Walk Like a Dragon

Audience Reviews

View All (2) audience reviews

Ken R Walk Like A Dragon Presents a Challenging Theme in a New Land Multi-talented Australian writer/producer/director James Clavell, for his second Hollywood feature, picked an interesting (and brave) racially-themed historical situation. He then selected a 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 1870s American West. It's been said Mr. Clavell 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 as presented on TCM was regarded as the strongest and was adopted for the subsequent world market release. Award-winning veteran cinematographer Loyal Griggs (Shane) provides the fine B/W photography with Paul Dunlap's evocative music score blending perfectly. It's a thoughtful look at a young nation in its formative years and deals with sensitive racial interactions as Chinese immigrants are introduced into its early development. This makes for an unusual up-close examination of the many facets of racial prejudice, and in Clavell's hands results in this better than average, medium-budget western - which benefits greatly from sincere performances by its interesting cast. Singer Mel Torme plays a saloon ‘peace-keeper' and sings the title song, adding further curious appeal to a generally little-known but pleasing, off-beat production. James Clavell's real-life is as fascinating as his writings A Note on Characters: While looking at Clavell's interesting array of character choices, look also at the town sheriff; Rodolfo Acosta a Mexican, keeping the law in a predominantly white Californian town (reminiscent of Anthony Quinn in "The Man From Del Rio") ~ Lilyan Chauvin as Lili the French Saloon keeper and lady friend of Jack Lord's character, Linc Bartlett (a descendant of this character also features in Clavel's latter novel; ‘Noble House') ~ Charles Irwin as Angus, the Scottish Forman of Linc's freight line, then there's Michael Pate an Australian, as Will, the towns Reverend. Mr. Clavell certainly had a penchant for unusual international characters all holding down curious positions in odd places, this certainly added unique flavor to his ‘original' approach to writing. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 10/16/21 Full Review Audience Member James Shigeta is super attractive, even at the end when he has a wicked mullet. And I don't really like to admit it, but I found Mel Torme kind of sexy at points too. My favorite thing about it was the Chinese characters who would speak perfect, unaccented English to each other, but only speak pidgin English in front of white people. I felt pretty conflicted at the ending. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Walk Like a Dragon

My Rating

Read More Read Less POST RATING WRITE A REVIEW EDIT REVIEW