High Road to China

Love the movie

I recorded this film off network late night programming by chance and have loved it and nearly wore out the tape. I managed to buy it from a video store that was going out of business--the owner called me two days later begging to buy it back!! I dearly wish it would be restored and released on DVD, as many have also said. But now to the film. OK, it's an adventure knock-off...or is it. Tom is not Harrison. Harrison Ford was perfect for Indy but he would have been awful as O'Malley. And I am glad Tom didn't take the Indy role, he's not Indy. Selleck has a lot of depth in this character, more than Harrison has as Indy, in my opinion. He is a real example of what happens to someone who was traumatized by war and then tries to find someplace to hide from life. He and the other characters all demonstrate a lot of humanity. There is also a lot of moral content in this film. The Eve character matures from a vain flapper into a real woman. The not-so-subtle critique of those who use violence and military force as a means of personal aggrandizement is perfect. Weston's side-kick character shows a lot of love and loyalty, not to mention classic humor. (I would love to have a friend like that!) There is no unnecessary, gratuitous or 'comic' violence (as there is in Raider's, by the way). There is frailty, self-sacrifice, commitment, bravery, compassion, repentance and forgiveness, and joy (yes, joy is a moral value!) in this film. I love the pace of the film and all the supporting cast. Others have pointed out the cinematography & sweeping vistas, ditto! Ok, the model work could have been better, especially the Baron's crash. It is obviously not a high-budget movie. It is a great dialogue movie nonetheless--the romance and adventure part speaks for itself. Tom Selleck is not the greatest living actor but he is PERFECT in this role. He is not Magnum or Quigley in a biplane; he IS O'Malley. Bess Armstrong is brilliant; Brimley is hilarious. What's not to love? I love Raider's and The Last Crusade, but if I end up on the proverbial desert island I'd want a copy of High Road instead. And then if you tried to take it from me you'd have to pry it out of my cold, dead fingers.

A great film from an era long gone, this DVD reissue is very welcome to those of us who cherish classic styled cinema. Admittedly this is an Indiana Jones knock off, but not a bad one. Some of the shots and cuts are a little on the basic side. It doesn't have the cinematic complexity of "Raiders of the Lost Ark", nor some heavy underlying themes regarding good and evil and lost civilizations. But it does have some dynamic characters who0 are a pleasure to watch. The scope of the production is sweeping, but the camera is a little shy to show us all of the splendor that is outlaid before us. We don't get too many panoramic shots of army encampments, but we do see them. We don't get incredible long shots of armies storming positions, but, again, we do see them. In this regard the film itself is basic and delivers on its promise to show Tom Selleck and Bess Armstrong in an adventure that takes them to the ends of the Earth. It's a loving film that, again, rides the market trend of the adventure genre revitalized by Spielberg and Lucas with Raiders, but offers the audience more of a couples film than a testosterone driven adventure against the forces of darkness. This film takes place perhaps a decade or so before Indy's adventures, but still carries the same flavor in terms of being a period piece in exotic locations. I've got minor quibbles with some of the supporting cast, the dogfight, and maybe one or two process shots, but, even then this is a production in the classic Hollywood vein of offering a romantic fantasy, because that's kind of what we're interested in; the aviatrix and her has-been war hero who's down and out. Henstooth Video had the luck of getting the rights for this great film, and have given an almost forgotten piece of cinema a proper relaunch and new life. Check it out if you're into a classic styled movie with some modern production values. A good watch.

Synchronisation leider nur in Englisch das macht aber den Film so wertvoll

Molto soddisfatto,puntuale la consegna

A good fun action adventure film that is along the lines of Indiana Jones etc.

