collection. Regrettably the only version available to us in the United States is the one provided on Youtube.Romantic and adventurous settings, locations and story makes this one not to miss. Sellick and Armstrong definitely sync well together on screen.*RESCREENED JAN 10th, 2010* My new title; "Indiana Jones Grows Up"I got my DVD of this film a few days ago, and popped it into my region 2 player after work. All I can say is I'm truly glad I have this in my collection, and I think I appreciate the film now more than ever. What we have here is the bratty socialite connecting with the hero-has-been who's never grown up. She's a socialite aviatrix with womanly wiles, while he's the rugged man of the world, but prefers to stay in his immature mold and lost to the world. Both have lessons to teach one another, and it pays off. I find it a heart warming film that I think couples true of heart to another can share and enjoy.Regrettably my region 2 DVD is not letter boxed, and the transfer, though respectable, is not what it could have been. Still, it's the only game in town as far a DVD version of this film goes, and I'm okay with that. Though shame on the powers that be for not making this film a priority for market.Well, I don't have too much more to say other than I'm going to watch it again. :-)Enjoy.*EDIT JULY 10th, 2012* I got a brand new letterboxed and remastered DVD from Hen's Tooth Video. A fantastic transfer. Excellent quality. Many kudos to the people at Hen's Tooth. The film looks better than ever before. Pick up a copy today.

I'm not sure why Tom Selleck's career as a leading man stalled when it did. I'm told he's handsome. And he has that cracked Jimmy-Stewart voice. In interviews he seems bright and articulate. He doesn't do a bang-up job in this light-hearted zap number but who could? All he's called upon to do is act drunk once in a while, and if he doesn't do as good a job as John Wayne did in "True Grit," well, maybe it's because Wayne has had so much more practice. Oh, and Selleck is also given lines like, "Surely, the great Suleman the Exquisite would not harm a small servant of his grateful guest." Something like that, anyway. Selleck did a fine job as Dwight D. Eisenhower in a recent TV movie -- "Ten Days to D-Day," perhaps it was.The plot here -- self-indulgent pretty socialite hires handsome drunken pilot and his mechanic side kick to fly around most of Asia to find her missing father before she's disinherited -- is pretty familiar stuff. Runaway socialites and canny pilots. I keep thinking of Jimmy Cagney and Barbara Stanwyk lost in the desert. The photography is a bit gloomy but the locations are unusual and the action and comedy balance each other nicely. There's even a dogfight, which the slower, heavier two-seater with its single Lewis machine gun would surely have lost against the more nimble single-seater with its two machine guns. The reason the clumsier airplane wins is that it is flown by Tom Selleck, whereas the superior machine is flown by a stereotyped square-jawed blond German with no sense of humor.The music is lush and romantic. The scenery rolling. The old airplanes fun to watch as they sputter along or flop over in hammerhead stalls. The dialog sort of lumbers along in the same way, without enough funny lines or wisecracks. Still, it's not offensive in any way. The kids will probably enjoy it. Maybe they will even learn a little something about Buddhism, such as that a world religion by that name exists.Not a gem, but not bad.

Rare is it that a movie combines great stars with great acting and a great plot. This is not one of those movies. however, what I liked about it was its appeal for adventure but not stuck on it. Its cast while not great somehow to me, had a Human side to it that I really liked. Almost as if it were "regular" people acting as they would do in the circumstances. There was no "super" hero although there was bravery and no adult scenes, although we got the point to how adults sometimes act when drinking and "other". The Film was enjoyable, humanistic in a way that films seldom do. Selleck and Armstrong were terrific together giving you that "I have been through this" feeling when you deal with opposite personalities.The Plot is uncomplicated with Armstrong needing to get to her father in China but the only way there is to hire Selleck and his jalopy planes. A guy who's "regular" and a Rich brat who's anything but regular blend well together to make this a funny, interesting and enjoyable film with some very cool aerial shots. Finally, just a plain film with an interesting cast and a plot that takes you on a Ariel adventure.