Up until I first saw the trailer for High Road to China many years ago, I wasn’t very enlightened to genre clones, but this post-Raiders of the Lost Ark classic couldn’t be more obvious, and it’s available now on Blu-ray from Imprint Films.
Produced by legendary Hong Kong-based production company Golden Harvest, this continent-hopping adventure follows a spoiled socialite, Eve Tozer, who hires an ex-WWI pilot, O’Malley, to help locate her industrial-magnate father before he is declared dead.
It’s hard not to long for Indiana Jones while watching High Road to China, especially since Tom Selleck famously missed out on the title role. However, the film does manage to stand on its own and allows Selleck to give us a nice glimpse of what he might have been like with the whip and leather fedora.
Typical of the period, there’s some casual racism on display each time two heroes land in a new location, for example, English actor Brian Blessed, in absolute full force as an Afghan warlord, but it doesn’t take too much away from the overall enjoyment. Movies like these are, to a degree, live-action cartoons, often with some cheap laughs and measured ignorance. Although problematic elements aside, High Road to China aims for a high level of production despite being made outside of the Hollywood sphere, and it’s in the capable hands of Brian G. Hutton for what was his final credit as director. With only nine features to his name, including Kelly’s Heroes and Where Eagles Dare, Hutton was certainly proficient in making big pictures or making smaller pictures appear “big”, and his talent proved to be a resourceful asset for Golden Harvest.
Bess Armstrong, whom I’ll always associate with the third dimension of terror, that being Jaws 3, is a feisty female lead who holds her own next to Selleck and pretty much everyone. Tozer is more capable than most written for the genre, which was unexpected.
SPECIAL FEATURES
- NEW Audio commentary by film historian Steve Mitchell
- Archival Interviews with actress Bess Armstrong and actor Jack Weston
- Original Theatrical Trailer
At roughly 6 minutes and 45 seconds each, Imprint have included two Bobbie Wygant interviews, which, despite the short length, do shed some light on the film’s production, such as the technical side. Bess Armstrong describes in detail how many of the aerial stunts were achieved, which apparently is not all that different from attaching a camera to a car when an actor needs to be filmed driving.
Steve Mitchell’s commentary is a welcome addition to a film that’s previously only been given very basic treatment on physical media.
VIDEO AND AUDIO
Presented in 1.78:1, this is the sixth Blu-ray release of High Road to China and the second one in Australia, but the HD transfer remains the same, which is unfortunately sub-standard. The image is washed out with bland colours and has little sharpness, while the English LPCM 2.0 Stereo track does manage to offer decent sound despite being a little flat in places. Dialogue volume is also inconsistent. English HOH subtitles are included.
High Road to China may not have flown first class for this Blu-ray edition, but it’s the best one so far, thanks to Imprint’s effort. Hopefully, one day, a restoration will appear on the horizon for this cult classic.
HIGH ROAD TO CHINA
(1983, director: Brian G. Hutton)
★★★½
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direct blu-ray screen captures
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