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When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Walk Like a Dragon (1960) was a courageous and important film. Released in an era when segregated facilities, transportation, schools and residential neighborhoods still existed in many part of the South in the United States, and at a time when the public debate about racial equality and African-American Civil Rights occupied the attention of an increasing number of Americans, it broke many unspoken Hollywood conventions of its day.Although the script now in some places seems painfully stereotyped, it provided substantive roles in a period when box office racism in Hollywood often limited the scope and range of the parts available for minority stars to play. Walk Like a Dragon (1960) benefits both from a well crafted script by Daniel Mainwaring and James Clavell, and from an extremely talented roster of players. The cast included the late Nobu McCarthy portraying "Kim Sung", the heroine of the story, Jack Lord as her would-be rescuer ("Lincoln Bartlett"), and James Shigeta as "Cheng Lu", a recent immigrant smitten by her charms. Josephine Hutchinson, Mel Torme, Benson Fong and Lilyan Chauvin also appear in pivotal supporting roles.The film uncompromisingly depicts the cruel exploitation and racism often encountered by Chinese immigrants in the United States, a young nation which promulgated ideals of civil rights but often found upholding that standard impossible in practice. But the writers do so within the context of also addressing many of the less attractive medieval aspects of Chinese society during the 1800s, including slavery, racism, rural poverty, the oppression and humiliation of poor people by an entrenched wealthy ruling class and, especially, the inferior status accorded to women in traditional Chinese society.Set in the aftermath of the Civil War in the West, the story centers around the dilemma facing Kim Sung,a young slave who had been transported from China to the United States to be sold as a brothel worker. In the West, she attracts the romantic interest of two men, a Civil War veteran with strong anti-slavery views and a young worker from China disappointed by the lack of opportunity, and the lack of respect, he encounters in the USA. Sheltered by Ma Bartlett, Lincoln Bartlett's strong-willed and influential mother, a devout Christian, Kim Sung suddenly finds herself in a position to make independent choices for the first time in her life. But she discovers that the society at large around them does not really value her new found civil rights. She is equal in the eyes of the law but not in reality. How she resolves this conflict speaks volumes about individualism and community in multicultural societies.This film does have some violence and adult themes, but it is probably suitable for older youngsters because the content is not graphic, especially by today's standards.

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 am a great fan of Jack Lord, and on my quest to find all his movies, I came upon this one...Its a superbly done movie, with a great plot! Its strange to see Jack Lord in any other role than in Hawaii 5-0.... I just loved it! Well done, James Clavell!