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Waste of time

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

After being captured, tied up and left for dead by North Korean invaders, an American army soldier by the name of "Sergeant Zack" (Gene Evans) is helped out of his bonds by a young South Korean boy nicknamed "Short Round" (William Chun) who proceeds to follow him on his way back to friendly territory. Along the way they come across other stragglers and together they continue on to a Buddhist temple in order to establish an observation post to monitor an advancing North Korean army. When they eventually reach their objective, their different personalities become more pronounced and threaten their unity even though they all realize that they need each other to accomplish the mission and to stay alive. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this low-budget film managed to overcome its limitations to a certain degree due to the underlying message it seeks to promote. Yet, even though the actors performed quite well, I thought that the script could have used significant improvement and the lack of resources clearly limited the overall quality and effect. I have rated the film accordingly. Average.

When viewing The Steel Helmet I had to keep reminding myself that this was made and shown to audiences while the Korean War was actually in its earliest stages. Writer-Director Samuel Fuller smartly depicts the relationship of an American soldier and a Korean boy in a non-stereotypical, yet poignant way. Needless to say, it is devastating when the boy is killed in the line of fire. There are some loose ends in this picture, though, that leave the viewer with unanswered questions. For example, it may have helped to know more about what led one of the characters, a conscientious objector, to eventually join the military. Also, viewers would probably like to know what it was like for the black medic to get drafted. His lines regarding segregation and sitting on the back of the bus give us a unique window into another culture. He has come upon foreign land with the hope that civil rights are not only valued back home in the U.S., but also in an Asiatic battlefront threatened by the encroachment of communism.

Fuller's first major work is typically hard-hitting: not that many films have been made about the Korean War (in fact, this was reportedly the very first) but leave it to Fuller to have the last word on the subject – at least, with respect to the actual conflict. One could argue that we had more or less seen this type of jungle warfare in WWII films based in the Pacific, but there's no denying that the writer/director brought unprecedented realism and a moral outlook all his own to a genre he tackled most frequently throughout his career. Furthermore, he sketched soldiers of true flesh-and-blood with their sense of discipline and judgment often clouded by selfishness, prejudice or just plain fear – no wonder that, when the disheveled survivors are belatedly rescued from a brutal onslaught inside a Buddhist temple by their colleagues, one of the latter is induced to remark: "Say, what kind of outfit is this anyway?" For the record, the most familiar cast members are Gene Evans (though he had done a number of bits since debuting in 1947, his name is preceded here by the epithet "introducing" – and he's already fully in character as the tough, cigar-chomping sergeant), Steve Brodie as his disgruntled commanding officer and James Edwards as the black medic; others in the ragtag company are a man studying for priesthood, a youth whose bout as a child with Scarlet Fever has turned him prematurely and completely bald and even a Japanese (played by none other than Richard Loo – the villainous General from THE PURPLE HEART [1944] which, coincidentally, preceded this viewing). An effective addition to these – however unlikely a figure in a Fuller movie – is that of a South Korean child who helps the wounded Evans at the very start (the latter immediately dubs him "Short Round" – Steven Spielberg must have watched this at some point!) and eventually tags along, acting as guide-cum-mascot and even prays to Buddha for their safety. The second half of the picture is confined to the aforementioned temple, where the soldiers first fall victim to and then capture a solitary enemy-in-hiding; in pure Fuller mode, he tries to coerce fellow 'outsiders' Loo and Edwards into defecting, while Evans shoots him down (despite orders by their superiors to secure themselves a P.O.W.) after "Short Round" is pitilessly targeted by the approaching North Koreans.

What could have been a flimsy, disposable b-movie in the hands of other, less competent directors, becomes an evocative war tale of grit, fear, loss and redemption in the hands of Sam Fuller. There's no abstract sophistication or sentimental pap though: this is raw and true film-making, unpretentious and stripped of all fat. Director Sam Fuller is a unique beast in the American underground: having worked both as a crime report for NYC newspapers before he enlisted as a soldier in WWII, it comes natural then that the Steel Helmet has the urgency and power of both of his pre-directorial careers. A reporter's sense of story and characters above all and the firsthand experience of a war veteran. True to itself, simple but never simplistic, with respect to the subject matter and without any flag waving, The Steel Helmet is better than it had any right to be. It is still a low-profile (in terms of stars and publicity or lack thereof) b-movie but shot with a conviction and passion few a-list movies can muster.