HIGH ROAD TO CHINA [1983 / 2013] [Blu-ray] Take The High Road To Adventure! Escapist Fun and Excitement! A Ripping Yarn! ‘HIGH ROAD TO CHINA’ is a 1983 adventure-romance film, set in the 1920s, starring Tom Selleck as a hard-drinking biplane pilot hired by society heiress Eve 'Evie' Tozer [Bess Armstrong] to find her missing father. The film is set just after the First World War has finished. Eve 'Evie' Tozer is a young spoiled socialist. Patrick O' Malley [Tom Selleck] is a ragged and struggling aviator. From the moment they meet they hate each other, but he is commissioned to aid her in finding her father who has disappeared in Far East Asia. They must find her father within twelve days otherwise; her whole family fortune goes to her father’s business partner, a murderous man who will stop at nothing to prevent them. Their pursuit of the missing father crosses six countries and two continents, encountering barbaric tribal warfare, peasant revolts and narrow escapes from death at every turn. It truly is an adventure you will never forget. Scored by John Barry (James Bond Franchise) and ‘HIGH ROAD TO CHINA’ was one of the highest grossing theatrical releases of 1983. FILM FACT: Awards and Nominations: 1984 Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films: Nominated: Best Fantasy Film. Nominated: Best Actress for Bess Armstrong. Cast: Tom Selleck, Bess Armstrong, Jack Weston, Wilford Brimley, Robert Morley, Brian Blessed, Cassandra Gava, Michael Sheard, Lynda La Plante, Timothy Carlton, Shayur Mehta, Terry Richards, Jeremy Child, Peter Llewellyn Williams, Dino Shafeek, Robert Lee, Peggy Sirr, Anthony Chinn, Chua Kahjoo, Ric Young, Simon Prebble, Daniel Clucas, John Higginson, Timothy Bateson, Wolf Kahler, Marc Boyle, Zdenka Hersak, Domagoj Vukusic, Sime Jagarinac, Hai Ching Lim, Kim Rook Teoh and Rick Lester (uncredited) Director: Brian G. Hutton Producers: Andre Morgan, Daniel Grodnik, Fred Weintraub, Frederick Muller and Raymond Chow Screenplay: Jonathan Hales (screenplay) (uncredited), S. Lee Pogostin (screenplay), Sandra Weintraub (screenplay) and Jon Cleary (novel) Composer: John Barry Cinematography: Ronnie Taylor (Director of Photography) and Peter Allwork, B.S.C. (Director of Photography of Ariel Sequences) Image Resolution: 1080p [Technicolor] Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Audio: 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo Audio Subtitles: English Running Time: 105 minutes Region: Region B/2 Number of discs: 1 Studio: MediumRare Entertainment / Fortune Star Andrew’s Blu-ray Review: ‘HIGH ROAD TO CHINA’ [1983] is a great little adventure-movie starring Tom Selleck as Patrick O’Malley and Bess Armstrong as Eve 'Evie' Tozer and starts off in Constantinople, Turkey, in 1920. The rich society-lady Eve 'Evie' Tozer is living a carefree life until she’s approached by the company solicitor who needs to know her father’s whereabouts. Her father has been missing for a couple of years and is about to be declared legally dead by his business-partner Bentik and he is played hilariously by Robert Morley. The business-partner Bentik will take over the company as sole owner, thus leaving Eve 'Evie' Tozer without means to support her excessive lifestyle. Her father, played by Wilford Brimley is a very successful industrialist, entrepreneur and inventor and was last seen in Afghanistan. Eve 'Evie' Tozer decides to go and find him, but of course, because s Eve 'Evie' Tozer does not want to lose the fortune, has only 12 days to do it, and needs some urgent transportation fast. This is where Patrick O' Malley [Tom Selleck] comes in, who is an ace World War One pilot, but also a drunkard and a womanizer. When we first meet Patrick O' Malley, he is dead-drunk and getting his lights punched out by the husband of one of the women he has been hitting on. The next morning as Patrick O' Malley is sleeping it off, Eve 'Evie' Tozer impatiently waits for him to wake up, and so she can hire him and his two biplanes, Dorothy and Lillian, which they are allegedly named after the Gish-sisters apparently. , Eve 'Evie' Tozer comes off as a spoiled brat at the start of the film, but money isn’t the only reason she wants to find her father, who she has not seen him in years, so naturally she misses him too! Patrick O' Malley does not want to take the job and certainly not with Eve 'Evie' Tozer coming along for the ride, but the right amount of money finally makes him change his mind and Eve 'Evie' Tozer tells him that she’s