Walk Like a Dragon (1960)

Sadly Over-hyped

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Multi talented Australian writer/director James Clavel, for his second Hollywood feature, picked an interesting historical situation and fascinating hand picked international cast to bring his story to life. His characters are rich and varied and well defined, mixing a multinational group of people brought together in the developing days of the west. It's been said Mr. Clavel had difficulty deciding on the right way to finish, so shot two alternate endings and at one stage both ran simultaneously in two Cinemas. The ending presented on TCM was regarded as the strongest and was adopted for the subsequent world market release. Award Winner Loyal Griggs (Shane) provides the fine B/W photography with Paul Dunlap's lovely music score blending perfectly. It's a thoughtful look at a young nation in its formative years and makes for a better than average mild budget western.

This is one unusual western where the subject of racial prejudice takes a front row seat as the topic dealt with. But this was prejudice western style as it deals with the influx of immigrants from the Orient.Jack Lord, recent veteran of the Civil War is in San Francisco to pick up mining equipment when he reminds himself of what the Civil War was about and buys Nobu McCarthy at a Chinese slave auction. Women were really on a low rank on the scale in that patriarchal culture that the Chinese took with them to America. He frees her, but as James Shigeta points out she's free to go nowhere. Shigeta he's giving a lift back to his home where Shigeta's uncle Benson Fong runs the Chinese laundry.Of course it ends up with Lord and Shigeta both falling for McCarthy. As for McCarthy is it love she feels for Lord or just overwhelming gratitude to be taken from a life probably spent in some Chinese brothel in San Francisco.Lord isn't exactly free from anti-Oriental prejudice nor is his mother Josephine Hutchinson, but both come to accept McCarthy. Hutchinson gives a warning to McCarthy similar to what Sidney Poitier got from his movie father Roy Glenn in Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. There are some similarities in those films though I suspect the budget for Walk Like A Dragon might have been part of Kate Hepburn's salary in the other film.One thing I could not abide though was the casting of Mel Torme as the scripture quoting gunfighter named Deacon. Like Tony Martin in Quincannon, Frontier Scout, Torme looked out of place. In the saloon he looked like he was waiting for a song cue from the piano.The really heavy handed approach and the lack of production values kept Walk Like A Dragon from a better rating. It is though a sincere effort to explore a topic not very often talked about, especially in westerns.

This film is set in Gold Rush California. The protagonist is an exiled Chinese who will stop at nothing to get the girl - he finds it utterly unfitting that his countrywoman is interlocking with a foreign devil (played by Jack Lord). The disgruntled Chinese vows to make himself equal in stature to the ignorant bigoted white men around him; as he puts it, "I will walk high, like a dragon". He apprentices himself to the gun-toting town deacon, who does duty as local clergyman as well as local amateur law enforcer. We know why he enters into this project: of course, he looks forward to a bloodily successful showdown with his caucasian nemesis, whose chief sin is being engaged to the Chinese woman whom he also loves and regards as too good for a white man. When the planned gunfight occurs, however, the pesky white rival is victorious, and the uppity Chinese appears to have little chance of recognizing his ambitions. In the end, however, the fact that he and the girl are of the same nation-in-exile is what prevails: the Jack Lord character loses the girl because blood is thicker than water. And yet, to make a necessary point, the Chinese man has to conclude the film by making a culturally impossible demand of her, which she executes. This suggests irresistibly some kind of symbolic castration - in a sense it takes away his Chinese nationality. He has chosen a life of exile in America, where he has made is fortune among enemies and anti-Chinese bigots, over the possibility of returning to China with his bride.Not that it's easy for her to make the choice. The Lord character saved her from a life in a brothel. But still . . . And while Lord doesn't get the girl, he certainly gets the best line: "Who do you think taught the deacon?"!!

I happened across this movie years ago on a independent t.v. station in the middle of the afternoon. I first watched because of Mel Torme, but I found myself thoroughly enjoying a western... *shock*. The one thing I recall most was how very "un-Mel" Mel was. His portrayal of a gunslinger was very low-key and VERY effective. If I ever get a chance to see this again, I'll have a tape ready to role. I strongly recommend it.