going to fly the second plane, Patrick O' Malley scoffs at her and not believing it, dares her to fly the plane, and in a very hilarious and very funny scene she shows him that she is indeed an accomplished pilot. They soon take off towards their chosen destination, her in one plane and Patrick O' Malley and his mechanic Struts [Jack Weston] in the other. After a couple more stops in Nepal and India, they finally learn that Bradley Tozer, Eve 'Evie' Tozer’s dad, is supposed to be in China, hence the title of the movie. All through this we’ve been going back and forth between them and London, where Bentik has been plotting their deaths the whole time. This ends in a totally spectacular dogfight between Patrick O' Malley and the man sent to kill them. There are some beautiful aerial shots in ‘HIGH ROAD TO CHINA,’ not just in this scene, but throughout the entire action packed film. And remember boys and girls, this was in times before the conception CGI was ever thought of, so those are real planes and real stunts! Blu-ray Image Quality – MediumRare presents us with a 1080p image presentation and a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. This is a vast improvement over the previous inferior DVD release. When the film starts we get a very muddy quality of the image, which is done on purpose and the function of the credit sequence, which of course is to give the impression of the period of the film that is set in the 1920s which was produced by the optical superimposition that inevitably slightly degrades the image quality. As time goes by the image quality presentation changes significantly after we view Brian G. Hutton's director’s credit. After that the image becomes noticeably much cleaner, but overall it never at any point displays the level of detail and with the close-ups, medium or long shots, the Blu-ray image quality stays basically the same throughout the film. So overall it was quite a pleasant experience and I suspect that there was only really one master negative the companies could get their hands on and this is the best we will ever get to view. Please Note: Playback Region B/2: This will not play on most Blu-ray players sold in North America, Central America, South America, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Learn more about Blu-ray region specifications. Blu-ray Audio Quality – MediumRare presents us with the film's original soundtrack that is in 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo Audio, and I felt it was pretty average audio fidelity, with excellent reproduction of dialogue and sufficient dynamic range to bring out John Barry's beautiful and brilliant film composed music score with this Academy Award composer. The aerial dogfight sequence shows off the work of the sound editors, even if all the sound stays with the front speakers that really show off the aerial dogfight sequence to great effect. So despite only hearing the one soundtrack, I found it slightly lacking in any kind depth for a stereo soundtrack for a modern film. Blu-ray Special Features and Extras: Theatrical Trailer [1983] ‘HIGH ROAD TO CHINA’ [1983] [1080p] [1.78:1] [1:59] This is the Original Theatrical Trailer for the film, and it a really good presentation, and the image even shows superior contrast compared to the same footage in the film. Finally, ‘HIGH ROAD TO CHINA’ [1983] is certainly very similar in style to other high action films released in that period, and it is a very entertaining action adventure film with a great deal of humour. ‘HIGH ROAD TO CHINA’ is a lot of old-fashioned fun and sort of revived Tom Selleck’s acting career. But it has the same Saturday-matinee spirit, with director Brian G. Hutton nicely mixing a lot of action with a storyline taken sort of from a book by Jon Cleary, that never seems as absurd as it is, allowing the 105 minutes to move by very quickly. Tom Selleck is perfect as a grizzled, boozing biplane pilot whom 1920s flapper Bess Armstrong is forced to hire to help her find her father. Tom Selleck and Bess Armstrong make a very agreeable couple, even though their bantering, slowly developing romance is deliberately predictable throughout the film. So all in all ‘HIGH ROAD TO CHINA’ is totally light-hearted, fun, clever and highly watchable romantic adventure film that has its dramatic moments but never takes itself too seriously. Highly Recommended! Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado Le Cinema Paradiso United Kingdom

Western très correct et Bon film